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Guy-Guy Friendships - What Makes Them Hard to Form?

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That's weird to me. You don't know any non-attractive women? Or is it just you're so handsome, women can't help but fall in love with you?

I'm certainly not that attractive, so it's not the latter. Call me shallow, but I don't really associate with people I don't find attractive though
 
growing up all my friends were girls, now all my friends but 2 are girls and one im attracted to so 1

guys are just guys man they are way less complicated
 
I'm in the same boat, OP.

I've lost interest in sports and most of my hobbies are more common amongst women. I do have two good female friends, but sometimes I do miss talking with the fellas. There are some things that women will never relate to coming from a man. This was post college for me. In college and HS and only had male friends lol.

It's tough I must admit. I'm a pretty extraverted person, so it can get frustrating.
 
Strange. I'm not the most sociable guy, but I have at least 5 really close guy friends. I always thought keeping and even making male friends was the easiest part of human interaction.
 
I have two very close friends who I've been with since I was a kid, one male and one female. Casual acquaintances are fine but at this stage I'm not interested in making anymore friends and I assume that most people in their 20s feel the same.
 
I'm certainly not that attractive, so it's not the latter. Call me shallow, but I don't really associate with people I don't find attractive though

Aren't you a charmer.

I've always had difficulty making friends with other women. I figure it's because I don't understand the complicated rules of women and I'm always treading on someone's toes. Typically the only female friends I've made have been those who don't follow the rules.
 
Find friends with similar interests. If you don't like sports-watching, beer-swigging, condescending "alpha" males why do you want to be their friend, they obviously don't want to be yours.

Find some friendly nerds to hang with.
 
Find friends with similar interests. If you don't like sports-watching, beer-swigging, condescending "alpha" males why do you want to be their friend, they obviously don't want to be yours.

Find some friendly nerds to hang with.
I think there's a distinction between similar interests and similar personalities. Which do you think is more important? Can a condescending alpha-male get along with a nerdy alpha male? :)
 
Aren't you a charmer.

I've always had difficulty making friends with other women. I figure it's because I don't understand the complicated rules of women and I'm always treading on someone's toes. Typically the only female friends I've made have been those who don't follow the rules.

In my forty-three years, I'm not sure I've ever met a woman who didn't have trouble making female friends. I find it terribly sad, as my male friends have sustained me through a lot over the years. My wife, who is a kind, sweet woman, has so much trouble making female friends, and I have no advice to give her.
 
I'm in the same boat, OP.

I've lost interest in sports and most of my hobbies are more common amongst women. I do have two good female friends, but sometimes I do miss talking with the fellas. There are some things that women will never relate to coming from a man. This was post college for me. In college and HS and only had male friends lol.

It's tough I must admit. I'm a pretty extraverted person, so it can get frustrating.

what do you like?

i dont like sports besides mma and sometimes watch some football or soccer or basketball but thats sparingly.

all the guys i know like stuff other than sports, like lifting, tv shows, music, books, comics, video games... its not hard to talk to dudes
 
I've noticed that most people in their 20s just aren't interested in new friendships because they already have a group of friends.

Yup. It's way easier for me to get a date from a random girl I met at the mall/gym than it is to grab a beer with a dude I talked to at the gamestop about Demon's Souls. How fucked up is that?
 
what do you like?

i dont like sports besides mma and sometimes watch some football or soccer or basketball but thats sparingly.

all the guys i know like stuff other than sports, like lifting, tv shows, music, books, comics, video games... its not hard to talk to dudes

Lifting and games, but most are pretty solo pursuits for me.

My other hobbies are cooking, dining out, and reading.
 
Well, I have no friends I can to go out with and never have. There are male colleagues I get on with at work, and I find them easy enough to talk to and show interest in what they talk about.

But I've never been into sports or drinking, so I've never been able to relate to other men in that respect.

I have no women friends, and have always been afraid to approach women. But social anxiety will do that to you.

So that leaves me a loner in every sense of the word. I'd say it's hard to make friends male or female.
 
Forming real friendships, regardless of gender, is hard. There is no secret recipe to it. A shared history and similar interests help but i think it's also a bit luck. Sometimes it just clicks.

That said, i've always found it much easier to connect with guys rather than girls.
 
In my forty-three years, I'm not sure I've ever met a woman who didn't have trouble making female friends. I find it terribly sad, as my male friends have sustained me through a lot over the years. My wife, who is a kind, sweet woman, has so much trouble making female friends, and I have no advice to give her.

I've met plenty of women who have a lot of female friends. Although, admittedly, I don't know if it just took a lot of work or what because I don't really have too many female friends I can discuss this kind of thing with.

