In the modern world, the stereotypical ideas about the female team that prevailed just a few centuries ago have long been blurred. But if much attention has been paid to communication between girls, close relationships between men continue to be condemned or maintain a taboo on the expression of emotions. This is due to the historical context and lack of knowledge in the field of psychology.
Unbreakable shackles of the past
In ancient times, the psychology of relationships between men was considered special. Such communication was considered ideal, arising at the mental level. At the same time, historians also emphasize spiritual closeness and communication without words. Strong friendship was compared to a high relationship that goes beyond the usual understanding, and was placed one step higher than marital love for a woman. The Hellenes believed that girls were not able to fully understand people of the opposite sex, which is why such a union was mentally considered inferior.
Aristotle and other philosophers extolled the virtues of platonic feelings—an emotional connection without sexual intimacy. The Greeks considered relationships between men”>relationships between men to be almost ideal.
During this period, the idea of heroic friendship was formed. It meant an intense emotional or intellectual union between people of the same sex. Examples of this type of relationship are recorded in many texts, ranging from the Bible (David and Jonathan) to ancient Greek legends.
The strong male friendship is reflected in the colossal level of understanding between Achilles and Patroclus. They fought together in the Trojan War and had a truly close relationship. When Hector killed Patroclus, Achilles was beside himself with grief for several days. He smeared his body with ashes and completely refused to take any food into his chambers. After the funeral, the warrior, filled with powerful rage, took to the battlefield to avenge the death of his best friend.
The image of Achilles and Patroclus occupied an important place in history. When Alexander the Great and his comrade Hephaestion passed through Troy, their army stopped in front of the tomb of two heroes of legend, showing respect for the unbreakable spiritual connection.
Split: changes of heart
There are several reasons that explain the tenderness in relationships between men in the past.
First, there was no discrimination based on sexual orientation. The stigmatization of homosexuality took place at the legislative level, but did not set strict limits on the expression of emotions among the population. Tender feelings were not considered a mandatory attribute of a sexual relationship. Even the concept of same-sex sex and partnership was absent, as they were hidden behind a metaphorical “crime that cannot be spoken of.”
It was only at the beginning of the 19th century that psychologists began studying people with same-sex attractions. The changes that came had a negative impact on the freedom of men, as they caused embarrassment and a feeling of awkwardness. The government and the media also influenced the change of views. Now, when meeting a faithful friend, they did not hug him, but at most gave him a pat on the back.
In the past, emotional friendships between men had objective reasons. The social structure of society was strict; women were not allowed to show warmth towards the opposite sex. Occasionally it was possible to talk with a girl at dances, receptions, or, if there was permission from one of her relatives, the young people went somewhere together. Interaction between the two sexes was reduced to a minimum until the lovers announced their engagement. Separation has led many young men to fulfill their need for emotional expression with other guys. After all, a person always remains a person; he needs close, open communication, support and tenderness. This desire has nothing to do with sexual needs.
In addition, “brotherly” companies began to appear in America. They were like small communities where men gathered: they discussed hobbies, shared impressions of a book they had read, or provided emotional support. Mostly, meetings of such companies took place in secluded houses, where they could not be interrupted by an unexpected visit from a random passerby.
Friendship and relationships between people in childhood
From about 3 years old, a child makes his first friends. These are children who are fun to play with and know how to communicate.
Friendships between children are easy to form and can quickly break down if communication is not continued, for example, when a friend is transferred to another kindergarten group. There are a lot of quarrels in children's friendship, but often the very next day little friends quickly forget about the insults and are happy to see each other again.
At this stage, it is important that the child learns to make acquaintances, enter into dialogue and play, and understands what not to do in relation to a friend.
When a child goes to school, he usually finds friends at school or in sections and circles. Often, the majority of children in the class want to be friends with the leaders, the excellent students. Friendly flocks are formed. Friends can change often.
By about the age of 10, several true friends are made. The child begins to understand that it is important to be friends not with someone who is just fun, but with someone who will come to the rescue and will not betray you, with whom you can share secrets.
In adolescence, self-affirmation and self-identification come to the fore. A friend is a person who understands you, to whom you can open up. At this age, children strive for recognition, and some insecure teenagers can even go to the extent of humiliation, do something to please their friends, just to be “in the pack.”
At high school age, friendship and relationships with peers become more important than parents for many, because adults often do not understand their children. Mental closeness, the ability to listen and support become important.
Student friendships are very strong when young people are far from home, living together in a dormitory, experiencing the first difficulties, joys and sorrows of adult life.
