there are of course exceptions buddies who know all about intimacy and coziness camaraderie and connection but let's State the darker and more General truth plainly friendship is difficult for men for every man who can claim a decent male friend there must be at least eight who in the honesty of their deep Minds know they have none that truly Merit the term the problem though it strikes at an individual level is anchored in larger societal forces men are lonely not through any specific deficiency on their part but because of an inherent conflict between what's required of
being a man on the one hand and what's involved in being a friend on the other the Bedrock of true friendship is unfortunately Mutual vulnerability we may naturally Foster a friendship by discussing how many goals Manchester United scored in the year of the World Cup or how Hypersonic airplane engines work or the average return of an S&P 500 stock there can be a certain interest in thinking together about the classical influence within Picasso's late period or the idea of Justice in Plato's the laws or the influence of platinus on early Renaissance thought but genuine friendship
the sort that nourishes and sustains that argues against Despair and helps with the eeriness of the early hours that has to begin somewhere else else it starts the moment that one person says to another I'm going out of my mind or I hate my partner's guts or I'm terrified or help me it starts when a man can admit I'm in love with a colleague or I can't get it up anymore or the anxiety never stops there won't be a friendship that properly counts until we can reveal ourselves to be as weak as we are until
we can confess that we've been lying to preserve face and that the truth is far ghastlier and sadder far more tender and more bethetic than we've yet been able to let on regrettably for men since the earliest days across civilizations it's been self-evident that to be a man involves something else entirely being unflinching and solid unperturbed and straightforward buoyant and resourceful it's about not minding that we've been left or sacked humiliated or bullied it's about never losing an erection and knowing how to rule an Empire without taking to bed pining for mother it's ultimately about
never ever being that most dreaded and abhorrent of things a crybaby the best way to break the loneliness must be to admit with humor and Grace that it exists and that one may be more than fed up that it does so of course men often don't know how to be close of course they might be substantially friendless it should be no surprise if they've never had an honest conversation with another member of their gender little in their histories allows for such an eventuality if we were tempted to make a practical change we might design some
packs of conversation cards and give them out to men to take with them to the bar and the pub the shooting range and the golf club on them would be printed a range of questions of a kind that men might long to ask one another and seldom can when did you last cry what would you want to tell me if you knew I wouldn't judge you when do you feel most anxious what makes you disp what do you want to be forgiven for what is the small boy inside you feel most would agree that such
cards were naturally idiotic and unnecessary but how useful they might be if they provided even a small opportunity for a few men to let down their guard and reveal a more complex reality the histories of art and literature are all the proof one might require that men are capable of the greatest empathy and tenderness the tragedy is that men are so seldom able to direct these emotions towards one another that they must spend their lives barricaded in themselves in dread of becoming in the eyes of their fellow men a child or a woman that they
must waste so much time and be so brave in defending an illusion that they never asked to be a part of
