Men make friends side-by-side.

Idle chit-chat is where connection starts.

Trust is built by participating in low stakes activities.

Smartphones distract us from making space for idle chat.

I’d be hard pressed to name a male friend of mine that I did not meet because of some sort of event. For most men, friendships are made when we’re doing something. We tend to need that framework in order to build enough trust to actually open up and talk about what’s on our minds. That’s the reason most men get emotional when drunk or after some sort of victory.

The thing is, it’s not the actual activity that’s the friend-making part. It’s far more simple and sometimes harder than that.

Why Most Friendship Advice Misses Men

Most friendship making and keeping advice are universal and genuinely useful. In 9 Proven Ways to Nurture Old and New Friendships, Susan Newman Ph.D., gives some fantastic advice about reducing fear of loss, providing safety, listening deeply, and prioritizing your friendships.

The gap that I see in all this advice, though, is in how friendships usually start between men. Everything that Dr. Newman mentions assumes that a certain level of trust and emotional availability already exists. For many men, trust and emotional availability come after an activity, since it's easier to gauge someone’s personality when there is a low stakes activity involved. This is also one of the differences between how men and women make friends.

Side-by-Side vs. Face-to-Face

The core difference between most men and women when it........

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