Male Intimacy Friendship - Article Example

The tradition that is experienced in the west has defined comradeship found between men to be the paradigm of friendship. According to Vera Brittain, friendships found in their purest form have always been thought to exist often among the men as opposed to the women. The characteristics that have been stressed largely in male friendships are concern, loyalty and fellow feeling as opposed to intimacy. However, it has been perceived or thought that the presence of the characteristics stressed most in male friendships make these friendships superior to those of the female.

Studies conducted recently have shown that men usually do not have same-sex friendships that are satisfying as the ones of the women. Michael McGill adds to this by saying that to say men posses no intimate friends appears too harsh on the surface, but the data indicate that it is almost the truth…their relationships with the other men are superficial even shallow (Strikwerda 111).It has been noted that intimacy is absent in the connection of friendships found among men and they are dissatisfied with these types of friendships.

This article explores the intimacy concept particularly among the adult male friendships by examining comradeship, which is a form of male friendship. Strikwerda further gives an account of both the nature and value of intimacy, and the obstacles to it followed by a focus on the intimacy process. Male friendships are compared to the friendship of young children engaging in a parallel play. The individuals do not really interact but merely play at a side-by-side distance. This type of companionship is very enjoyable, but lacks intimacy.

This friendship is not impoverished, but the truth is that if more is invested in it then it will lead to hunger for something more (Strikwerda 112).Comradeship is the sharing of given kinds of experiences examples being the ones during those of soldiers in trenches, teenage boy, and sailors on a voyage, and this type of friendship provides a mutual self-disclosure occasion among the males. A characteristic that is highlighted to play a vital role in comradeship is loyalty. The war situation depicts the comrades’ loyalty as being abstract and not personal terms.

Gray is quoted to say that comrades become loyal to each other in a spontaneous manner, and with no need for the reasons. He further argues that the loyalty, however, is fragile because it is not connected necessarily to the feeling of one belonging and spontaneous liking (Strikwerda 113). Comrades are depicted as not being intimate friends because the bond between them is that of generalized others. The loyalty accustomed to comradeship is out of impartial respect and not concern. Intimacy paradigmatically happens in reciprocal relationships found between two or several people.

Intimacy in a given friendship involves a mutual relationship. An individual can never be an intimate friend without intimacy reciprocated from another. The chief value of such a relationship is constituted by the enjoyment and reciprocal enrichment that flows typically from the intimate relationship. Genuine intimacy comprises of intense or deep mutual knowledge allowing the participants to mature or grow in both understanding and self-understanding of others. (Strikwerda 115)One of the obstacles to the intimacy in the male relationships is the lack of mutual self-disclosure dimension.

The culture that males have been brought up in, which involves the habit of rejecting, hiding, and denying of their legitimacy to one’s feeling, creates a barrier to the males attaining intimacy. Aristotle in his definition of friendships says that, the beloved is always loved not because of his personality, but because he provides some pleasure or good. (Strikwerda 119). Intimacy in men thus requires their serious effort and recognition to reduce or decrease their efficacy, and not the men’s prior elimination.

Work citedStrikwerda, Robert. “Male Friendship and Intimacy.” Hypatia, 7.3 (1992):110-125. Print.