It probably doesn't help that I have a reputation as a cold snob. I'm actually just really shy, though.
 
I'm pretty comfortable with my circle of friends already. I find that most guys my age feel the same (late 20s)
 
Most friends are guys.

Nothing beats a fucking bromance.

I have around 3 very very close friends and 7 ish close friends.

Why are we so close? Similar personalities I guess. We just get along. Not really all gamers. Not really all into tech. We just gel.
 
I have a VERY strong group of like 5 people or so? Perfect, because outside of that core we go different places and see different people. I can talk to them about everything. We share common interests and see things in similar lights. Thought we might fall apart after HS, but we've dwindled down to the core that was always there.

We all go to different colleges, but stay in contact, with occasional meet ups during school. So while at home I can talk to co-workers and students. Works out perfectly I think.

I do feel like I can talk to women better when they aren't around in general too, more focused on that lol.
 
I actually have some good friends from work--all males, but it never really becomes anything outside of work outside some bar happy hour times. Maybe that work contact fatigue lol.
 
Went out with friends every day in my 20's now in my late 30's I spend Saturday nights playing video games.

You eventually lose friends to kids if you decide not to have kids. Sometimes it is my decision because I don't want to go someplace where there is a bunch of screaming kids. Also people start to have different interests when they have kids. I still want to talk about video games and movies and they don't have time for any of that but are up in arms about some mommy blogger issue I have never even heard of. Usually most of the conversation is talking about the good times in the 20's.
 
The problem is you can't ask a dude if he wants to get a beer and talk about video or he will be like "bro are you gay and hitting on me?" get skeeved out and never commit to anything. I almost made a friend once except then he never texted me back even though we were bros for like a week and hung out on our breaks at work and he gave me a free tea from his work. I was pissed.

I only have one guy friend that I hang out with in person but we mostly go on double dates with our girlfriends. My other friends are either online who I talk with frequently on Skype and play video games with, or over the phone back home and talk about my old high school friend group who lives up there. I don't want a close relationship with any of them though, feelings and thoughts are for talking about with women.
 
I'd say that, in general, guys take a more antagonistic stance toward the world than women do. It's a statistical fact that men tend to have much smaller webs of relationships, and do less to maintain said relationships, than women do.

Some factors, like general aggressiveness and the drive to compete with other males, are probably mostly biological, stemming from our hormones and primate past.

Some factors, like the modern perception that male-male relationships are feminine or unmanly, are probably mostly cultural.

But in general, giving a concrete answer to such complex, murky questions, at least at this stage in human history, is going to reflect the answerer's own beliefs and biases as much as anything else.

Edit: I've known plenty of women who have trouble forming friendships with other women, though I find that who is and is not "a friend" can be a lot less clear, as women - perhaps because they DO have so many more relationships - tend to have more nuanced, complicated relationships with women than they do with men.
 
I have a harder time making friends with guys. But I have a few. I tend to enjoy chilling with them more, I guess because I feel like I hang out with girls so often. I like guy time. Video games, cars, beer, yeah.
 
I've never had trouble connecting with guys. I've got a group of 5-7 guys that I'm pretty close to.

Wish I could transfer those skills to relationships with women.
 
I've noticed that most people in their 20s just aren't interested in new friendships because they already have a group of friends.
I've found this to be the case.

They'll talk in and around class, talk in work and maybe socialise with you occasionally, but generally most people in their 20s aren't looking for friends.
 
It's hard to make friends with other people that like gaming in a new area without creeping hanging out at a gamestop. Our hobby just isn't very sociable at times. It's hard to make friends with guys that want to stay inside playing video games all day.
 
Weird. I have a group of about seven guys I've known for more than twenty years, and we're all still friends. And I've never had a problem making friends with guys. Or women, for that matter.

pretty envious of this. do you all still live within a close proximity? i consider myself a bad friend becuase i never feel like doing anything, so i usually cant keep a friendship more than a year or two.
 
All my main friends are guys. but I've known them since highschool.

But I get along with guys pretty easily. I like drinking, videogames, science and technology. which are generally guy heavy.
 
I can sort of relate to this.

I have a few great guy friends and all have come from secondary school and we all still keep in touch. Besides that all my friends i've met after that have been female. I would only assume that outside of video games I'm not really interested in the stuff many other guys my age are such as football, drinking etc.
 
growing up all my friends were girls, now all my friends but 2 are girls and one im attracted to so 1

guys are just guys man they are way less complicated
Yeah, I've always been pretty good at developing strong friendships. I feel like I get lucky in finding these people though. I haven't had many girl friends who I don't develop feelings for honestly, maybe 1.. and that's one of my best friends girlfriends.

