If today you found yourself in the mood to go bear hunting in Michigan’s upper peninsula, do you have a guy for that? I mean, who’s your bear guy? You at least ought to have a hunting guy. If not a hunting guy, you definitely must have an outdoorsy guy.
In fact, you need a guy for all sorts of things. Odds are you’re the guy for a few things yourself- are you the suit guy? The Latin guy? The cocktails guy? Well, that’s me; so if you need a guy for that, drop a message.
Every guy needs a guy for stuff he can’t do. I can call back to my previous article about the film Master and Commander, which takes place on a three-masted sailing warship. Captain Aubrey? He’s the authority and clever plan guy. Dr. Maturin is the miracle cures and science guy. Mr. Allen is the sailing technicals guy. Mr. Lamb is the ship repair guy. Killick is the Galapagos-shaped puddings guy. You get the picture. This is the Guy For That Ecosystem at work.
I heard a podcast on Art of Manliness this week which featured Brett McKay (the masculinity influencer guy) and UCLA academic Dr. Jaimie Krems discussing friendship. Specifically, they talked about the differences between male and female friendship. Dr. Krems’ work, she admits, focuses on female friendship, so their discussion about male friendship takes a via negativa approach. In the course of the conversation, she pointed out this Ecosystem as if it was an amazing discovery.
I find the deconstruction of friendship by tenuously relating aspects of it to evolution a little unnecessary. Most of Dr. Krems’ good points about the way men and women make and maintain friendships are simple observations. I’m not sure it is possible to ‘get to the bottom of this friendship business’ by studying it. I didn’t get the sense that her approach really uncovered anything new about friendship.
What is helpful about the episode, if also quite amusing, is that the discussion reveals just how men and women don’t get one another's friendships. It seems like men look at women's friendships and scratch their head misunderstanding (and often, entirely missing) the subtle verbal and non-verbal cues, the totally not subtle shit-talk, the unspoken competition, the intense emotional feeling, and the comparatively low number of female friendships.
Women conversely look at male friendships with a sense of awe at the breadth and facility of them. Today’s men are aware of that. You hear guys saying “dudes rock”, hyping each other up, basking in the glories of being a dude. You probably do it too- I certainly do.
The easy explanation, which the podcast covers, is the ‘warband’ theory, again theoretically rooted in evolution but also obvious with any casual observation. This is the HMS Surprise model- men need one another to bind together to be useful in war, or at least in hunting. It doesn’t take science to see it.
Dr. Krems notes that men find one another useful and tend to keep friends for a specific purpose. I find this point more significant for modern life. I must cite my long and illustrious experience of male friendship by revealing that she has named nothing more than the Great ‘Guy For That’ Ecosystem.
These are your ‘guys for that’ I was describing in the intro. Every dude needs to be hooked into this Ecosystem. It’s a symbiotic network of men who all vary in skill, in aptitude, and in interest, who support one another with their various specialties.
At a macro level, this is the bedrock of business. If you’re starting a company and you need to get goods from point a to point b, you call a trucking company. The contact is your logistics guy. He gets your stuff around, so you keep up a relationship. You might ask about his life once in a while but generally, you do your business and you get off the phone. Easy.
Go one step further in, you have your social group. These are guys you might go out with once in a while, or do a specific activity with. They’re your hobby friends. The ‘guy for that’ they embody is enjoyment, common interest, more surface-level things like that. In this tier I’d also include your barber and your lawyer. Those guys should be kept a little closer.
But that is the part that everyone sees, but ‘guy for that’ system extends deeper. There is yet a hidden iceberg under that glacier of mutual service. This is the part that was perhaps missed on the podcast which I feel compelled to remark on.
It was suggested that women tend to have deep, emotional friendships and that this model is ‘imposed’ on modern men in a sort of ‘Longhouse Theory’ way, as if a feminine mode of relationship has been normalized for all people instead of just for women. I find that a bit naive.
It’s important to recognize that as the distinctions between the sexes become muddied in this gender-bending obsessed era, the reactions to define the masculine and feminine are in danger of overcorrecting.
Just because men apparently maintain more ‘useful’ friendships doesn’t mean their friendships are any more or less emotional. There is in the masculine half of society, a bubbling culture of brotherly support and ‘thugging it out’ which a lot of guys take for granted and never mention to the fairer sex.
I’ve got a guy for that when I need support on serious personal problems. I’ve got a guy for that who I call when I need to discuss serious spiritual matters. I’ve got a guy for that when I need to bare my emotions and discuss matters of the heart. I get the sense that many men don’t have this, but just as many, maybe more men, do.
This is the sort of deep, abiding friendship Aristotle puts in his inner circle. This is the sort of companion who Cicero called in De Amicitia a “second self”.
I don’t seek to equivocate male and female friendships, but I do want to manage expectations that the differences between the two should be so stark. Gendered friendships will be different as much as men and women are different. Deep, heart to heart friendships are necessary for both men and women to share with their peers.
In all, I thought the discussion on the episode was at least thought provoking even if it didn’t offer any staggeringly insight. If anything, the overly scientific approach of UCLA reveals that you need to learn about friendship by just experiencing it.
If you don’t have friends, start with interest groups- church, a hobby, a club, a service organization. Find somewhere doing something you like, and there you’ll find kindred hearts. Don’t spend time deconstructing the experience. Just live it, feel it, and share it.
Men, tap yourselves into the Guy For That Ecosystem. We dudes love to feel needed and effective. We work best in numbers. You support yourself and others by pursuing what you’re good at and sharing it. Tap into this network. You might find yourself enjoying an especially deep bond with one of your Guys For That- maybe he’s set to become a closer friend than you expected. Some people might not understand; that just means they aren’t the guy for that.