I interviewed my closest friends for this blog post.
For the first question, one friend said that because we knew each other for so many years, since the beginning of high school and that he said that my personality, my flaws, our fights and our many adventures while growing up is what made our friendship strong and valuable.
For the second question, another friend said that when we (our group) were all together, that’s what he needed to have fun, nothing big, nothing planned, just to see his friends, make jokes, play soccer and having some rare but interesting discussions about serious topics. (He then started laughing is eyes out because he thought what he said was “cheezy”. )
For the last question, a third friend told me that he doesn’t need to or that I don’t need to tell how much we mean for each other, because we’ve all been through so much in our lives like fights, family matters and accomplishments. All of us supported each other through those moments and from that we know how much we mean for each other. (He also started laughing and punched me in the arm for forcing him to do the interview.)
The interview with my friends contradicts to Kilmartin’s “No Man Is an Island: Men in Relationships” He explains how physical interactions between male friends can distant them because it can percieved as a “homosexual” quality. This doesn’t apply with my friends because we when all meet each other we do handshakes or even hug each other if we haven’t seen all each other for a long time, because of school and work. Kilmartin discusses about the stereotypical of male friends activity do like talking about sports, “bar” games and or joking around. This is a bit true, but in my interview with my friends, as I mentioned, we also have serious and intimate conversations about life and problems that we all have in our individual lives. So I think from my perspective that male friendships are more open than it used to be.
Lovers and Fighters | Section 22 