Why Don’t Men Have Best Friends?
Thank you kindly for tapping on my clickbait title…if you’re reading this then it seems like it probably worked! There’s a long list of subjects that I genuinely have no authority to speak on, and this is probably one of them. But I do like to observe my surroundings, and this is a subject that I feel like I’ve observed some interesting things about, though by no means do I have a full explanation.
To begin with, I want to say that for most of my life, I’ve been uniquely blessed with amazing close friendships. This was something I did pray to the Lord about, and I’ve seen how he has answered those prayers time and time again (even in moments when I least expected him to).
The summer after I graduated fifth grade, my family moved cities and by default, school districts too. My mom knew I was a sensitive child who didn’t do well with change (our move to the United States a few years earlier was particularly tough on me), so she enrolled my sister and I in a summer day camp in the new school district hoping I’d make some friends before the start of that school year, and by the grace of God I met my best friend who I still keep in touch with to this day. I was with her during the highs of her wedding, and also during the lows when she lost her Dad just a few weeks ago.
In the spring of 2020 I had someone unusual contact me and ask me if I’d be willing to mentor and disciple her. This person was my friend Damaris, and I say unusual, because at that time I was definitely leaning more rigidly Reformed as I was attending Seminary, and she was definitely not! But like all good things, I quickly realized that this was going to be a two-way street, and that mentorship soon ended and we became best friends, and I will have the wonderful pleasure of standing up at her wedding in a few short months too.
These are just two examples but I have so many more women that I can count on to be there for me whenever I need to process through my thoughts, my feelings, or to give me solid advice (and on occasion rebukes!). These friendships go deep, they have stood the test of time, and I know that even when our seasons change, our friendships will stay evergreen.
But one of the things that has really come to my attention is how my male counterparts don’t seem to have those same types of friendships or support networks that us girls do. Over the years I’d ask my guy friends, “do you have a best friend that you are completely open and vulnerable with?” and the answer was often a no. I’m not saying there are exceptions to this rule, but by and large I’ve noticed a disconcerting amount of men who don’t have deep and meaningful friendships that support and encourage them.
And this genuinely worries me, because these friendships are vital to living a healthy, godly Christian life. When we allow godly people full access to our lives, they are able to spot problematic issues early on and help correct them long before they grow up and devour us. I can’t help but think if men like Ravi Zacharias or Mike Bickle had allowed other men into their lives to keep them accountable, then maybe their descent into immorality could have been stopped early on.
Pushback
Okay but you might say, “Raffi, men are not like women. Women express themselves easier and make friends more easily. Men don’t make friends the same way, they’re just wired differently”. And yes there may be some truth to that. I can send a 7 minute voice memo to my friends and be immediately vulnerable, but guys need more help and more time to get to that place. I’ve read John Eldredge’s book “Wild at Heart” and it seems like his solution to all of these problems is for guys to go and chop wood or fish together.
If you can read a slight bit of sarcasm in there, that’s because there is. I honestly don’t see any Scriptural (or historical) precedent that would justify this lack of male friendship.
Some immediate examples of close male friendships that come to mind are:
David and Jonathan (1 Sam 18:1)
Job’s three friends who come to offer him comfort (Job 2:11-13)
Even Jesus out of his 12 disciples, had three close friends: Peter, James, and John.**
Even historically we see men who had close best friends: C.S. Lewis and JRR Tolkien, Winston Churchill and Frederick Lindemann, Alexander the Great and Hephaestion.
So What Gives?
I think that there’s a few factors that have played into the decline of close male friendships over the years, some to a bigger extent than others.
The Clint Eastwood Lone Ranger
Beginning in the 1950s Westerns swept through Hollywood and television sets and held dominance all the way until the 1970s. These movies and TV shows began to feature a new type of hero, a man who didn’t cry, a man who kept his cool at all times, and more importantly, was not tied down by anything, whether it was family, marriage, or any other sort of relationships. These romantic heroes wandered the West looking to bring justice to those oppressed and to lay down the law of right and wrong.
I know that even in communist Romania where media was heavily restricted, these TV shows made their way into their TV screens and theaters. There are good elements to these Western heroes, but there were also bad elements that these archetypes fed into and built up. And one of the bad elements was this new masculinity of these Lone Ranger men who didn’t express their emotions, who were independent to a fault, and not tied down by anything—much less close friendships.
2. The Decline of Bowling Leagues
Robert Putnam has a great book (that I am still working through because God bless him it’s 544 pages long) called “Bowling Alone” that was written in 2000. In it he describes the alarming trends he saw in American society in the last few decades of the 20th century as Americans began to spend less and less time with one another, and retreated more into their own homes. Bowling leagues died, Rotary Clubs died, and in general a lot of the extracurricular clubs that people would join for fun or for civic engagement more or less went on the decline. Fast forward to 2024, and that downward curve has only accelerated.
