Boys' Friendships, Men's Hardships

Introduction

The answer, like the introduction above, can only be a mixture of lore, popular images from movies and literature, gross stereotypes, empirical and descriptive research, opinion and conjecture. But it seems to boil down to one basic concept. Homophobia or, in a more general sense, femophobia -- being the distrust and fear of "things feminine" -- changes trusting, interdependent boys into calculating, detached men, while their sisters continue throughout their lives the patterns of close friendship they learned in childhood and adolescence.

The preceding analysis is by no means widely known and accepted. Traditional "wisdom" may see men's difficulties as necessary angst, the burden that human nature requires that we bear (if we're normal!), our historical and evolutionary baggage to carry as best we can. The movement to liberate women and other cultural minorities, however, has generated a vigorous re- examination of these and all assumptions about men's nature and behavior (Brod, 1987) which has come to be called "Men's Studies". To the extent that this method of scholarship can also include boys and their development of relationship styles, this chapter seeks to revise previous notions and devise future strategies regarding how males become friends with each other.

This chapter contains research evidence, popular assumptions, and opinions -- including mine -- about male friendships in the United States of America and other similar Western industrialized societies. The chapter is organized around the themes of life-cycle development, the function of friendship at various stages, and the problems that modern society presents for men's friendships in particular. This chapter focuses on the relationships of males with other males, not because friendships with females are thought to be impossible or unimportant, but because any discussion of female-male interactions must include heterosexuality, girlfriends, marriage and the like, which could easily be a multi-volume treatise. For much the same reason, homosexual and intergenerational sexual relationships are not discussed here. When a relationship includes actual sexual behavior -- and most friendships do not -- the complexity of the interaction takes a quantum leap forward. Friendship within the context of sexual intimacy (or vice versa) is outside the scope of this chapter.

Friendship, at least during the first stages of the life cycle, is an important setting in which the individual gradually understands and enters the world outside the family. It is becoming more and more clear to me that each new individual must come to terms with several major figure-types that are a part of virtually everyone's life experience: each parent (or primary caretaker), those who are younger, peers, and those who are older. In some of these interactions friendship is the controlling force, in others such as parent-child and those involving sexual intimacy, friendship may share the dynamic with other more significant forces.

Those relationships in which friendship is the primary motivation for interaction typically begin in late childhood, with persons who are the same sex, and almost always are with peers whose age is roughly the same. Older children and adolescents may add a few friendships with adults, and as they themselves become adults, they may form friendships with adolescents or children who are outside their immediate families. Most of what we know from research deals with peer friendships. Both peer and intergenerational friendships between males are discussed below.

The Beginnings of Friendship Behavior in Children

Sullivan marveled at the "quiet miracle" of this period that he called "preadolescence" (1953a, p. 41), usually beginning around "eight-and-a-half" (1953b, p. 246), and continuing until the first phases of puberty, around 11 (give or take for individual and girl-boy differences in the beginning of physical adolescence.) While earlier development is centered around primary caretaker(s) and other individuals that constitute family in and around the child's home, the hallmark of preadolescence is adjustment to the world outside the family (primarily the school environment in Western culture). This transition, being the first major change in the child's human interrelationship structure, brings with it the conflict of loneliness. Sullivan saw that this anxiety was alleviated through sharing and interaction with what he called "chums" -- same-age, same-sex friends:

I would hope that preadolescent relationships were intense enough for each of the two chums literally to get to know practically everything about the other one that could possibly be exposed in an intimate relationship, because that remedies a good deal of the often illusory, usually morbid feeling of being different, which is such a striking part of rationalizations of insecurity in later life (1953b, p. 256).

At this point, the satisfactions and the security which are being experienced by someone else, some particular person, begin to be as significant to the person as are his own satisfactions and security. . . . This state of affectional rapport -- generically love -- ordinarily occurs under restricted circumstances . . . situations in which boys feel at ease with boys rather than girls. . . . The appearance of the capacity to love ordinarily first involves a member of one's own sex. . . . When this has happened, there follows in its wake a great increase in the consensual validation of symbols, of symbol operations, and of information, data about life and the world (1953a, pp. 42-43).

