Young Man,
I’m going to talk to you about friendships; particularly the need for and dynamics of male friendships vs male-female friendships. Many men see the dynamics of male friendships vs male-female relationships, but it is a challenge to work out the “whys” (that is, the theological foundations) for the need for male friendships. Sometimes when I write, it is to figure out what I think about something. Writing clarifies thinking. Hopefully, this will create a back-and-forth of sorts between you and other men, and, in the spirit of the letter, iron will sharpen iron (Pr 27.17).
Men need other men. Men need male friends. I wouldn’t go so far as some I’ve read to say that male friendships are primary. If that were the case, then God would have first created a gang of men and then later created a woman or women. Nevertheless, as the man and woman are fruitful and multiply, different households are formed, and societies are built, there are masculine and feminine aspects to those cultures, embodied primarily in men and women (masculine and feminine respectively. I think you figured that out.) For instance, a man has a mission in the world that involves those two primary commands God originally gave Adam: guard and work. These responsibilities are not only at an individual level. As society grows, men have a collective responsibility to band together to fulfill this responsibility. This is the foundation for that dirty word in feminism: patriarchy (which might better be re-termed as androcracy, “man rule”). Men collectively have a responsibility toward the world and in relation to women. In order to complete our God-given mission, we need to form relationships, which, at the most basic level, are friendships.
This dynamic is worked out, for example, in the military. Men band together to guard the country, kith and kin, and our way of life (culture). Men who serve together in the military forge deep bonds in battle that rival blood family relationships. Common mission creates a “band of brothers.” Men join with men doing manly things and they begin to move as one man.
The military is only one example of this. This happens in team sports, which is, in many ways, an unbloody war. Men form teams, gangs, units, and they challenge or receive the challenge from other men. If that team is sustained for any length of time, similar militaristic bonds are formed.
The same is true at other levels as well. When you find a group with whom you lift weights, work on cars, build things, on the job, and such the like, you create a comradery that is focused on your common mission as a man and, more specifically, your common mission in this smaller group. Men together doing manly things creates bonds.
This, of course, can be perverted. Solomon warns his son in Proverbs 1 about not joining a blood-thirsty, thieving gang. Why does he have to warn the young man about this? Because men want to gang up and conquer things. At times this can be perverted into violence and theft. That is a perversion of the mission. You will be tempted to have friends of this sort along the way, maybe not the Crypts and Bloods, but men who will want to encourage you toward “doing something” about a situation instead of being patient and wise in your war strategy.
We are seeing this in our country right now, and it is infiltrating the church at an alarming rate: people are ganging up to change things. The system is broken and we need to fix it. Ne’er-do-wells are taking full advantage of this for their bloodthirst and covetousness. But this can happen in churches as well, especially among young men who don’t think the Boomers or X-Men are doing enough. (Trust me, I’ve been on both sides of the issue.) They may not be doing enough, but there is a way to approach it that is not the violence of an out-of-control, testosterone-filled mob attacking the leadership. You will be tempted to form bonds around perverted missions. Be careful. Be wise.
Men need relationships with other men; not to get away from the women, but to be and become better men so that we might fulfill our mission as men. We need man space, where women aren’t allowed, so that we can talk and do as men, not only for our sake, but for the sake of women. Introducing women into these man spaces (that is, where they participate and not just observe) changes the dynamic of all the relationships.
Introduce women into military units, and it is disorienting. The morale changes. Sexual tensions rise. Men become competitive over the woman/women. Men become distracted, instinctively trying to protect the woman and losing focus on the larger mission. Co-ed sports don’t allow males to use all their might to compete because we are afraid of hurting girls. The same is true in theological disputes. Men can be arguing back and forth with one just fine. When a woman enters the conversation, the dynamic changes. If we beat girls, well, we’ve beaten girls. As Jordan Peterson points out in his “Rule 11,” there is no honor to be had in men competing or fighting with women. If we are beaten, we lost to girls and we are dishonored by men. If we win, we’ve “beaten up on a girl,” and there is no honor in that. No matter how much girls want you to treat them as one of the guys, you can’t. Girls entering male space in this way weakens men. In these cases, girls should be standing on the sides, cheering the men on as they war (cheerleaders), and then they get to choose the best men … which is the common story of the head cheerleader dating the quarterback.
