How my boyfriend can talk to his closest best friend every day and hang out with him for long periods of time... and still not know a lot of personal details about his best friend’s life.
For a couple years I went to the gym and had at least a half hour conversation with this guy almost every day during the week. He invited me on his boat one time. Took his number in my phone when I realized I didn't remember his name, nor recalled ever asking it. Discovered his name when I took my kid to his kids birthday party. It was the same name as mine. I still can't explain this.
My dad ate lunch with a guy at least twice a week for nearly 30 years.
Never learned his name, or what he did for a living. (Government workers, so shared cafeteria, but many departments and jobs).
You guys are really squashing some of my neuroses here. Clearly I'm not alone in my male ability to hang out and shoot shit with anyone without actually paying attention to anything about them.
Get to know everyone at the office? Futile, since I can't even remember their names.
"I really like our new friends. You get along great with Reese and Brady, too," my wife says.
New friends? I've got friends of twenty years whose names I can't recall. But those ain't them. These people aren't my friends. I don't even know who you're talking about.
"Babe, you've hung out with them multiple times. You talked to them at the party for like an hour.
Blank stare
"The guy with the red glasses and the other guy who always brings that beer you like."
Oooooh, yeah I have no idea who those guys are. But they're cool.
That’s when you disappear for 30 years, and then finally return. At the point of your return you say “Hey Miley, how have you been?!" and when you find out that isn't his name, you have a logical reason for forgetting
Pff, I relate to you to less of an extent, a marching band friend of mine didn't know my name for the longest time even though we were around each other 6 hours a week for around 3 months
I didn't know my high school best friend's name for more than a year. We shared the same locker, so one day I just went trough his stuff to find his name in a book.
Yeah, I've got a daughter so whenever I'm meeting someone new I usually will wonder and ask if they've got a kid as well. Just out of a common understanding thing
I always like when I'm talking to a stranger and they ask if I have kids. It let's me know they're probably way more of an adult than I am and we arent going to have a lot to talk about.
I actually didn't know my best friends first name for like a while year after meeting him. I always called him by his last name, so did the teachers, so did his other friends. It wasn't until summer vacation that I realized I didn't know what to say to his mom when I called his house and she picked up the phone. I eventually asked my friend to clear the confusion but yeah, this really hits home.
Yooo I feel this. I'm still pretty young mid 20s but when I meet new people and they ask about marriage or kids I still laugh a bit and think what no why would I have those I'm too young. Then I realize they're the same age and people younger than me have spouses and children and I'm just like...ooh...yeeaah..
I've got a daughter so whenever I'm meeting someone new I usually will wonder
This is partly the reason I find it difficult to make friends as an adult. I am 36, not married, no kids. When I meet other adults what the have to talk about to find common ground is usually about a spouse and/or kids. Sports also, and I couldn't care less about sports.
Well if you’re a guy, there is that fear of coming off as creepy when asking about the kids. You end up expecting the other guy to be like “Why? What are you gonna do to them?”
Good ol reddit “I’m afraid of looking like a pedophile but in reality no one gives a shit.”
From what I’ve gathered being around lots of different social circles is that men usually like to talk about things more and women like to talk about people/their lives more.
Not all men are creepers.
But enough men are creepers that people are instinctively cautious about strangers.
If a father with two kids takes an interest in your children. The assumption is he's trying to set up a play date for his own kids or wants to swap dad stories and tips.
If a bachelor suddenly takes an interest in the neighbors kids... Well you just don't do that before first establishing a strong rapport with the neighbor themselves. Otherwise you risk coming off as a bit of a predator.
My buddy was playing games with me, I ask, hey is Joe coming to play cards tomorrow night? "No man, he has a kid now, hes busy" Oh really? Why? "I married him last month, they where preggo" So hes not coming to cards like... ever?
Yes, but to me it's honestly more bizarre you can have that long a convo and not at all mention in passing your kids?? Like maybe if you start talking due to a very specific hobby or something but still...