Peer Friendships in Preadolescence and Adolescence

Content of boyhood friendships. Boys' friendships with other boys are generally equivalent in intensity and importance, if not in content, to girls' friendships with other girls during preadolescence (Diaz & Berndt, 1982; Mannarino, 1976, 1979). The difference in content, in fact, seems to be the vehicle that leads to the characteristic imbalance in later stages between high intimacy for females and relatively low intimacy for males. This finding is consistent in virtually all available studies involving individuals in adolescence or beyond (Eder & Hallinan, 1978; Hodgson & Fischer, 1979; Hunter & Youniss, 1982). Roberts (1980) summarizes the social forces that tend to explain this:

Studies of childhood friendships reveal that girls, in their intensive relationships with one or two best friends, have more opportunities to develop "empathy skills" -- to practice being intimate and to disclose their thoughts, feelings and experiences to friends -- than do boys (Lever, 1978). Boys, on the other hand, tend to play in larger groups of same-sex peers, and find it difficult to learn ways of expressing their feelings of vulnerability or affection with one another. Feelings of anxiety on the part of parents, teachers, friends and relatives regarding "male sexuality" may contribute to the discouragement of close intimate friendships between two boys. Such intimate dyadic friendships between boys may trigger fears of either "unmanly behavior" or potential homosexuality. As young people grow up social norms, work expectations and family structures further perpetuate these differences in interpersonal relationships (p. 8).

"Macho" boys and androgynous boys. Comparing boys as a group with girls as a group may not be the best way to view the important differences in friendship patterns. Until recently differences in friendship patterns between girls and boys were associated simply with physiological gender. As Douvan and Adelson summarized it in 1966, "What the girl achieves through intimate connection with others, the boy must manage by disconnecting, by separating himself and asserting his right to be distinct" (pp. 347-348). More recently, Douvan (1975) has noted that social change has had significant effects on female socialization as well as the male role, with a general shift toward the middle for both in many respects. Eder and Hallinan (1978) also note that rigid sex differences may be weakening, to be replaced by differences based more on role behavior, which are now labeled as Androgynous, Masculine, Feminine and Undifferentiated.

In 1985, I surveyed a group of about 200 children and adolescents and asked questions about their best friendships. Among other things, I wanted to see if boys who were not "traditional" in their gender role (androgynous) were similar in their friendship patterns to boys who were "traditional" (sex- typed). They were not similar, at least with respect to intimacy, which was defined as a personal feeling of closeness to a best friend. Androgynous boys were comparable to girls (androgynous and sex-typed) in their closeness to best friends, while sex-typed boys were significantly lower in such intimacy than the other three sub-groups (Jones & Dembo, 1989).

I designed one questionnaire administered in this study to explore differences between sex-typed females and males (grouped together) and their androgynous counterparts, with respect to their opinions about some of the elements of friendship. The hypothesis -- that sex-typed individuals would tend to categorize friendship elements as either male or female, while androgynous subjects would see most of these behaviors as appropriate for both -- was confirmed (Jones & Dembo, 1986). While gender-role differences were the main object, the questionnaire also provides the opportunity for more insight into the stereotypes children in general have regarding what is appropriate for boys to do with their friends, and what behaviors are more appropriate for girls.

Those behaviors that were "voted" more appropriate for boys, in line with prevailing role expectations, involved competition, rough physical contact, (verbally) defending friends, getting angry with friends and interrupting. As for girls, the votes centered on missing friends when they're not around, gentle physical contact (arms around each other, holding hands), sharing, knowing and caring about each others feelings, looking and smiling at each other, worrying about losing friends, honesty and sharing emotions. For the most part, these impressions were shared by relatively equal numbers of votes from boys and girls.

What really proved interesting were the opinions that were not shared equally between the boys and the girls, in which the source of the votes was lopsided (boys or girls, but not both). For example, being alone with a best friend, depending on a friend, sharing things, and having a friend who is older were thought to be more characteristic of boys, and it was almost all boys who voted for these items. In other words, it seems that boys are much more likely than girls to consider these activities appropriate for boys. It may also indicate that boys like to see themselves as being alone with friends, depending on friends, sharing things, and having friends who are older, but this view of boys' friendships is not shared or understood by girls. (Though this chapter is about boys' friendships, the picture should be completed. The opinion that girls typically tried to do things better than their friends was almost exclusively due to votes from boys, while the girls themselves overwhelmingly voted that girls were more likely to know how a best friend was feeling inside.)

The most intriguing and potentially important information in my study unfortunately came by accident as I was conducting question and answer sessions with the subjects after each administration of the study. (I say unfortunate, because researchers always like to think that they have considered all the really important outcomes beforehand.) I noticed quite consistently that the older groups (11, 12, 13-year-olds) expressed some uneasiness about the possibility of friends appearing to be too close, while no such feelings surfaced in the discussions with groups younger than 11 (6th grade). In some cases the older students implied homophobia in their concerns that "someone might get the wrong idea" if best friends showed physical intimacy such as kissing or holding hands. In other cases, the homophobia of the reactions was totally explicit, as in one 8th grade boy's speculation that two pre-teens with their arms around each other, seen in a photograph used during the discussion, "probably lived in San Francisco".