In today’s world, women want to invade men’s spaces. Feminism, with its false notions of equalism, purports that women should be able to enter into man’s space without there being any change in the dynamics because … well … men and women are just the same except for the plumbing. Culturally, women today want to enter into man’s space, and, when they do, a big deal is made out of what a trailblazer she is. It is not they have accomplished anything new, but they have “successfully” invaded male space and entered in on something that men have already accomplished. Women and feminist culture generally tend not to be passionate about these particular areas, whether it is being an astronaut or becoming a combat soldier, but that a particular woman is the first woman to enter this space. The accomplishment is not, for instance, that she went into space or became a part of a frontline military unit, but that she was the first woman to accomplish this in a man’s world. She’s not better than the men at it. She’s just a woman, who probably had standards of competence lowered for her so that the feminist gods of the culture could be propitiated.
As a culture, women want to be in men’s spaces, and, consequently, break or participate in those special bonds between men. For some (and this could include wives and girlfriends), it may be that they are jealous of the type of relationship they see a man having with other men. Because of the dynamic between men in these relationships, our personalities and the way we interact with other men is quite different than it is with women. We laugh, joke, and talk with one another in ways that we don’t with women. Some women see this and think or say, “Why can’t he be like that with me?” Women can become jealous, thinking those bonds belong exclusively to her and that you are cheating her out of them. The reality is that she can’t have this bond with you. Her bond with you is different and beautiful but it is not the same.
Then there is also another dynamic at work that involves hypergamy. Male friendships make men better; they bring out the best in men as well as sharpen them to become better men. When this happens, the man becomes a more high-value man. If he is accomplished and respected among other men, then he will be desired by other women. This is the starting quarterback, the guy who is lifting the most at the gym, the man who is running the business, the well-recognized theologian, et al. Competition anxiety sets in because women want men that other men respect. If her long-term provisioning is perceived to be threatened by his becoming a better man, then she will do what she can to break those bonds. She will try to enter that space with the excuse that we always need to do things as a couple or family, or she will try to keep you from the relationships by being the needy woman, just wanting to spend time with you. Whether at a conscious or subconscious level, women understand that good male friendships make men better. If there is any hypergamous insecurity in her that you will be tempted to leave her or that she is not the complete center of your world and attention, she will sabotage your male friendships.
But here is the deal: for godly men, these male friendships work to your advantage and to hers. As I mentioned, good male friendships make you a better man. Better men–godly men–are better husbands and fathers. For the sake of your wife or future wife, you need good male friendships. She needs to understand this. She will test you on this. She may think that if she is possessive of you and sabotages your friendships, keeping you around her all the time, orbiting around her, she will have what she wants. Both of you will discover that this isn’t the case. She will find you a weak, conquerable man, and she won’t respect you.
Another area in which male friendships help you is in the area of attractiveness to females, both before and after marriage. Women are attracted to high-value men, men that are a couple of points above their own perceived sexual market value. When you become a better man through your male friendships, you are becoming more attractive to her. In dating, this will mean that she will desire to be with you and will do whatever she must to stay with you. In marriage, it will mean more sexual desire for you. You are a desirable man; a man that other men respect and a man that other women want. Male friendships make you attractive to women in the long run.
This male bonding cannot be experienced between male and female, even in marriage. The marriage relationship is unique. Marriage can be characterized as a friendship (Song 5.16), but “friendship” is not univocal. Friendships take into account our created sexual differences. I can’t, nor do have the desire, to try to be fruitful and multiply with the men with whom I played football! The friendships are different. King David recognized this when speaking about his friendship with Jonathan. Jonathan’s love for David surpassed the love of women (2Sm 1.26). It was a different sort of love.