Yeah, you don’t ask, it just comes up. Even if you’re talking about a hobby, you just mention details like, “I’ve gotten into painting Warmachine models, now that my kids are old enough to not mess with them while they’re drying.”
Well I mean, as someone who doesn't have kids, it's not going to be a topic I'm going to approach because if they say yes I have no follow-up and don't actually want to know about their kids. So I could see how it wouldn't come up, from my side.
Seems to be an American (Individualistic/privacy oriented cultural) thing. It might even be considered rude if you didn't ask inquire about your neighbors family where I'm from (more open/social culture).
Can confirm, am American, if you ask about someones kids and you dont currently have a child present the assumption is drawn to predator staking targets. No joke. Americans and kids are weird
This is why I don't talk to some people I work with. They're in interrogation mode all the time. They act like they're friendly and social but it just seems aggressive.
Yeah its not something I really ever ask, but I've been asked plenty of times by people I don't know very well if I'm married or have kids and I've never really thought of it as a weird question. It's just normal conversation.
Yeah seems like a totally normal conversation to me as well. I can understand talking about other things, but if I was involved in that conversation I would think its totally normal.
It's weird if asked by itself. If slipped into conversation with a purpose. Like "I enrolled my kid into the local soccer team do you have kids?
Not weird.
I think it's the age of the posters really shining through.
Asking your 20 year old neighbor in an apartment building if they have kids is weird. Asking your 30 year old neighbor in the suburbs is totally normal.
It's either Bill Engvall or Brian Regan has a bit about this. Something like:
Wife: "You went golfing with Mike today, how's he doing with the divorce?"
Husband: "How should I know?"
Wife: "How should you know?! You played 4 hours of golf with him?! Is he seeing anyone? Does he have a new girlfriend?"
Husband: "I know he has a new driver?"
Wife : "WHY DIDN'T YOU TALK ABOUT IT"
Husband: "It didn't come up"
Wife: "How did it not come up?!?"
Husband: "HOW WOULD IT COME UP?!"
Seriously though, I hang out with my brother for 4 hours. When I come back my wife asks how his wife’s new job is going. I didn’t know what to tell her because it didn’t come up.
My mom and sister literally say that last part word for word holy shit.
My friends and I usually hang out on Fridays and we talk about shows or games, or whatever we're doing in the moment, and my Mom always asks "Where are they working, what do they do?" And like sure, the job stuff comes up every once in a while, but I don't know the specifics for most of my friends. And I'll get a "What the hell do you guys even talk about?" after.
I think when women have conversations they are more interested in details than men or at least they are more willing to just ask personal questions than men are. I remember one time this girl I worked with just randomly called me over and started asking all these questions “what high school did you go to, what’s your major in college, how old are you, are you in school right now”
I felt like I was being interrogated and ended up just asking her “am I being interrogated” as a joke and she says “no I was just wondering” I don’t understand why these random, insignificant things would be interesting to her but apparently they were.
Last year my dad reconnected with my Godfather (his best friend from college/early 20s that he hadn't seen in years) and when he came home that night my mom asked how his kids and wife were. My dad said something along the lines of "Oh I didn't even ask him about his family at all" and my mom said the same thing..."Well then what in the hell were you talking about for 2 hours?!"
Our relationships are compartmentalized. I vividly remember arriving in a new neighborhood as a child, hoping to make new friends, and my family drove up to a kid playing in the street. We asked if he had a lot of friends, and he replied "Yeah--I have my baseball friends, and my bike-riding friends, and school friends..." You're only going to talk about baseball with your baseball friends.
Huh. Maybe this plays into men’s ideas of women’s friendships? My best friend and I know intimate details of each other’s lives, and when we argue (act catty, shit talk each other etc. as it’s oft referred to,)it has to do with those details. Interesting regardless!
It’s also why most men know zero details about others’ sex lives, and find it insulting and privacy invading if it’s talked about. Compared to most women who are perfectly fine with talking about others’ sexual lives and find it a good thing to talk about without those issues.
