How different are men with their friends?

On the issue of friendship, like many other things, the ‘men are from Mars and women are from Venus‘ phrase is somewhat accurate. We talk about different things, we spend time differently, and the dynamics of the friendship are distinct for each gender.  So are women capable of understanding the male friendship, or do we plainly despise our husband’s circle of friends?

Work, sports and politics

Sometimes male friendships resemble IKEA furniture being assembled: it looks cool, it roughly looks what it should look like, but we still fall short of understanding it. For director Marc Esposito, the theory is what explains the success of his saga, Le Cœur des Hommes (The Heart of Men). “Women have the feeling of entering the male psyche, with four characters focused on their love problems. If I believe the facts, it appears that boys still talk about work, sports or politics… “

Vanessa, 41, concurs. “When they are on the phone, my boyfriend and his best buddy talk about Federer and sports scores but they do not care about people in the neighbourhood.” It’s the same case for Jeanne, 38, “They have teenager discussions. They talk about films they have seen and laugh like young boys.” But the phone isn’t necessarily everyone’s best friend. Claire, 42, says, “I know a very good friend tells him things about his marriage that I wouldn’t feel comfortable telling my best friends.” Julie, 40, was surprised to hear about someone else’s married life via her husband’s best friend. “It’s the kind of stuff I would prefer to keep private.”

Reunion: once in a blue moon

Men are attached to the idea of an old fashioned friendship, which is nurtured by biennial reunions and little else. “His whole entourage lives 500km from here,” says Jeanne. “I know these are his ride-or-die friends and you’re telling me it’s a global affair just to tell each other where they are in life… For someone who calls her best friend three times a week, that is completely beyond me.” Similarly for Vanessa, “My guy has two very close friends, including a childhood one he considers his best friend. He lives near us but they see each other once or twice a year.”

Anne Vincent-Buffault, author of Une Histoire de l’amitié (A Story about Friendship), thinks it’s possible for chivalry friendship to last. Bernard Elyn, therapist and coach, connoisseur of masculine and feminine issues and co author of the Le Grand Livre de la Gestalt (The Great Book of Gestalt), says “we must pay attention to the zombie friendships: They are actually based on old loyalty, commonalities like high school, the army or the first job in the same company. But sometimes it’s just pretending that something was still alive while the relationship is long dead.” Jeanne certainly takes things differently, seeing how she replaces a picture with old friends in her agenda with pictures of friends she didn’t merely share a class with back in 1989. “That being said, I think his friends are a part of his life that he does not want to forget: his youth, his single life, there’s a certain freedom in it all. I can understand that he does not want this part of him buried under his hat as the head of the family.”

Between the rituals and challenges

However, men are also able to start anew. “I find that with age, my husband gets tougher,” says Claire, 42. Vanessa was confused when she heard her SO announced he had cut ties with the godfather of their daughter over a silly argument. According to Bernard Elyn, it is hardly surprising: “Women seem to be more flexible in managing social relations. But for men, there has to be an immediate intensity in friendly relations.”

This intensity is what gives colour to the friendship. Just hear Julie talk about her spouse and his five high school friends, a group that reminds her of Hangover. Their sincere friendship involves weekly evening football games and trips to music festivals. “They get drunk sometimes, especially on weekends, while I devote myself to the house, but I know he needs it. And very quickly he goes around for another good time with his friends.” As for Claire, the night outs are associated with an activity: a carefully chosen bar, a social night at a billiards club or a rented studio for a rehearsal with his band. “This occasion between friends must be synonymous with good times and begs for an activity. Unlike me, it would never occur to him that we can go out just for coffee, for example.” According to Bernard Elyn, this is the greatest ritual in male friendships. “The band itself is a ritual. No one has to manage or support it because that’s how it is,” he says. “But these organized meetings give men some time to discuss more ethical questions about their married life or work.”

The harmonious team 

When we ask Marc Esposito whether Cœur des hommes 4 would have a feminine figure, he says “No, because if a girl is cool enough to integrate into the group, something is bound to happen.” Females are also absent from Vanessa’s and Claire’s husband’s circle of friends and the only women in Julie’s husband’s team are his friends’ wives. Anne Vincent-Buffault highlights that this kind of friendship already existed since the 18th century, right before the separation of sexes in the 19th century.

But where do women fit in all this? “Gone is the time when women were fishing for discord,” says Anne Vincent-Buffault. Still, Julie is frequently regarded by her husband’s friends as competition. “I’m clearly the one who stole my husband from his friends, someone who always has the best date night plan so he doesn’t spend so much time with his friends,” she said. But now things are better since his friend got engaged. “I have no interest in criticizing my husband in front of them.”

For Jeanne, things were a little bit rougher. “I came from an upper-middle-class background and I found myself categorizing his friends as my inferiors.” Almost ten years later, she finally took an important step. “We grew closer, and since my husband’s friends are very important to him, they were important to me as well. And his friends saw that, by spending less rock ‘n’ roll time with them, my husband did not look as unhappy with me as he had been before. Now we’re even.”  Or almost… Julie posed a small request to her husband, “I’m pregnant with our third child. And this time, I would like him to be there for the first bath. Because for the eldest, he partied too much with his friends in celebration of his firstborn. It was the same case for the second one (even though he gave me a false excuse). If this time I could avoid playing the single mother, that would be great!”

The female gender might have a lot of requests but we are nowhere near banning our men from meeting his friends.

Joséphine Lebard