The Function of Friendship in Development and Life

Childhood. Many authors have pointed to the importance of relationships in childhood with regard to later development. Sullivan (1953b) believed intimate chumships in preadolescence to be crucial to the learning of certain interpersonal skills and to the more complex development expected of the individual in adolescence and beyond. He felt that becoming aware of and caring for the needs of anotehr person (via chumship) makes one more likely to be caring and aware of others in subsequent situations.

Peer friendships usually are the first interpersonal experiences outside the family, and as such are often the first egalitarian relationships known to the child, ones in which she or he builds a foundation for egalitarian relationships in adulthood (Piaget, 1932/1965; Youniss, 1980). Shadish (1978) found that performance of intimate behaviors provides tools that enhance both intrapersonal functioning and interpersonal relationships. A review by Kohlberg, La Crosse and Ricks (1972) ascertained that good peer relations, particularly in late childhood, are highly predictive of positive adult adjustment, while poor peer relations are associated with delinquency and mental illness. Miller and Lefcourt (1982) found that intimacy is a significant predictor of mental and physical health.

Adolescence. If the first great turning point in development is around age 8, the beginning of adolescence at puberty is the second. Puberty here is defined as beginning roughly a year before the appearance of secondary sex characteristics, or somewhere around age 12 or 13 in boys. A different type of interpersonal relationship apparently becomes possible at this stage due in part to the ability to reproduce and function sexually in what is basically an adult mode (Gagnon, 1972), but also due to the adolescent's increased cognitive ability to engage in the "mature reflective thought that underlies self-analysis, flexibility and mutuality in the interpersonal realm" (Lickona, 1974). The increased ability to function sexually may be related only indirectly to friendships as defined here, but the increased cognitive ability directly affects the style and substance of friendships. Money and Tucker (1975) have referred to "the ability to fall passionately in love" as "the most spectacular behavioral feature of adolescence" (p. 158), and any number of men can attest to this being a feature of their best friendships and hero worship, not just their sexual attractions during early adolescence. Blos (1972) writes of the "psychic restructuring" of adolescence (p. 65) accompanied by "psychological disengagement from the family (and) simultaneous entry into the wider context of society. . . . Personal intimacy and emotional bonds become a matter of choice and private concern" (pp. 68-69). All these forces make friendships at least seem more important to the boy who can now think about and evaluate them, and for this reason friendship from this point on is a different ball game.

Douvan and Adelson (1966) regarded adolescent friendships as preparation for adult love and friendship offering a chance for growth and self knowledge that the family is not prepared to offer. They note that friendships in the adolescent years are quite important and intense, and in many cases there is a notable regression of intimate intensity in adulthood. (Later studies have confirmed at least a leveling-off of the increase of intimacy after about age 13 or 14 [Jones & Dembo, 1989; see also Sharabany, Gershoni & Hofman, 1981, for a summary of their own and other studies of intimacy patterns over time].)

Most previous research into the developmental aspects of non-romantic associations and relationships has looked at children who have not yet entered adolescence, while studies involving subjects over 12 have centered on romantic/sexual involvement between the sexes. It is as if social scientists believe the popular misconception that the "raging hormones" of puberty obliterate everything but the rutting instinct, and that only heterosexual attraction qualifies as worthy of research from the mid-teens onward. Douvan and Adelson's (1966) study of teen- age girls is a notable exception, though I know of no such studies involving males. In general, adolescence is a poorly- studied phase of development, despite several significant theories, an abundance of popular beliefs, and an avalanche of publicity.

Adulthood. Quite a bit has been written, and a fair amount of research done, on friendships between males who are adults. Typically the focus has been on same-age relationships, if age is mentioned at all, and the nostalgic version is a picture of boyhood pals becoming lifelong buddies, of wartime comrades staying in touch, of camaraderie, bonhommie and a number of other French terms. If we go back into history, the literature of former times informs us that male friendship was regarded as the highest form of human interaction with an imagery that "closely parallels that of romantic love" (Hammond & Jablow, 1987, p.242). Whether that was once reality or whether it is the hype of males writing male history, modern friendships are significantly different.

While wartime comrades and boyhood pals can continue seeing each other, it seems odd to imagine many business partners, office co-workers or even neighbors keeping in touch when circumstances put distance between them. The fact is that none of these types of interactions describes intimacy per se, and studies show that competition or a search for adventure, not intimacy, characterizes adult friendship between men. Women, by comparison, tend to seek friends who will be intimate confidantes in their continued growth as persons (Sherrod, 1987). It is as if men must be "all grown up" as adolescence ends, hence there is only the need for drinking buddies and hunting pals.