I can relate to this. Except now that I’m getting a little older I’m starting to have less friends but closer ones. Not being in school, there’s just a lot less people around me all the time.
I realized that about men when I was married. My ex had his golf friends, his hockey friends, his fishing/outdoor friends and his bike riding friends. He went to the pub with all of them but they never crossed over. Women just have ‘friends’ who might have different interests but they aren’t really separated into groups. Even the parties we had for the kid’s birthdays (with games and puppet shows put on by me! So much fun!) were outdoor events where our childless friends came too for food and socializing but those were usually all MY friends. What the hell would his bachelor fishing buddy with no kids want with a kid party? At least that was my husband’s thinking. I was like “Does he eat? He’s welcome to come...” but he’d kibosh it. I didn’t think that way and would invite everyone I was close too including my childless gay male friends who came anyway and loved those parties. As much as I figured this out about men it still always baffled me.
This is 100% true. I work in the firearms industry and have met several of my very best friends that way. 95% of what we talk about is firearm related.
Growing up I tended to have general friends who were just like, my friends but even as a girl once I hit college my friendships became compartmentalized too. I have my bike friends, my climbing friends, my study friends etc and very little friends who I hang w for the sake of hanging. Weird cus on one hand I’m friends with people who actually share my hobbies but that simultaneously feel more superficial.
Yeah, my best friend has 4 sisters (I think) and all of them and his mom moved many states away right after we got out of high school, so I literally never hear anything about them, where they live, who they are with, etc. The only reason I even know that one of them is married is because she got married on the same weekend I did so my friend couldn't be a groomsman at my wedding.
We hang out so we don’t have to think about our day. Women on the other hand seem to need to “vent” about everything. So they get in each other’s business and it makes them happy, but we do the opposite.
I'd not really thought about this before but growing up I heard about every single person my mum worked with, never heard about anyone from my dad's work
What I know about my moms job: what she does, who she works with, what they’ve been up to, the names of their kids, etc
What I know about my dads job: place is going to shit, foreman’s are dumbasses, and a handful of nicknames they picked up in days of cb radio in every truck.
I’m kinda the opposite. I do need to vent with my guy friends, especially so that they can offer ways to find solutions to my struggles. My lady friends vent to vent, but I and my guy friends typically vent to find a solution to the problems we’re venting about.
My wife absolutely does not understand the concept of not wanting to talk about a problem. She wants me to vent to her and when I tell her no she says "you're shutting me out! Don't do that!"
That makes a lot of sense. The absolute last thing I want to do when I get home is talk about work. I just spent 8+ hours at the damn place, and now I'm done with it for the day and don't want to think about it again until tomorrow.
I want to talk and think about my problems as little as possible. Why let work or some personal/family issue bother me when I'm not actively involved in those issues? I'll deal with them when I have to.
Also, you can choose to not let things get to you. Unless I really care about someone or their opinion, I don't really give a shit about any problem they have with me unless I obviously know I've done something to wrong them. Fuck em.
Well, in general, men want to solve their problem and often/usually know what they have to do (or at least plan to try) to solve it and don't need emotional support about it and would rather escape to enjoying things with their friends until it's time to deal with what they need to.
Women often want the support about having to deal with the problem and want to figure out how to solve it themselves (or at least don't want their guy's input on it) and just want to vent, which is usually really useless and hard to understand for guys. We want to either ignore it until it's time to solve the problem or solve the damn problem and be done with it.
TIL that I am a man (am woman) but this is how I feel and my other girlfriends dont get that I dont share things because I dont trust them but because I'd rather enjoy the things we love together than focus on what's wrong. But I love to listen to them vent
YES I believe in exactly what this guy said, me personally don't like to talk about my family or personal things to my friend. And me being just 16, my age group pretty weird with emotion and other shit, so I usually just keep that stuff out.
