A Theology of Friendship: Challenges for Men

It is well know that men are less likely than women to have close friends. Men have some unique struggles when it comes to building friendships and these are worth considering. Societal expectations and personal life developments keep men from building meaningful friendships with other men.

The data on male loneliness is rather staggering. We’ve identified previously that loneliness in general is an epidemic in North America. Everyone feels lonely to some degree. Men, however, are more inclined towards loneliness. A 2019 survey (pre-COVID), conducted by Cigna, reported that 50% of men felt lonely, compared to 46% of women. And loneliness affects men at all ages. Certainly older men were more likely to feel lonely – 44% of men 60 and up report feeling lonely – but younger men too struggle with it – 18% of men between the ages of 18-24 report feeling lonely “often” or “always.” In particular, men are struggling to build and maintain close friendships. From 1990 to 2021 the number of men who stated that they had no close friends grew from 3% to 15%. It’s true that everyone is struggling with friendship, but men are feeling particularly alone.

There are several key reasons why men are struggling more acutely with friendships. First, societal expectations, in particular, complicate male friendships. Traditional views of masculinity, for example, discourage things like vulnerability and emotional expression, two key elements of building deep connection. Men feel this societal pressure to be “manly,” and to that end they are taught to stuff their emotions and keep conversations on the surface. Building close friendships, however, requires going deeper and sharing our thoughts and feelings. Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Justin Pere notes that our culture valorizes stoicism and independence among men (“Understanding the Male Friendship Conundrum”).  Boys, who are not naturally stoic, are taught to supress those emotions and to “man up”. So, as boys grow into adulthood they become these stereotypical men.

Second, in additional to societal expectations, we can note that men often lack well developed social skills. Because of societal expectations men are not generally taught the social skills needed to navigate meaningful relationships. They are taught to be competitive over collaborative and to be strong instead of weak. So, again, young men are discipled from an early age to suppress their feelings of sadness and fear, to “man up”. The suppression of their emotional selves often leads young men to find other ways to express pain, hurt, disappointment, and fear that are more socially acceptable. This often leads young men to make anger the dominant emotional expression. So that every fear, every sorrow comes out as anger.  In addition, not being able to accurately read and rightly respond to someone else’s emotions leaves men feeling limited in their abilities to connect and relate to others.

Third, changing of priorities due to life circumstances also make male friendships difficult. Psychologist Adam Borland, who specializes in men’s mental health, says that “childhood and early adulthood friendships [are often] based on convenience” but the older you get the more that friendships require of us. They become less convenient because we have now added more responsibilities (careers, families, homes, etc.) to our life. He says this: “Men typically don’t prioritize friendships the way women do…[and therefore] may not invest the time and emotional energy into these relationships” (“Are Men Less Likely to Have Friends?”).  The competing demands of work and family life can cause friendship to take a back seat, with many men losing touch with the few friends they still had. In addition, male friendships often form around shared actives likes sports, but as men have less time to engage in such activities (and since friendship isn’t prioritized in the first place) they tend to form less friendships into adulthood. 

Fourth, fear of rejection remains one of the dominant reasons men don’t reach out. Recent research has found that men have a more acute experiences of social rejection than women do. Women often fear relational rejection, the loss of personal connections. But men fear social rejection because it relates to their sense of self and social status. In a 2014 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers found that men were more likely than women to experience shame and humiliation following social rejection because it challenged their self-perception (“Men are More Hurt by Social Rejection than Women”). This fear often keeps men from risking the type of vulnerability that leads to friendship in the first place.

Finally, men struggle to develop friendships because of an over reliance of romantic relationships. Once a man secures a romantic partner he looks to her to supply all his relational needs, to be his sole emotional outlet. This dependence not only leaves men believing that they don’t need anyone else, it often ends up creating an imbalance of emotional support in the relationship. Men can become codependent on their wives and put so much pressure on their spouse to meet their emotional needs that it negatively affects the relationship. Men need friends, not just spouses.

All of this gives us a picture of the current challenges men face in building meaningful friendships. As we seek to grow in this it will require specific discipleship of men and the cultivation of environments where men can be men together. It’s not that women don’t struggle too. We’ve seen there are lots of challenges to building friendships, but in our current culture men are exceedingly less likely to have, keep, and grow a friendship. That’s something we want to take to heart as we seek to disciple and help one another.