Non-peer intimate friendships. The expectation that friends will consist of age-mates is common in Western culture, though a number of child-adult interactions labeled otherwise actually can be regarded as friendships in many cases. The most obvious example perhaps is the man/boy relationship exemplified in the Big Brothers program, but a wide range of mentoring relationships and teacher-student interactions can and do develop into more than just functional partnerships. The benefits of intergenerational interaction are vastly underestimated, especially during times such as the 1980s in America, when adult- child interactions (particularly when the adult was a man) generated suspicion and sometimes legal action, and very little understanding of the important dynamics (Jones, 1990, in press).

Part of this misunderstanding of child/adult friendship is a result of the general lack of research attention to anything but peer friendship (in childhood) and heterosexual relationships (in adolescence and beyond). Our culture's hard focus on the family as the sole and sufficient nurturing environment for pre-adults contributes even more to the difficulty, and a general suspicion of men's tendency to abuse their power over anyone perceived as weaker makes it particularly difficult to understand and accept intergenerational relationships when the adult involved is male. Ironically, close relationships between boys or adolescent males and adult men who are consciously or unconsciously anti-sexist may be one important key to loosening the grip of homophobia that strangles intimate male friendship just as it is beginning to take off in adolescence (Jones, 1990).

Homophobia and Other Friendship Inhibitors

Mediadvertising (m/a). In the last half of the twentieth century, this message has permeated the consciousness of a large majority of developing humans through the now-coordinated avenues of communications media and advertising. The significance of mediadvertising (or m/a) in shaping values and (self-)concepts cannot be underestimated. Roberts (1980), for example, feels that many young people fail to learn sufficient intimacy behaviors because of the general lack of (true) intimacy in the television programs that are important to them.

Prior to the saturation afforded by television, certainly before the advent of commercial radio, advertising reached only a limited number of people, and values and concepts were formed in a different, more personal way. Boys' role models were more often real men (and women), as opposed to the Rambos and Rockys of recent years. Even motion pictures didn't change basic perceptions of how boys grew up until the electronic media began to bring their images -- and the accompanying commercials -- into virtually every home. Then programs and advertisements began to merge into m/a, in which story lines as well as products were dependent on market surveys, and the messages began to look the same. White, with a smattering of black and Asian, is good; material possessions and comfortable, if screwed-up, lives are available to all; heterosexuality, beginning well before puberty, is essential.

As always, before the era of m/a, a relatively small percentage of boys developed as homosexual or bisexual, and a majority of boys grew into heterosexual lifestyles, a trend that is likely to continue with or without m/a. The difference, it seems, is that specifically sexual interaction/attraction of boys to girls was much slower in the absence of the heterosexual imagery that infuses m/a. Tom Sawyer was piqued with the thought of kissing Becky Thatcher, but the vast majority of his time and energy was devoted to his companionship with Huck Finn and his other pals, on developing his skills in the world without any thought of marriage or sexual conquest. Oh yes, this is idealized, this is archaic and may even be little more than Mark Twain's nostalgic fantasy, but much of the content of literature and films prior to the 1950s paints boyhood and adolescence with the themes of adventure, chumship, hero worship and gradual growth, saving the mushy stuff for late adolescence and young adulthood. Andy Hardy, after all, was a late adolescent, and Mickey Rooney, who played Andy, was in his mid-20's at the time. Today, it is de rigeur to portray junior-high-age boys obsessed with girls above all else -- including the clear implication that sexual intercourse is the paramount goal -- with only occasional references to (usually superficial) aspects of friendships with other males. (Lest it be assumed otherwise, I must acknowledge the tremendous differences between today's generally positive m/a images of women and the unacceptable stereotypes we see in previous eras. Many stereotypes remain, and compulsive heterosexuality for girls, like for boys, is one of them, but the 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of women as competent human beings and that, however measured, is progress. Acceptance, or at least awareness, of alternative lifestyles such as homosexuality also has benefitted from increased media exposure, but it seems a long time before m/a will be using lesbian or gay couples -- or even just same-sex friends -- to sell mouthwash. Until then, of course, the heterosexual image will continue to fill the consciousness of developing kids, who watch hours of television every day on average.)

