It is healthy to talk. Or so men are often told, by everyone from mental health advocates to the partners they live with. They remain bemused by the typical male propensity to spend an entire evening in the pub with decades-old friends, yet come home utterly clueless about the personal struggles in each other's lives. What could they possibly be doing, all that while? How come they didn't they asked how X is handling his breakup, or how Y is managing the loss of his father?
For women, whose personal friendships often revolve around an intimate and encyclopaedic understanding of each other's private feelings, this style of male intimacy—based on seemingly sidestepping meaningful conversation—can appear oddly empty and unfulfilling. It's no surprise, one might think, that more than 25% of UK men report having zero close friends; that male loneliness is endemic; that many hesitate to see a doctor until seriously ill; that male suicide rates consistently exceed female ones; and that many middle-aged men, in particular, appear permanently frustrated for unarticulated reasons. Bottling emotions up benefits nobody.
Rethinking the Merit of Quiet Friendship
Yet, according to anthropologist Thomas Yarrow, this view may undervalue the strengths of the strong and quiet friendship. Professor Yarrow, based at Durham University, was researching volunteers at a historic steam railway in northern England when he was impressed with the closeness developed among these mostly older men. His four-year observation has been distilled into a paper contending that, especially for men brought up in an era of the emotional restraint, the value of friendships built around shared hobbies—"doing things together, often in comfortable silence"—may be underrated.
This muted model of friendship "is not deficient or anachronistic, it's just different," Yarrow suggests.
Granted, this can sound oddly similar to how toddlers interact—next to each other rather than engaging with each other. But Yarrow's argument is evident: simply due to the fact that it's not your preferred idea of friendship doesn't mean it lacks value. Maybe we should let these men in peace with their trains, golf, or classic car projects—whatever activity allows them to spend time in the company of others who also value less chatter.
Beyond Words: A Tacit Language of Concern
Thankfully, Yarrow is explicitly not arguing that expressing emotion is harmful, nor calling for a return to the past. Rather, he makes the point that touchy-feely talk isn't for everyone, and that deeper things may be happening beneath the surface of apparently reserved friendships. Is he right?
From a woman's perspective, I'm clearly no expert on male-to-male dialogue. But years of observation indicates that while men may be more reluctant initially to open up personal matters, once they do, they can be astonishingly forthright. A absence of overt emotion should not be confused with a lack of feeling entirely.
Additionally, while younger men brought up in a more expressive culture may be more adept at voicing feelings, older men are far from incapable of it. Rebrand soft emotions as masculine "sports loyalty" or "club allegiance," and many men will happily vent anger, hope, discontent, or satisfaction endlessly.
The most notable about Yarrow's railway volunteers is that, for all their aversion of discussing feelings, they nonetheless managed to express what looks remarkably like concern and affection. When an older volunteer was absent and then returned clearly unwell, his friends observed and were concerned. However, as the professor notes, they intentionally didn't probe what was wrong. Instead, they made tea, cracked jokes, and tried to be discreetly supportive while maintaining routine. They were caring for each other pretty much as female friends would, except without ever naming the elephant in the room.
The Core Question: Does Bonding Need Words?
It's not the ideal way of connecting, and it may not be yours. But if the true therapeutic value of friendship—what that combats loneliness and low mood—is fundamentally the awareness that someone is there enough to be present in life's difficulties with you, must that always be articulated with words?
This discussion persists. Maybe the healthiest approach is to acknowledge that varied forms of friendship carry equal worth, each satisfying the psychological needs of different individuals in unique effective way.