If John Eldredge is right and men need to do things together before they are able to open up with one another, then this modern social isolation is even more troubling. But I hate to also point out another 21st century issue—video games and social media. If the only place where our young men are learning to socialize is virtually, how can we expect them to make real-world friendships?
I have a young member of my family who’s essentially grown up just on multi-player video games. He has no friends at school, or at church, but he has one “best friend” that lives all the way in the UK that he teams up in his video games with. It’s genuinely tragic, because he doesn’t have the skills necessary to create those friendships in his every day life.
3. The Rise of LGBTQ Ideology
This point is actually the whole reason I decided to write this newsletter in the first place. It occurred to me a few years ago, that the rise of LGBTQ ideology in the last 15 years or so, must have surely had an impact on male friendships too. When two girls are close friends and affectionate with one another most people don’t see anything wrong with that, but I do know that if two men are particularly close with one another, people’s antennas fly up, and that’s a tragic byproduct of the society we live in today.
I am not necessarily saying that men are rejecting potential close friendships out of fear that they would be called “gay”. But I am saying that it could definitely play a factor.
Interestingly, I even have some anecdotal evidence from some of my guy friends who’ve shared with me that they had built up close friendships with men when they were younger, only to find out that those guys wanted them for more than just friendship (if you catch my meaning). And the fallout for my guy friends was definitely a sense of betrayal and hurt, and in the end it led them to isolate themselves from other potential friendships out of fear that it would happen again.
4. Marriage Plays a Role Too
Last but not least, I do acknowledge that marriage plays a role here too. When a man and woman get married, it’s natural for other friendships to end as the two of them build a life together and forge their own companionship.
I’ve even heard that it takes the burden off guys from having to be intentional in making friends because they now have an official built-in friendship with their wives—why bother seeking more elsewhere? This convenience can also extend to new friendships (aka the husbands of the women that their wives are friends with).
5. Vulnerability is Scary, Betrayal Even More So
Psalm 41: 9 “Even my best friend, the one I trusted completely, the one who shared my food, has turned against me.”
Vulnerability is difficult. Especially for men who have been raised with the expectation that they alone should handle their feelings, and that to give in and share that pain with someone else would make them weaker, I can see it being difficult. The added difficulty is that vulnerability comes with a risk, and that’s the risk of betrayal. The risk that those words might be passed along without one’s knowledge, the risk that one’s words might even come back to bite them. And a man’s decision to avoid this at all costs makes sense, but it’s not the wise decision for one’s longterm emotional health in the end.
I think that’s often why guys find emotionally available women to pour their hearts out to, because women are less threatening and by default more empathetic than other men are. I myself made this mistake in my younger years, allowing myself to be used as an emotional outlet for a friend, not realizing before it was too late that he had begun to develop an attachment, while I had no intentions of that (and the opposite happens frequently too), and it was that sense of betrayal that ended the friendship.
There’s Light at the End of the Tunnel
Like I said at the beginning of this newsletter, I am merely an observer. I’m not a man, nor am I married to one, so I know that my own insights here are pretty limited, and any suggestions I could bring to the table even more so.
But I do know one thing—Holy Spirit brings together “like with like”. And by that I mean that I’ve seen over and over again situations where the fire of the Holy Spirit in one person saw and recognized the fire of the Holy Spirit in another person, and brought together even some of the unlikeliest pairings into deep friendship.
There is a need for all of us, men and women alike, to also become people who are trustworthy. Friendship is built on mutual trust and reciprocity. By mutual trust, I mean that I can trust you with my secrets as well as you can trust me with yours, and they will not be passed along to others. In our community where gossip flows so smoothly off the tongue, this needs to be killed decisively and immediately. And by reciprocity, I mean that friendships need to be two-way streets. For there to be a deep best-friendship, both parties need to be able to speak and be heard. A friendship that’s entirely one sided where only one person takes and takes, is not it. I’m not saying that you need to cut off that friendship, I know that God oftentimes puts people into our lives that need us to pour into, but just understand that unless the dynamics change, those are not the foundations of best-friendship.
That doesn’t mean we are without excuse—I do think intentionality is important here. To build a friendship you have to be intentional about spending time together, intentional about asking deep questions, and intentional about seeking the Lord together.
I know that God answers our prayers, and if we pray for deep, godly friendships, God will be more than generous in answering us.
Lord, raise up for our men deep friendships of the soul. Just like David had Jonathan, just like Jesus had John, let us become a church body that can be open and vulnerable with one another. Through the mountain tops and the valleys of life. Let us exemplify in every way the love that you have for us in the way that we share it with others. May the words of John 13:35 be ones that we get to live out in deep friendship, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Footnotes:
**Speaking of Jesus having close friends, there’s this little scene in John 13:22-25 that always cracks me up when I read it. Jesus is prophesying that one of the disciples will betray him, but won’t say exactly who. So Peter being the clever man he is, pokes John to have him ask Jesus who this person will be, because he knows that John is closest to Jesus, and Jesus would tell him as his friend.
