Annotations
Recent research indicates that one in five men in the US and one in three men in the UK lack close friendships entirely. Two-thirds of young American men say: ‘No one really knows me.’ Nearly half of men in the UK feel they cannot confide in a friend about their problems. American men are 50 per cent less likely to report receiving social support – having someone check in on them or offer help when they need it – in a week than women, and also report having fewer friendships than they did 30 years ago.
But it is the quality of men’s bonds, measured against the human psychological need for deep social connection, not necessarily the number of their friendships, that paints a gendered picture of social deprivation. What men often lack is not friends, but closeness.
Later, when someone in his circle made similar attempts at physical or emotional affection, Navid caught himself flinging the same word at them. ‘If I’m calling you that, there’s no way I can be it,’ he explained. It’s a hallmark of how men surveil each other’s behaviour: the punished becomes the punisher.