I keep seeing men online (Reddit, Instagram, TikTok) saying how they don’t know personal details about their male friends of several years. It is mostly said in a proud context, or in disbelief when a woman talks about it.
I’m talking about knowing someone for years and not knowing what they do for work specifically, their relationship status/major issues, their life goals, their family situation, birthdays, and stuff like that.
For context, I am a man in my 20s. I have a close friend group of around 10 people. We all know each other very well. We have a group chat, and meet at least once a week (obviously some people can’t always make it). We know a lot of details about each other, so this idea of being close friends with someone and not knowing personal stuff about each other seems foreign and weird to me.
Does it actually happen, or just internet hyperbole?
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Hi there, can attest: have a childhood friend whom I’ve known for years, know surprisingly little about him. I think it might be a cultural thing, for men to not bond too deeply, which is a damn shame.
Hmm, interesting. Where are you from?
A bit of hyperbole I think, though I know my friends much less than I would like and I wish I’d be more comfortable speaking openly with them and learning about their life.
Not sure if it’s a personal thing, a social thing, or both, but I just find that extremely easier with a partner and have huge difficulty doing otherwise.
If I was organized I’d have my friends birthdays. I know what my friends do but not specifics, I have a friend who’s a bartender and I know his schedule but not the name of the bar he works at. I have a friend who’s a packaging engineer and know some products he’s worked on but not the name of the company. I have a friend who had a girlfriend, now fiance, and I didn’t know her name for a long time. I had a friend who broke up and I didn’t know for months. Why? Nobody told me these things. And largely, I don’t ask, because both I don’t want to pry and I’m probably going to forget anyways. It goes the other way as well-I have a friend who vents a lot to me about his family and I know how his parents have hurt him far better than they do.
Less than I would like to be honest.
I know what industry they work at, but if they switched to a different employer, I might only find out months or years later sometimes because we almost never talk about work outside of work unless someone asks for advice.
Birthdays are actually quite easy, every time I learn of someone’s birthday, I put it on an app called Birday and I get a notification two weeks before their birthday. Before that, I missed people’s birthdays regularly.
I know if they are single/have a partner/married, have kids or not, or are divorced, but I might not know if they have had an argument with their partner and are sleeping on the couch or something.
At the same time, I have a lot of personal things I don’t share with anyone, and I don’t expect them to share it with me. I just prefer it this way.
I don’t even know my best friends birthday.
You guys have friends?
I know my friends well and give them hugs and kiss them on the cheek when I see them.
I have a close friend group and several non related friends who I’d say I know a lot about and vise-versa. With the group, certainly some more than others.
When hanging out with people I often find the most satisfying activity is to just chill, talk, and get to know each other better; pick their brain to see how their views differ from mine or are the same. Often an easy thing to do when we’re low on energy too
I cannot say I know much about him anymore since I haven’t seen him since highschool. No idea what he’s doing or anything of the sort and in a way it’s kinda sad. I don’t even know if I can reconnect with him and if it would even work out between us.
