Ellen Goodman and Patricia O'Brien in their best selling book, I Know Just What You Mean: The Power of Friendship in Women's Lives ask, "Why do men and women, on the topic of friendship, puzzle each other so much? Let us start with the obvious: women do friendship differently than men. Among women, friendship is conducted face-to-face. But as Carolyn Heilburn once wrote, "Male friends do not always face each other: they stand side by side, facing the world' While women tend to be together, men tend to do together." Men they write, ask women, "What on earth do you have to say to each other?" Women say to men: "You spent all day together on the golf course and never told him you were worried about your job?" They observe "All the patterns that men and women learn in childhood are deeply ingrained--even today. Same-sex friendships become the comfort zone where both sexes look for solace or understanding."
There is the masculine definition of friendship from C.S. Lewis. According to Lewis, only lovers gaze at each other face-to-face. Friends, according to Lewis, walk side by side with common interests bonding them. When it comes to emotional intimacy in friendships, Goodman and O'Brien think men's friendships are missing emotional intimacy. Both of them conclude men's connections even if they are real, would be insufficient for both of them.
I would agree.
Although I like conversations over sports and activities, I am oriented to pursue emotional intimacy in my friendships with men and women. It would seem friendship would be lacking if emotional intimacy was not present in good friendships.
I discovered with great joy this past year Brian Patrick McGuire's Friendship and Community:
Contemporary women who don't believe emotional intimacy or language of the heart are possible with men, would be stunned by reading this book! Give this book to a contemporary male, and they're likely to not even recognize their masculine gender in these past personal friendships. I remember having a conversation with a Christian scholar over intimate expression of these friendships, and he just rolled his eyes, and I got an interesting reaction from him. This post could easily fit under the series: Relational Spirituality: You can never have too much of a good connection. In some Christian family ministries, this language might be considered R-rated, or universally appropo between husband and wife only.
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