This is where lifelong friendships are often formed.
Formation of modern representation
The difficult events of the 20th century did not bypass the warm relations between men, which changed to cool and distant. Restraint began to be consolidated at the legislative level. Accusations of homosexuality reached the point of absurdity. Testimonies were given by third parties who only assumed an intimate relationship between two people, but did not have proper evidence. The once free society was brought into fear.
It now seemed wrong for young people to hug when meeting, or to demonstrate any physical contact. In many countries, same-sex relationships were condemned, often resulting in arrest. This was explained by the fact that intimate relationships were considered contrary to biblical covenants, homosexuality was considered a disease, a form of deviant behavior.
The Industrial Revolution and ideas such as Social Darwinism changed people's views. It has become “unfashionable” to sympathize, help, and show respect. This means that the opportunity to find a potential colleague or friend has dropped to almost zero. The man’s goal was to win in everything; his comrades suddenly turned into competitors who needed to be bypassed in order to take the best place in the sun. Of course, this does not mean that men have stopped being friends. But warm relations between people have lost the status of a social norm.
Detachment and cynicism have become commonplace. With the increase in the level of mobility in the 20th century, the search for one's own benefit came to the fore, and friendly relationships became unimportant. It's hard to find a true friend when you have to compete with each other and make sure that the job is done better than everyone else.
Influenced relationships between men and technological progress. People began to have more free time, and after industrialization, the male category of the population began to play sports more often and take part in outdoor activities. Then new opportunities for communication appeared: golf courses, the front yard and a team workspace. The usual emotionality and attachment to another person was now built not on a mental union, but within the framework of professional activity.
The Second World War
Coldness spread across the world like a plague, leaving only the battlefields untouched, where no one could remain indifferent. Battles claimed lives every day, so the relationships between men at the front formed strong and emotional. Mostly representatives of the stronger sex took part in hostilities, which created a real male brotherhood. The soldiers never left their friends and were ready to die to save them.
In the 19th century, special organizations were created to provide psychological assistance to all participants in hostilities. Even the support of friends could not compensate for the monstrous psychological stress that the front-line soldiers faced. The experience changed people, distorted ideas about normal and abnormal. The men who came back from the war found it difficult to fit into the new life.
Spend all your weekends and holidays together
Groups of friends meet in the evenings or on weekends. When you meet your friend, do you spend time alone or in a large group? Weekends and holidays are a time of leisure and happy moments. If you're both dating and spending a lot of time with each other, it's obvious that this is the type of company you enjoy.
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Types of relationships
Friendship is an important part of life. It's nice to have people around whom you can rely on in difficult times if your own strength is gone. The modern idea of friendship between men is multifaceted. Friends support each other, give gifts, spend time together. It would seem that everything is the same as in the old days. However, in fact, the concept has undergone colossal historical changes.
At the moment, there are three types of relationships: business, friendship and close friendship. It is advisable to consider each of them separately.
The priority in a relationship is sex.
Since now men set the rules of relationships, and women follow them, no matter how dishonest they may be, the main male priority in relationships is sex, therefore friendship is a stigma and one must run away from it. And people have become so convinced of this that relationships should begin with sex that they even came up with, as it were, a logical justification for all this.
They justify this by saying (and many sincerely believe in this): “We need to check whether everything is all right with him and whether he is good in bed, otherwise it will suddenly turn out that he is a complete layman.” And this is despite the fact that any sex therapist will tell you that anyone can learn great sex, even with the most minimal knowledge, if only they have the desire to learn.
And what do you want to discover there that you don’t know about? All these misconceptions stem from only one thing – sexual illiteracy.
And so, today, starting a relationship with friendship is rare only for the reason that men have begun to set the vector for the development of relationships, and for them, being a girl’s friend is a real stigma that they are afraid of.
But what kind of friendship am I talking about? What kind of friendship do I recommend starting a serious relationship with? Is this really a guy using a girl and vice versa?
Friendship
When it comes to friendship, modern relationships between men are built without any strict framework. There are many exciting things that are more fun to do in company. Such a pastime does not imply deep emotional attachment. People just know each other and treat each other well. They are unlikely to make sacrifices or reveal their souls to their friends, but this is not required.
At the same time, good friends can share their problems, get advice and support.
Friendship and friendly relations: why, how, with whom?
Film "The Godfather"
Don Corleone, I ask for your friendship!
