Missed Connections

Why do guys struggle to keep the flame of a new friendship alive? Will Hosie reflects on his own experience.

A friend – male, 26 – recently remarked at dinner that making friends with other men at our age is hard. Meeting people we like? Easy. Meeting up with them again? Insane. Now, some would have you believe that men – especially straight men – are bad at striking up a conversation, and this is their own fault. In my experience this is far from the truth and people who think this are extremely annoying. What men tend to be bad at – whether straight, gay or anything in between – is keeping in touch with someone they’ve just met and got along with famously. 

Male readers: Pause for a moment. Think of the men in your life. If you were cast away to a desert island, who are the eight you would take with you? (Excluding family members.) Chances are you’ve known the names you’ve picked since school, maybe uni; occasionally they’re people you’ve met through work and, if you’re a father, perhaps through your children. I’m conscious that asking women the same question would likely yield the same results. But girls are fundamentally better at making friends than boys. They are better at assimilating, tend to be more empathetic, and are on average more extroverted. They also stick together because they need each other in a man’s world. Boys, by contrast, tend to be more lonely. 

There are countless, inspiring tales of sorority in film and TV, like Thelma and Louise (pictured above).

Another exercise for all readers: tally up all the films and TV shows you can name about beautiful, sororal relationships and compare that list with the one you make of equivalent films and TV shows about a bromance. What you see here is a culture that has failed male friendship, and where the only sort of fraternity you tend to see on screen or in the discourse is the misogynistic kind associated with the campus frat house.

There are few positive examples of non-toxic male friendships, and that’s a crying shame. What’s more, I think we’ve been conditioned to reject budding friendships in adulthood unless we can get something out of them. Why should a straight, twenty-something man expend his social energy on other men? Why should a gay twenty-something man, especially one who is single, expend his energy on straight men, or gay men who he has no intention of dating? Why should we bother making a friend out of somebody new just because we think they’re great, and not because they can bring us prestige, clout, romance or any of the stuff we’ve been told to think of as integral to an adult relationship? 

You might ask, why does this matter? Who cares if you don’t follow up with the guy you met at the supper club who invited you to his birthday? He didn’t really mean it, and you’ve got tons of mates already. Fair enough. But what if you had followed up? What if that guy turned out to be a best friend waiting to happen? Your life is not adversely affected by not trying, so I get the temptation to let the spark die; but it is also immeasurably enriched by those people for whom you kept the flame alive. I should know: three years ago I met my best friend at an afterparty following a concert. The connection was electric and we’ve laughed together nearly every day since; two weeks ago we went on holiday together.

You’ve probably heard this sort of story before – random encounters, sliding doors, friendships that could have never happened had you decided to be reasonable that evening and go home rather than carry on the party with strangers. But how often do you hear it about two boys? 

John Hannah and Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors (1998)

The pure joy of a friendship for a friendship’s sake, of going to pee together at a house party: why should that be the preserve of women? It’s bollocks. And as any woman will tell you uncontroversially, same-sex friendships are important. Both those that happen one-on-one and those in larger single-sex groups. Men-only spaces (the club, the locker room) have been vilified by a culture that sees them as a vestige of patriarchies past. And yes, in some cases, they are. I’m not an advocate of all-male supersize squads – growing up I found them intimidating, now I just find them daft, especially those men-only business retreats on far-flung islands in the South Pacific (note: different to the wellness retreats and support groups like the one satirised in Fleabag, which I actually think are quite valuable). What I want to call for instead is more generosity of spirit, starting from men themselves, so that when they meet guys who they instantly bond with, they don’t feel embarrassed to follow up.

Save for one or two blokes, I didn't really have any male friends throughout my teenage years. I went to a co-ed school and, being gay and mature for my age, found more affinity with the girls. I had no idea just what I’d been missing out on until I arrived at university and the promise of a fresh start meant that male friendship no longer felt like an agonising challenge. They happened naturally. Wonderfully. 

I realised two things, that are rarely acknowledged even between male friends. Men are instinctively familiar with each other’s bodies – something women feel very comfortable admitting – and we recognise each other’s feelings, concealed as they are, with similar ease. I’m not suggesting men should make a cultural habit of “opening up”; more so that it’s one of the great benefits of a same-sex friendship that the ear you’re lending, or the shoulder you’re leaning on, rarely needs to be prompted. 

While at university – and in my personal timeline, about two years into the friendships with most of the men in my life – news about male suicide rates began making headlines. People suddenly took notice of the fact that there is an epidemic of loneliness among men. But the messaging that surrounded this uptick in awareness – “it’s okay not to be okay” – made the mistake of being inward-looking. Contrary to popular belief, I think men are very good at knowing when something’s up with one of their mates – if they need a hand with something or feel stressed out and need some company – and don’t need to be reminded. We may have a Neanderthal inability to accept when we need assistance, but we are extraordinarily good at helping our friends tackle what can feel like an insurmountable problem. I don’t believe in soul mates, but I do believe that when you truly spark with someone, it’s not just because you speak the same language as far as jokes or interests are concerned: it’s because you share the same emotional language, whether you know how to put it into words or not. 

This is why male friendship matters – and why you should follow up with that guy you met randomly at your mutual friend’s birthday. They might just end up being the person who gets you better than anyone else.

Brad Pitt and George Clooney for GQ (August 2024)