The influence of m/a is a problem for boys (and girls) precisely because it is monochromatic, when human development begs for a full spectrum of opportunities in which to express the diversity that is its salvation. Why should any particular boy exist if everyone including him is limited, after childhood, to one single scenario? One solution, of course, is completely to revolutionize m/a so that it is independent of the central tendency that (hetero)sex sells products/shows. This awaits a Gorbachev-cum-Jeanne d'Arc of immense proportions, and may not happen in the next few years.

Another, more realistic, solution is the widespread encouragement of the natural, already-viable and potential alternative: deep, intense, constructive same-sex friendships, primarily with age-mates but also as boys get older with men in and outside the family who can model the values and behaviors that can lead to interpersonal fulfillment and fundamentally satisfying relationships, not just notches-in-the-bedpost "successful" scores. (See Jones [1990] for a more detailed discussion of these possibilities.) This widespread encouragement could, and should, be funded as well and encouraged as energetically as the fight against disease or the space program. If boys can enter the world-community gradually, with time to develop relationship patterns with actual friends, with real-people models, and with a full range of realistic possibilities from which to make their ultimate life choices, they stand a much better chance of feeling connected with their living partners and with life itself.

Summary / Conclusions

The Social-Scientist's Epilog: Future Research

Intimacy and friendship should be studied systematically in a number of ways not commonly found in the literature. Cross- cultural comparisons, for example, could be most enlightening, especially considering Paine's observations (1974) that in some cultures friendship is thought of as appropriate only for males, and that in others the nature and experience of friendship is so closely tied to group behavior that individual differences in friendship patterns are virtually unknown. Studies regarding the universality (or lack of it) of same-sex friendships across cultures, and the comparative significance of all types of relationships outside our own society would be valuable, as would studies designed to compare the effect of our culture's gender role structure with those of other cultures.

One very intriguing question might be, Do sex-typed males in other cultures exhibit lower intimacy than androgynous males in the same culture? Indeed, the very question of whether other cultures even value intimacy in the way our culture does, would be a valuable focus for research inquiry.

In our own culture it seems likely that friendship patterns, intimacy levels and the like may well be associated with a number of variables not routinely associated with relationship behaviors. Future research should compare various ethnic groups; neighborhood configurations such as barrio, single-family homes, apartment complexes, and rural areas; population mobility factors, such as immigrants, families that move often, military personnel, and those who have lived for long periods in the same location; differing family configurations, such as single-parent, extended, kibbutz or commune, and nuclear families; differing lifestyles or sexual orientations, such as heterosexuals, homosexuals, and bisexuals living alone or in pairs; and differing occupational groups, such as office workers, outdoor workers, artists or performers, executives, manual as compared with "cerebral" work, educators, and so forth.

With regard to developmental processes, further research is needed which is based on the theories of Sullivan (1953ab). At least two points await further study. First, is there a connection, as Sullivan predicted, between preadolescent chumship, life's first "love" relationship (Sullivan, 1953b), and later intimacy effectiveness in adulthood? Second, (related to Sullivan's framework, but a formulation of the present author), is some intimacy development (or the development of some components or parts of intimacy) contingent on the lack of formal operational thought? It is conceivable that the abstract and conceptual thought more typical of the adolescent might actually impede the development of some types of intimacy, and that if such intimacy is not experienced and practiced before one can "think about it," it may never become part of the personality. This is obviously a speculation about a possible "critical period" for intimacy development. This is also related to the notion that there may be differing maturational rates for intimacy development, just like the differing rates of physical or moral development. In general, the study of intimacy from an individual differences perspective is recommended.

Close friendship between people who are not the same age and are also not related is another important focus for future research. From the younger person's point of view, we believe in the importance of mentoring and role modeling, yet there is virtually no research that verifies the developmental significance of intergenerational intimacy (Jones, 1990). From the older person's point of view, we very seldom pay attention to any intergenerational needs other than biological (or adoptive) parenting, though by ignoring the potential of encouraging relationships between women and girls, between (anti-sexist) men and boys, society may be missing one of its most effective strengthening agents.

Future developmental research might even become more specific and investigate the two "focal" points in development found in the present study and a number of other widely varying sources: age 8 and puberty. Cognitive developmental theory recognizes both of these as important turning points, with age 8 (give or take a year) generally regarded as the beginning of concrete operations and puberty (again, give or take) the start of formal or abstract reasoning abilities. Understanding more fully just what happens at these points with regard to intimacy, as well as the relationship of intimacy to other developmental features, could facilitate counseling and educational efforts on behalf of those who are not developing their intimacy potential.

The interdependence of intimacy and many aspects of the developing person's existence could be a valuable direction for future research. If intimacy is positively correlated with achievement, for example, such knowledge could lead to the enhancement of individual potential through better friendship.

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