Each of us needs friends, everyone values friendly relationships, but in science the phenomenon of “friendship” and “friendly relationships” has not yet been studied well. It was perhaps best analyzed by Igor Semenovich Kon, who even wrote a book called “Friendship.” It came out back in the 70s.
Generally speaking, friendship is a “non-sex marriage.” In the sense that people do not marry each other, but all other relationships, minus sexual ones, remain with them. This is help, support, devotion, interest in each other, spending time together. Moreover, in marriage there is more of this, but in friendship it is often more interesting and better. Friendship is the satisfaction of our needs for participation, support, and sharing our impressions.
Buddies. Artist Makovsky K.E. 1895.
Friendly relationships can be between people who are close or not, friends and acquaintances. Or there may not be any between them. Different people put different meanings into the word Friends and Friend. Friends should not be confused only with buddies. Buddies are people you can have fun with, but nothing more. They differ from friends in that you can ask friends for help in difficult times, but not friends. The right people are needed, useful contacts are useful, but this is not at all the same as friends. A separate conversation about what a True Friend is as opposed to just a Friend. One thing is certain: good friends go to those who know how to be a good friend themselves.
We usually make friends with those who satisfy our needs - and whose needs we satisfy ourselves. Children have their own children's needs and their own characteristics of children's friendship. For children in friendship, your Property is interesting, the Toy is interesting, the Feeding Trough is pleasant, a Faithful Warrior is needed, someday the Fool-doormat will come in handy... In children's friendship, everything is usually simple, open and clear. Childhood passes, some needs go away, some remain, but the needs of the so-called psychotherapeutic group turn out to be almost universal for a huge part of people: Hot water bottle, Vzgrelka, Toilet bowl, Golden mirror...
For most people, their friendship answers the question “Why”: they are friends because..., however, more conscious people are friends “In order”, their friendship has meaning and purpose. Looking at friendship from this point of view, we can say that there are correct, promising and unnecessary friendships.
Friends are needed. The absence of a friend or friendship with anyone at all usually indicates personal trouble and creates the preconditions for personal trouble. However, circle of friends is a question of both quantity and quality of friends. Choosing friends is the most important task in life, on which a lot depends on everyone’s fate. "Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are." Cm.
Friendship between a man and a woman
Friendship between a man and a woman is possible, but very often a man next to a woman only pretends to be her friend, having completely different views on her. If you love each other, then learn to be friends. It is difficult to say that people love each other if the relationship between them cannot be called friendly. Good friendship is the basis of true love.
If you are friends, then think twice before introducing love and sex into your relationship. The traditional idea of friendship excludes the expression of sexual attraction, and in our culture introducing love and sexual relationships into friendships is a dangerous thing. See Love and Friendship
Female friendship
Film "What Women Want"
Here the respected leader makes excuses and begs. It is not right.
It is a myth that there can be no friendship between women. Female friendship is no different from friendship in general, but it has two features. Firstly, it is typical for women to discuss their problems a lot and in detail - much more and in detail than men do. Men more often live with tasks and affairs, women live more with problems and experiences. And the second feature: there is an age when friendship between women is truly impossible. Little girls can be friends with each other. Adult married women can be friends with each other when their family situation is stable.
But if the girls do not yet have their own permanent partners, if the possibility of competition for the same man remains, in this case there can only be a temporary alliance between the girls, but not real friendship. If a man who both likes comes between women, female friendship usually cannot stand this.
Friends and money
How to resolve money issues with friends? Can I use friends? Article by T.V. Gagina Friends and money
Friendships at work
Friendships at work are wonderful in a good team and very dangerous in a company where people are not in the mood for work. Especially in such companies, the established friendly relations between the manager and key employees are dangerous: this allows employees to ignore the manager’s demands, treating them not as the requirements of the manager, but as the wishes of a friend, which they can laugh at in a friendly manner, comment arbitrarily and essentially ignore . Watch a fragment from the film “What Women Want”: Nick Marshall is the head of the advertising department, the head of the company promised him the position of creative director, but in a situation where he needed to promote advertising for women, he decides to take a talented woman, Darcy McGuire, to the position of creative director. It would seem that it would be difficult to inform an employee of management’s decision. But if Nick is a friend, then this task turns out to be a real test...
Relationship: what's good?
The strict framework of the modern world has led to the fact that men can freely establish close and intimate relationships with women, but not with representatives of the same sex. Such a refusal to express emotions negatively affects a person’s general condition. Research shows that men who have a few friends they can trust completely tend to be happier and live longer than those who have no friends.