Men and women can’t be friends in the same way. This especially needs to be understood outside of marriage. You can’t be friends with a woman in the same way you can be friends with another man, no matter how much women tell you it can happen. Some women will tell you, “You don’t have to sexualize everything. We can be friends at a Platonic level in the same way you are friends with other men.” This lie is being told by the likes of Aimee Byrd, a “housewife theologian” and member of a Reformed denomination, who wrote a whole book on this entitled, Why Can’t We Be Friends? She along with others think that we need to stop sexualizing relationships. The glaring problem is that we are created as sexual beings, male and female. The other glaring problem is that women’s sexual drive is different and is stimulated in different ways than men. So, a woman will say naively that the relationship doesn’t have to be sexually charged. It can be intellectual. But her sex drive is not driven hormonally all the time the way a man’s is. Her drive is on a monthly cycle, being at its peak during ovulation. Man’s sex drive is on a cycle too: 24/7/365. The woman doesn’t understand that kind of drive, and, because she is viewing friendships from a female perspective and is probably surrounding herself with betas for whom she has little to no sexual attraction, she wonders why they just can’t be friends.
The classic discussion of this is in an older movie entitled When Harry Met Sally. In this clip, Harry explains why men and women can’t be friends. Whenever men and women start bonding, sex becomes involved somehow. Either the beta man who has been LJBF’d (let’s just be friends) believes that he is playing the long game and will eventually be attractive to this woman, or the two will bond and have sex (if he is perceived somehow to be in a position of power and desirable to her; i.e., an alpha. This is the reason that, as a pastor, I have a general rule of “no counseling women alone,” especially long-term. One-on-one women start seeing a strong provisioner in the counselor. She desires him because he is reaching her emotionally. She wants to secure him. She knows that sex is what he wants, and she has it. She will try to secure her provisioner through her sexual agency, the most powerful tool she has.) This is one reason why you can’t get into deep friendships with women. Those sexual dynamics are always, always, always at play. You even have to be careful around women to whom you are not immediately sexually attracted. You can still wind up having sex with a woman you never thought you would.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t be friends with women at some level. You can. But 1) they are not the same as male friendships, and, because of the sexual tensions 2) they must also be cordially distant (unless and until you are going to marry the woman).
The sexual dynamic doesn’t stop with the potential for sex. Because the sexes are different, the way we relate to men is fundamentally different than the way we relate to women. These dynamics are evident within male groups as opposed to female groups. Again, this goes back to our created purpose and, therefore, our orientations. Men are made from the dirt and oriented toward the world with a mission to guard and work. Good male friendships make us better at this because, when we get together, the reason we get together and the communication we have are oriented toward this mission. Some say that men get together to do, and women get together to talk. Men talk best while they are engaged in projects. Women simply like to talk. That can be taken in an extremely binary way and might not be helpful if we create hard-and-fast categories, but as general principles, we do see this. Men’s friendships and conversations tend to be shaped around some aspects of our masculine mission. For example, we are called to guard. Guarding requires strength. When men get together to lift or play sports, our relationships tend to thrive and grow in those environments. When we get together to talk, it is to challenge one another and make us better men.
As we do this, we communicate in a different way; a way that fem-centric society, with its emphasis on female communication being the truly human communication, looks down upon. I’m not saying that it is okay to violate biblical standards of speech with crude jesting and such. But there is a rough-and-tumble language that we can use with one another that is appropriate among men that is inappropriate around women and will be crass to them.
I remember spending time with my grandfather alone. He used all sorts of language around me and other men that he never used around my grandmother (at least not that I know of). He instinctively understood the differences. That “crude and crass” language was good for me and the other men; some funny, some instructive, some just because we were males.
As I told you in the last letter on communication, men prioritize information in communication without much regard for how it makes them feel. Women prioritize context over content; that is, how this is nurturing this relationship. Blunt, seemingly crude language gets the point across briefly and vividly, and men like brevity and clarity. Just because it isn’t appropriate to be said in front of women doesn’t mean that it is not appropriate in a context of men. Women’s communication styles among themselves or our communication with them are not the standard that must be held up as what is truly godly even when we are with other men.
