|
Let's get the male and female perspectives on all this. David Zinczenko is editor-in-chief of Men's Health magazine and BJ Gallagher is a sociologist and author of the book "Friends Are Everything". Hey folks, good to see you(Hi. Good to see you...).
Well, let's start with that piece left up/out, do you think men are less likely to kick a guy to the...or a friend to the curb than women are?
Well, well, female and male friendships are very different. I think like Tape P said, women have these intense emotions and strong feelings, but men kinda characterize their friendships through activities like they have golf buddies, drinking buddies, poker buddies, work buddies. Women don't tend to say, "Oh, I'm getting together with my shopping buddy today." So it's more about circumstance and convenience. I think.
So, women are more emotional when it comes to friendships and ending them?
Absolutely, women are more global in their friendships. We are more likely to have a best friend that we do everything with. We shop with. We have tea with. We, you know we raise our kids together. Men, as David pointed out, are more er, instrumental in their friendships. They compartmentalize their friendships. Women don't, oughta/are too global.
So when it comes time to end a friendship, let's talk about some scenarios and you tell me you think the best way to do this would be quote, all right? Let's say it's not a betrayal, let's just we've grown apart, all right? We used to think we had something in common. We don't get along as well as we used to. Do you just let it fade away? Do you have that talk?
Now I, I don't really think you need the ta...talk. For guys, if you wanna, if you wanna dry up the goodwill tank quickly, what you do is that you resort to the time-tested method of laziness and unresponsiveness. Guys have big egos.They are gonna take the small slights to heart. You blow them off a couple of times for drinks, they're good. If they don't get the hint though and they go like Jim Carrey in the Cable Guy on you and they become stalkers and obsessive(right). You go right to the, right to the source. You get all the stuff you borrowed from them, you put it on the front lawn and it sends an instinct signal 'you've been broken up with'.
BJ, neglect or confrontation, which one do you go with?
Women will always go with the neglect first because the confrontation is too painful and women are trained to be nice. We are trained not to hurt one another's feelings. We wanna make nice, so we try to like ease away, but if that doesn't work, then you gotta go for the confrontation.
All right, and let's take the other one, betrayal, all right? A friend of yours has done something awful to you. Again, do you walk away, take the high ground or do you go with the confrontation?
In that case, women are much more likely to go with the confrontation. The men are more likely to sort of try to weasel out of it, particularly if it' a male-female friendship, but the woman will say, "This doesn't work for me." For, first of all, she'll go tell all of her other girlfriends and say, "Guess what so-and-so did? Can you believe this? Oh I just blah blah blah", and then she'll go have the confrontation. The men, they'll just try to...
So first you smear the reputation and then you address the problem?
No, no, no, it's not smearing, it's gaining moral support.
OK.
And, and I think for guys, you know, look, a guy break up, a, a, a 'bromance' breakup is never forever. You can, you can steal his girl, kill his dog, burn down his house and five years later you're gonna run into him in a bar and he's gonna say, "Why did we grow apart? What, what happened? Can I borrow your golf clubs? "
We forget a lot quickly, a lot more quickly.
Woman will never forget. You could hurt her feelings or do something and she'll remind you of it for years.
Let me ask you about saving a friendship. Let's say, you're the other side of the coin. Let's say you are the person who's all of a sudden being ignored or even confronted, that the friendship is over, is there any way to save a friendship once that happens?
Sure, I mean, guys have very little emotional cognition. Again, the short memories, shorter emotional memories, just wait it out.
With women you really have to find out what the, what the problem means. I mean here's the bottom line: it takes two yeses to make a friendship. It only takes one no to end it, and so even if the other woman still wants to be friends, if you don't, it's over, or vice versa. If you still wanna be friends, but she is done with you, it's over, she is done.
In the end, in the end, will we put up with things from friends that we wouldn't put up with from a boyfriend or a girlfriend?
Oh, oh, yeah, I think so. (absolutely) I mean there are some guys who are more loyal than a US marine. I mean they will stay friends with you for life no matter what, through thick and thin and put up with just about anything.
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean I always say that, that the men in my life come and go but my girlfriends are forever.
All right, good advice, BJ, David, thanks very much.
Thank you, Matt.
|