AUDIO: SURVEY SAYS MEN HAVE NO FRIENDS
A new survey conducted by the Survey Center on American Life finds that the number of close friends Americans have has plummeted. The news is particularly bad for men:
– The percentage of men with at least six close friends fell by half since 1990, from 55 percent to 27 percent.
– The percentage of men without any close friends jumped from 3 percent to 15 percent.
– Single men fare the worst. One in five American men who are unmarried and not in a romantic relationship report not having any close friends.
– Not only do men have smaller friendship circles, they report being less emotionally connected to the friends they do have.
Research shows that “women tend to invest more in maintaining their friendships” than men do. Psychotherapist and author Robert Garfield notes that “many guys say they contact their best friends every two or three years and (say) ‘we just pick up where we left off.'” But in the intervening years, men deny themselves the benefit that more regular contact could provide.
* You mean all those beer commercials are lies? I’m shocked.
* Like I’m going to tell my best friend about all the embarrassing things in my life. When I already talk about them on the air to thousands of people every day.
* Do you want to know why men don’t confide in each other? Because you can tell another guy that you’re lonely or depressed or that you miss your mother or some TV movie made you cry… but that’s not gonna get you laid.
* Anyway, guy friends are a lot of trouble:
– They always want to borrow your stuff.
– They always want to tell you how you’re doing stuff wrong: Cooking on the grill, doing home repairs, working on your car …
– They think it’s fun to trade jokey insults about gaining weight, losing your hair …
– The beer they like sucks.
CLIP: Our “Phoney Friend” parody spot.