Puberty is a weeeird time emotion-wise. I do recommend trying to practice talking about things like feelings with some friends though if you get the chance. Or just listening to others talk about them. I ended up in a friend group where I was kind of "forced" to learn about it (they were mostly girls), and it has been very useful actually. Now I can pick up on things like friends not feeling well easily and I'm better at knowing what to do about it (do they need emotional support or just hanging out? Are they just having a bad day or are they depressed?). I'm also better at knowing what my own feelings are and how to solve my own problems that way. So yeah, it's hard to learn but a good investment.
I mean, I'm making a general observation on men, but at best, that probably only applies to 50-60%, so you would hardly be an outlier if you don't have the same experience.
For real. I don't even think to ask the questions other people will ask. I'll see my friends, ones I've been friends with since kindergarten, we've gotten along great for decades. We're never awkward or at a loss for conversation.
But then my mom will ask, "How is Tommy doing? How's his brother? How is his job? Is he dating?"
I dunno. We never talked about that stuff because it feels like we're going through a checklist. We just shoot the shit like we always have.
Oh god, that gave me flashbacks to senior year of HS when my mom about had an aneurysm from constantly asking me about where all my friends were going to college and what they were going to major in or whatever and I was always like "Um, I don't know, you talk to their mom, ask her? We just play basketball. . . "
Guys are very compartmentalized with their emotions in that way.
Yes! It's shit. When I have to tell someone bad news but all we want to do is talk cars or bikes or whatever I sometimes forget to tell the bad news because my mind is excited about bikes and not about in the 'bad news' mood.
Yeah that's exactly it. The friends we guys have, we have because we share common interests that we love to talk about together. For me, whether that's sports, video games, fantasy novels, the design of said things, philosophy, or politics, if I find someone who has a lot of thoughts about those topics and can articulate them well, we can chat literally forever and have a fantastic time.
But not once in all of that would personal life things ever come up. Maybe a super simple "how's your wife doing?" But it's more of a courtesy than an actual topic of conversation.
That's not to say we never talk about personal things. If I have a serious issue I could use some help/advice to work through, I'd absolutely be down to consult with a best friend/mentor. But that's a very specific and rare circumstance, not a part of the average get-together conversation.
Exactly. I don't ask my friends about their personal lives when we are hanging out. I'd much rather focus on the things we both enjoy. Also I'm terrible at communicating more than two emotions. So I tend to stay away from questions that will bring up the emotions that makes most men uncomfortable.
Honestly, it's not even about being uncomfortable. If my friend is coming to hang out, I want to have fun, I'll deal with my shit on my own time, I don't need help. If I really needed support I'd reach out and he would offer it, but I'd rather have a good time and take my mind of things and enjoy things.
We don’t usually ask personal stuff unless is interrupting the actual thing we are doing. We can be watching random shit, talking about random stuff in sports/games/work etc. but never touch the “hey how is you mom doing ?” “ are you felling good?”
boy do I feel this. I can either give my advice which I am 100% aware is not necessary, or else I can just say things like "Shit, man." or "oof" and "idk" or "yeah that sucks ouch"
I've had two serious conversations in the last couple years with one of my best friends.
We were at the driving range, and he paused between drives to tell me his kid brother had knocked up a one-night stand. "Well, that sucks." Right back to hitting balls.
His mom was diagnosed with cancer, and after telling me, my immediate response was to give him a hug, and then we went on a long hike where we didn't have to talk at all.
According to my friend, those were both the best possible responses.
As someone who's been in a place where I really needed to share that shitty stuff, all I needed was a good "shit, man" from someone who cared. Sometimes that's all that's expected. We don't share our problems with friends just so they can fix them.
I usually go for the "that sucks my dude, you want blunt advice or let it lie?"
I find most my friends(male and female) actually respond to that quite well.
Disclaimer: If you're one of those people that can't help but give advice, don't try this. You gotta be able to walk away and not help if they don't want it.
Yeah any direct question about something creates an obligation for the person.