And yet, social pressure forces most young people to refuse close emotional contact with members of their own sex. The critical factor is that by creating a family, a man needs friends less, and much more important responsibilities - raising children - will come to the fore.
Male friendship is often associated with three concepts:
- Devotion. This is probably due to the desire to overcome obstacles collectively, not forgetting to help a friend.
- Unbiased. In modern society, men do not judge guys by their appearance. It is assumed that members of the stronger sex should be judged only by their actions - worthy or not.
- Immediacy. Men aren't really that reserved. They also need to throw out their emotions, discuss the problem without holding back. It is unlikely that you will be able to openly express your feelings with a woman, but with a friend you can be completely frank.
It should be noted that the listed signs are also typical for the female half of the globe. It all depends on traditions and upbringing. T
So, let's summarize. Male relationships are multifaceted and have gone through a number of changes since ancient times until they acquired their modern form - restrained and unemotional. This is also expressed in books about relationships between men. It is unlikely that a modern author will describe friendship in the same way as Homer or Thomas Malory. True, the psychological aspect of such closeness from the world is negative, since it puts a person in a difficult position and forces him to remain silent about his experiences and his own problems.
We often wonder how to define the line between “friendship” and partnership. Where does it begin and end... It turns out that the question is quite complex. One thing is for sure - we try not to mix personal friendship and work. Of course, relationships with long-time business partners can develop into more friendly ones. But during working hours they are kept in a businesslike manner.
Our experience shows that a more friendly, personal relationship between partners is determined by the frequency and quality of communication. While working on numerous projects, people begin to communicate, which means getting to know each other better.
What are the benefits of such a friendship? The main undeniable advantage is that you begin to understand your partner better. Those goals and tasks that he faces. The peculiarities of its conduct do not mix business and business. And this, in turn, can become the basis for further fruitful cooperation and even joint projects.
According to one study conducted in the UK, the tendency to mix business and informal relationships has an impact on management's ability to manage people. The study involved 60 managers of small and medium-sized businesses and their staff. Consulting firm Kuhnke Communications, which conducted the survey, found that nearly 77 percent of top managers spend time with their employees “outside of work,” and 37 percent do so on a regular basis. A quarter of respondents answered that they have friends among their colleagues, and 15% have friends among their subordinates. Three-fifths of respondents admit that they often find informal relationships difficult, while more than half of managers say that personal relationships often make them unable to give impartial feedback on the work of subordinates. Three out of ten experience this problem all the time.
Elizabeth Kuhnke, founder of Kuhnke Communications, Fr.
According to her, it is very important to be able to be friendly without involving in the personal lives of employees, and also to give feedback on an ongoing basis, and not just when someone makes a mistake.
The main undeniable advantage is that you begin to understand your partner better. Those goals and tasks that he faces. Features of his business. And this, in turn, can become the basis for further fruitful cooperation and even joint projects
“This will help you feel more confident when you give someone constructive criticism. Never bring your personal relationships into the discussion. It's easy to give and receive feedback when you know it's only about the work and not about the individual,” says Elizabeth.
All this is confirmed by the opinion of the staff.
Nine out of ten employees surveyed believe that the most valuable behavior for managers is to be focused on the business while maintaining the ability to understand employees' personal problems when needed. 86% of employees believe that being focused on business tasks is a win-win position for both parties.
There are, in our opinion, moments in which friendly relations in business will do more harm than good.
So, this may be the only case when friendly relations determine business ones. The optimal balance between personal and business relationships lies, it seems to us, in the professionalism of the parties, as well as banal upbringing.
Of course, we are all human, and while maintaining working contacts, of course, it is necessary first of all to establish human contacts.
Friendships can arise in the place of pre-existing relationships thanks to your goodwill, responsiveness and sincerity.
According to Kate Ferazzi, the basis for creating close relationships are four basic human qualities:
- Generosity. It is the desire to help others achieve their goals, no matter the cost.
- Frankness. This means getting rid of mistrust and wariness and allowing mutual understanding into the relationship.
- Openness. This means not being afraid to be honest with those you trust.
- Responsibility. It is following through on your promises to other people.
You choose how you build your business. But be that as it may, we should all try to conduct business relationships without denying human ones. Sometimes, to make allowances for some shortcomings, sometimes it’s just humane to understand. But at the same time, even if you become very close friends, do not mix personal and work .
The professional advertising technology center ProCent is always open to cooperation, let’s make the BTL area interesting and professional together.”