I have watched on social media how this has played out and how men’s conversations have been neutered by women who enter their space and talk about how “mean” and “crass” and even sinful the language is. I have also watched a bunch of feminized men kowtow to these women and hold up the feminine standard for their own conversations. Social media, no matter how private a group may be, is not the place for men to have conversations … unless, like in the manosphere, the group is ready to be distracted by a bunch of male and female feminists. (If you do argue with a feminist Dalrock gives you some tips here.) That needs to be done in as private a forum as possible. I text and email with friends as well as talk to them on the phone or in person. When women enter into men’s spaces of conversation, they weaken masculinity or foment a war on masculinity, many times in the name of Christ himself. (By the way, if God through Ezekiel can use language about “donkey penises” not being able to satisfy his whore wife (Ezekiel 16) and Paul can talk about wishing the Judaizers would cut off all of their genitals (Galatians 5.12) to mixed audiences, I don’t think men speaking to one another among themselves using that sort of language is unbiblical. In fact, if this is masculine language–and it is–it seems that the masculine form of communication is primary in Scripture.)
So, you young men need male friendships. And those friendships need to contribute to your mission. A primary resource for young men in learning about friendships is the book of Proverbs. Read it. Digest it.
Your friendships need to be with men who encourage you in genuine masculinity, which, is to say, godly masculinity. This is why you cannot make friends with an angry man, lest you learn his ways and they become a snare to your soul (Pr 22.24). That is, your friends should not be hot-headed, controlled by anger. Unbridled, sinful anger motivates you to do stupid, sinful things. You need to walk with wise men (Pr 13.20). You need men who are strong and stronger than you in areas, who will challenge you physically and intellectually. These men may be your peers in some cases (and you do need peers), but you also need older friends; men who have been around the block many more times than you. This can be your father, but it doesn’t have to be exclusive.
I have had a good friendship with a pastor who is almost twenty years my senior for years. He is a dear friend. But he is not my equal. He is like a father to me. He is a man of consistent, strong character. He is uncompromising on the truth. He is humble and willing to be corrected, but if he knows something to be the truth, he stands for it and lives it. I’ve entrusted myself to him as a friend. I trust his counsel. For the last twenty years, he has helped me as a husband, father, and pastor. You need a friend like this.
I have peers as well, some closer than others. I have always tried to surround myself with men better than me in our common areas (which just happens to be primarily theological). Many of my peers are much smarter than me in certain areas. Yes, sometimes it is discouraging because I think, “Man, why can’t I know all of this.” But then I have to kick myself in my own arse and say, “Well, that’s why he’s your friend. This is calling you up. Making you better.” I have a number of acquaintances like this, but, I have one close peer friend. He is a few years younger than me, but in many areas, he is my intellectual superior. He is also a man of character. He practices what he preaches. I don’t want friends who lack character. He has improved my life greatly with his friendship. I can talk to him in ways I can’t talk to an older friend because he is my peer. It’s not right for me to call an older man down in the same way that I might call down my peer. I have to approach my superior differently. A peer I can talk to on the same level.
Then there are “inferiors,” friends younger than me, who look to me as I look to my mentor. Children are in that class of friends. As children grow, they grow more and more into friends, but there is still that distance that you have with any older friend. We need inferior friends as well; other men that are younger than us that we can help become better men.
All of these male relationships are to be iron sharpening iron, which probably deals primarily with male friendships. I just can’t see Solomon talking about a man sharpening the countenance of a woman as iron sharpens iron. You need to be a hard man. (Hey, keep it in context!) An ironman. (Cue the music.) But iron can be sharpened, which means it can be changed. But it can be changed only by something as hard or harder than itself. You can’t sharpen iron with cotton. You need someone as hard or harder than you, who will kick you when you need it, whose character and actions in themselves call you up to be a better man. If bad manners corrupt good morals (1Cor 15), then good manners will make you better. Like being in the weight room with a group of men yelling and screaming at you to get the lift, so you need men in character and action around you yelling and screaming at you (in some fashion) to make you better. You need a gang of some size that will encourage you in your mission. All of those friends that drag you down, if they are only going to be leeches, not contributing anything to your masculine mission, get rid of them; not to say that you never talk to them, but they can’t be your close friends.
Make good friends. Be a good friend. Be the man who makes other men better because of your presence. Surround yourself with men who will make you better.
For Christ’s Kingdom,
Pastor Smith
Wonderful, wonderful post. Thank you Pastor.