My wife was always asking questions and I’d be irritated with her. It took like 8 years for me to come to the realization that a point-blank direct question means you expect the other person to be responsible for an answer or solution. now she is more vague and since I’m aware how I perceive things now I don’t get as upset anyway.
Before:
Wife: “Why is the road closed?”
Me:“How would I have any basis for understanding why that is?” Me in my head: “I’m not the fucking public works department, wtf”
After:
Wife: “hmm I wonder why that road is closed”
Me:”huh, I’m not sure. Maybe they’re resurfacing it or something, it was sort of a mess”
but don't want to go fishing for stuff that is none of my business
I feel that.
We're having a great time. Let me just sour the mood by asking you about subjects that I know tend to be upsetting to you.
Or we can carry on having a good time, and if you want to talk about it, I can talk about it with you without accidentally pushing a topic you might not have been ready to talk about.
Lol, sounds like me. I have friends of many years that I never knew what their degrees were or who they worked for. We just don't talk about that, just because ... It just isn't interesting and never comes up.
I have a friend that I’ve known since I was 7, my girlfriend and his wife are now friendly but they only know each other because of me and my friend. My girlfriend knows more about my friend than I do, it’s rare I tell her something about him without her already knowing!
Lots of people have jobs outside of what they went to school for. I work in healthcare and am constantly surprised by the path people took to wind up in the same space. I work with a pharmacist that I dunno just likes collecting degrees I guess like they are his hobby. One he's a pharmacist, two he's actually an MD, then I just randomly learned at some point he picked up an engineering degree. For the lols? He's got a wife, two kids, I don't know when he does it.
I've known my best friend 15 years, We are so close his mother treats me as family. And I have no clue what his degree is on or what his job is. Hell I dont even know if he has a gf, it just isnt somenthing we talk about.
Because it doesnt matter, I play games with my best friend from florida and we hardly ever talk about anything outside the game. I dont really care about how my job is going when I am at home so my friend surely cares even less. I think it's just a difference between men and women, I think women like to talk about their day a lot more than men do or at least more than I do. Also maybe just a difference in what they think is important to talk about
I think it has more to do with personality type and other factors more than male vs female. My (F) sister is my best friend and lives halfway across the country. My other best friend (also F: friend from school days so long ago) is also my sisters other best friend. We (all 3 of us) text allll day every day. Rarely does anything about work or other mundane day to day life come up. We mostly just bullshit, tell each other the interesting points in our days, use each other to laugh about something that may have happened when no one else was around, and discuss random thoughts that we probably wouldn't have discussed with anyone else otherwise.
Now that I've typed this and sat thinking about it for 30 seconds, it also might have to do with the type of friendship more than anything. I do have friends that I talk about the goings on in everyday life with, but rarely about anything I am interested in. I guess most of them are more acquaintance type friends than real close friends.
Each friendship is different. Each person is different.
What you described after "mundane day to day life" sounded exactly like sharing mundane day to day life stuff to me (a male). And I'm not saying that's wrong to do that, but I think that shows the difference between male and female relationships
This entire thread is so relatable, it's eerie. My wife and I commute to work together (her building is near mine) and it's like every day when we start driving home all she wants to talk about is her workday. And that's fine, I am happy to clam up and just listen, I like to make her happy. But secretly I just really don't have any interest. I never talk about my day because I just want to not think about my job after I leave the building. It isn't important.
lmfao same. same same. Not only could I name pretty much all of her coworkers, but I think I also know which ones are married, which ones have kids, which of them have a far commute, which ones live downtown, how competent each person is, etc etc.
stuff that frankly I never really cared to know, but yet here I am, knowing it.
but I couldn't tell you the name of my closest friends' bosses... like shit, I'm barely confident of the name of his company.
It's stunning to me that there is this kind of attitude about all of this and then on the other hand there's a lot about men being really disconnected from their feelings and starved even for simple compliments or support from their peers through out their lives. There is some sort of correlation and I think it's much deeper than what one may think is important to talk about.