Fuck not being able to talk about feelings with friends cause it's feminine though. That's bullshit.
 
I find it easier to be friends with women because most men I meet are just grating. I like relaxed, ego-less personalities and most male personalities I've encountered are the exact opposite of that.
 
Huh, beats me. I have equal numbers of both. Actually now that I think about it it even breaks down roughly evenly across the "closeness" spectrum: 1-2 of each gender who I'm really close to, another 4-6 of each who I'm fairly close with (as in: "hang out with" somewhat frequently) and then innumerable acquaintances.
 
I've never had trouble connecting with guys. I've got a group of 5-7 guys that I'm pretty close to.

Wish I could transfer those skills to relationships with women.

We better than being the guy that has a lot of female friends, sometimes develops an attraction and then friendzoned lol.

That's me.

I struggle more with conventional dating, which seems like an interrogation in my long dating experience.
 
We better than being the guy that has a lot of female friends, sometimes develops an attraction and then friendzoned lol.

It will get worse. What will eventually happen is that you will start dating someone else and then one of your female friends will start to take an interest in you. Trust me it will happen.
 
So I've been reflecting on life recently, and something that came to mind is how rare that real friendships with guys have been in my life. Right now I have one guy friend where I know there is mutual respect, care, etc. With all the other guys I know, the friendships are more superficial.

This also seems to be the case with the guys I know - they have maybe 0-1 true friends, and that's about it.

So here are the things that have made it difficult for me to form friendships with other guys:

1. Dissimilar interests (I don't like watching / keeping up with professional sports - I'm more into videogames)
2. Their lack of willingness to express vulnerability, even after I've taken the "risk" of expressing vulnerability myself
3. Re: "alpha males," a sense that I'm "lower on the totem pole" in their eyes
4. No real desire to talk about things that go beyond the superficial

Are there things you've noticed? Am I relatively alone in this experience?

Looks like you need to look for gaming friends. There's a lot of guys who play games and just be able to hang out with. Just got to give it time if you find guys you're comfortable around. Most of my closest friends have been/are guys.

Yes. I agree with the bolded completely.

Same here for trying to make guy-friends in university. Just easier to hang out with people who have less "egos". Women tend to be easier because they don't usually have superiority tenancies like racism, and sexism.
 
I've noticed that most people in their 20s just aren't interested in new friendships because they already have a group of friends.

It's even worse than that: a lot of people in their 20s simply don't socialize anymore. A vast majority of their time is spent staring at a screen and communicating with people they either will never meet or see sparingly.

This is the exact opposite of what I've observed over the years. I've found male-male friendships much more easier formed and stronger than female-female friendships. I can't say I've ever really had a male-female friendship that was genuinely a friendship and not a "I want to get with you" type situation.

I've never gotten anything out of a male-female friendship if I'm being honest. I think those types of friendships almost always benefit the woman, but not the other way around.
 
Really? I always found guy-guy friendships super easy to make. If it's a meaningful friendship that's another issue. It's also true that past a certain age a lot of people don't really care about making new friends because they already have a group.
 
I've had the same group of male friends since 8th grade. They're like brothers to me.

Outside of that, I just have acquaintances.
 
I'll make a bold,
stupid, & groundless statement
: In an ideal world, all friendships should be with the gender you're attracted to, because, really, what's better than a friend that you can hang out with AND have sex with?

Nothing.
 
Hmm this is an interesting question.

I have a ton of close male friends, but are.. at this point people I've known for a decade or more.

Don't think made any new, close male friends since college.

But at the same time, am I in the market for any?
 
I've found this to be the case.

They'll talk in and around class, talk in work and maybe socialise with you occasionally, but generally most people in their 20s aren't looking for friends.

It's actually pretty easy to explain. Generally once people feel comfortable with their friends, their job, the city they live in etc. they prefer to stay there and are no longer open to leave that comfort zone.
 
They're not hard to form, I have an easy time with that.

It's being friends or intimate companions with a girl that is hard.

edit: I'm 22 and so is my most recent male friend.
 
Eh. For me it has been always far far more difficult to make female friends. With fellow males I have so much more in common. Also nothing beats childhood friends. There is just that bond that comes from growing up together. Sure I have made couple of friends also later years but best firends are childhood friends.
 
I guess it depends on how "friends" is defined. I have way more guy friends than girl friends, but that's because most girls I've tried to befriend in the past mistook friendliness with attraction, and the awkwardness after correcting that inevitably killed the friendship.

But on the other hand, even with my closest friend, I don't confide much in him, at least, not the truly deep dark shit. And the more casual the male friendship, the less people are willing to discuss the emotional or whatever.
 
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