“I get along better with women” | “Men are difficult to talk to” | “My best friends are women” | “My wife is my best friend”
These are statements I’ve said most of my life. It could be because I had more female influence growing up than male. I came from a family with two loving parents, but my father worked long hours. My mother was the one who took years off from work to raise my brother and me. Once in school, she changed careers to be on a teacher’s schedule instead of a nurse’s schedule, so she only worked while we were in class. Almost all my teachers were women. For a boy with this experience, it can be easy to gravitate to girls in your class. Something about the warm, nurturing qualities of women makes you feel comfortable and it’s just easy. Men, on the other hand, can feel cold and aloof. They’re aggressive and competitive, and it can be laborious just to spend time with them. They don’t express their emotions like girls do, so there is little affirmation in a relationship with male friends. When you are accustomed to the affirmation received from women, it is difficult to feel at ease around someone who doesn’t give it out.
For me, that just meant I spent more time with women in school or at social events. I had a multi-year relationship with a girl in High School, who I spent most of my time around, trying to be around, or messaging. That surely replaced a lot of guy friends I might have otherwise had. Probably one of those unhealthy, girl-consumes-your-entire-life relationships and could have been a starting place for putting women on a pedestal, in retrospect. In college, I made a lot of female friends that I met in classes and out at bars. Those often became intimate over drinks, but rarely turned into anything serious. The low self-esteem and self-conscious women would want to take the friendship to the next level, but they weren’t what I wanted. However, for the high self-esteem, confident women, I wasn’t the type of guy they were after. The guys I saw them fawning over seemed like the archetypal “bro” that lifts weights and hangs out with a group of guy friends to have fun rather than chasing women. Yet, the women came to them. Don’t get me wrong, I was very good at meeting women and had plenty of carnal friends, but the women I really wanted to have a relationship with kept me platonic.
When I met my wife, I had just graduated college. If you read my first article, you may remember that my experience a year before in Marine Corps Officer Candidate School had really woken me up to my weaknesses and the person I needed to become. So, by the time I met her, I was a commissioned officer in the Marines with a college degree, I rode a sport bike, and I was in very good shape. Most of my close friends were also Marines that were in the same situation. As out of character as it was, I had become a lot of the archetype I begrudged, and it still wasn’t an honest representation of who I was. She, on the other hand, was exactly what I had been looking for: tall, attractive, and driven. And she was really into me. We went from dating to married very fast. We moved away from home and then across the world. Our relationship grew, and she became “my best friend.” Friendship and communication were the most important components of our marriage, and by most people’s standards, our marriage was exemplary. That was only reaffirmed as we noticed so many other couples not getting along or divorcing. So how could it be that our “perfect marriage” didn’t feel perfect? In fact, it felt like two different stories at the same time: One of steadily increasing growth and communication, and another of receding intimacy and new sexual resentment. Both developing over the same decade.
So, what did I do? I doubled down. Communicate more, be a better friend, spend more time with her, encourage her with work, and just devote myself to the work of “marriage” (read: friendship). The result? A double-down of results. We became closer and better friends. The intimacy of the bedroom continued to recede. I missed out on potential hobbies. Most notably, scuba diving and deep-sea fishing in Okinawa, a top dive spot in the world. All my friends were shared with my wife, and we always went out to bars or social events together. And in hindsight, I did it all to kill our sex life.
Nice Guys, from having unbalanced exposure to female nurturing, gravitate to the affirmation women give them. What seems like a fulfilling relationship, because it completes the circuit of emotion we are so accustomed to feeling, is actually a comfort-based connection reminiscent of mother’s warmth. When you have this mentality, men are cold and intimidating, especially the ones that embody the Man’s Man, alpha archetype. It’s full of anxiety: entering a competitive arena and constantly measuring where you land in the pyramid of masculinity. It’s just more comfortable to avoid it and assume your personality is more attuned to the female social temperament.
The glaring truth you find after investing time and effort into male friendships, and some honest self-reflection of your affinity for female relationships, is that masculine relationships are of the most positive and constructive forms of communion. Fraternal camaraderie encourages independence and strength, but allows for productive self-reflection. Good men inspire one another to be better and give honest truths so we have the tools to move forward. Looking back, female relationships seem empty. Comfortable, but full of nothing of substance.
This change in mindset impacts all of your female relationships: with your wife, your friends, and, yes, even with your mother. Taking their emotional affirmation off of the pedestal, you become less emotionally needy. You have the ability to develop your confidence and self-assurance. Your conversation shifts from being one of their girlfriends to being a strong, stoic leader who can be relied on. This is ironically what they really want out of a man but won’t tell you. They can get emotional banter with any of their friends, but you are their rock and someone they can rely on when they need you. Furthermore, women who rely on your feminine companionship are likely encouraged to seek out actual girlfriends that satisfy this emotional closed-circuit of a relationship and they gain much-needed individuality. Not only do you improve your relationships, but you also help balance out the relationships close to you.
I recently saw where a woman I’ve known for a long time was answering a question about what inspires her. She answered that it was her husband, who is always encouraging her, supporting her, and continues to be her best friend. I used to see something like this and think, “That guy has the life, married to an attractive woman who is crazy about him.” After growing my perspective from being a “girl’s guy” and thinking more like a man’s man, and also knowing the woman’s husband and his personality, I see it in a new light. He’s her emotional sponge, and he works diligently to be her supporting best friend. I now see this and think, “Poor guy. I wonder how dead their bedroom is at this point. I wonder how often they argue about their lack of sex. She probably resents him and doesn’t know why.”
Definitely, there are exceptions to the rule, but more often than not, they are stuck in the friend zone in their own marriage. More men need to get uncomfortable and go get some quality masculine camaraderie. Work on themselves, and stop being emotional sponges for their best friend of a wife. Does that mean you can’t be friends with your wife? No, of course not, but you need to have an honest reflection of your relationship dynamic. Are you dependent on her affirmation? Are you reactive to her emotions? Are you sacrificing hobbies and avoiding male friends? Be the leader, be a rock, but be your own stand-alone man.