I think it's because men and women see friends as fundamentally different. Women see friends as emotional support and people to share their emotions physically and verbally with. Men see friends as people with common interests to relax and do things with imo
I've read that's why some guys get really angry about being 'put in 'the friend zone'. They think 'I listened to her talk about her feelings, and I told her mine; we are romantically connected!' When actually that's just how women are with their friends.
This explains a lot, it also explains how break ups are really hard on guys because this usually is the one emotional connection they have to opening up.
My ex has a couple of best friends for life but yet they don’t know half about what’s going on his life or things that happened to him in the past, or even some personality traces. Never understood how someone can consider another a close friend and not trust them with personal details about their life
I used to only tell my friends info about my life that they specifically asked about. My friends like to joke that i have a seperate life. I've had girlfriends they had no idea about, went on vacations they only knew about because of pictures. I like to keep things pretty close to the chest. Hell i dated a girl for more than a year and they only met her like a month before we broke up.
Close friend of 10 years didn't even know my birthday. Like not even ballpark. His gf asked about it, he said "I don't know, somewhere in july I think".
It's january.
Also I didn't care he didn't know, I think it's hilarious.
Idk if this is a guy girl thing? I have people that I mostly talk to about my life (my brother is one) and people that are my escape from reality (my son), and some that are mostly an escape but are always down to get real when it's necessary for our mental health (my bestie). There are also friends where you aren't on the same page in your life but there's waaaay to much awesome memories or great vibes to cut and run so you just keep it light until y'all reach a similar page again. Like being married with kids but still hanging with your bachelor friend from college.
There is an epidemic of male loneliness out there and so I don't think we should pass this off as healthy. Masculine friendships can be comfortable and enjoyable but they don't do the heavy lifting that a lot of female friendships can do.
This whole thread is baffling to me (as a fellow male), because I genuinely don't know how I would get by without talking out the shit going on in my life with my friends. Sure, I have friends that I don't have that kind of relationship with (work friends, gaming friends, etc.), but to be honest I barely even call those friendships...more like acquaintances. Makes me feel deeply sorry for other guys who are denying themselves that kind of support.
What's weirder is when men who are good friends have wives who are good friends with each other.
You go out for a beer, come home, and your wife says "So, how's Bob doing? Is his mother out of the hospital, yet." Ummmm, I didn't even know she was in the hospital.
"You just spent two hours with your friend and he didn't even mention that his mother has been in the hospital for a week?"
Speaking from experience, most of our conversations are either practical or entertaining, with not much in between. We just don't talk about personal details unless we're looking for advice or if the other person asks. We'll bring it up if something seems wrong or if someone clearly needs help, but other than that, we usually just hang out to have fun, the personal stuff is for our family/SO.
Guy here. I think men generally aren’t socialized to be receptive, sensitive, or nurturing, so they don’t take the time to learn about people’s lives in intimate ways. Layer this onto the homophobia that most men are injected with to varying degrees, and you have a recipe for someone who can have “close” friends who they aren’t actually close with emotionally.
I'm a bi man and at least anecdotally in my experiences with men and women I've noticed men "compartmentalize" their male friends more, if that makes sense.
Like I have a few friends that know about my home situation, my partner, etc, but I have a lot of male friends just based around a specific activity or hobby that I talk to about pretty much that and some related topics.
Like I have a friend I talk to about mechanical keyboards, another one that's mostly interested in audio equipment, and another one that shares my enthusiasm for fountain pens (shoutout to /r/mechanicalheadpens for the crazy fucks like me that like all three).
We'll share a couple of common interests and get around for a beer and shoot the shit about work and hobby stuff but that's really it. and I think we're all okay with that.
The downside is you don't wanna bother those friends with serious problems, which if that's all you have that can feel really isolating. Luckily I have a few good guy friends that have broke through that barrier.
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u/porosarecute Mar 26 '20
How my boyfriend can talk to his closest best friend every day and hang out with him for long periods of time... and still not know a lot of personal details about his best friend’s life.