“Closing” and the “epidemic of loneliness” plaguing male friendship
Are the men okay? In all likelihood, they will never tell you.
Only 21% of men report receiving emotional support from a friend in the past week, compared to 41% of women, according to a 2021 survey from the Survey Center on American Life. Similarly, only 25% of men say they’ve said “I love you” to a friend recently, compared to 49% of women.
It’s part of an “epidemic of loneliness” director Lukas Dhont says he wants to explore in his new drama “Close” (now in theaters nationwide), which is Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Language Film and follows two inseparable teenagers.
“We live in this society that tells young men that there are things we value more than tenderness and vulnerability,” Dhont says. “We’re teaching young men to stop caring about genuine relationships and (to be) more distant with emotions. It’s an incredibly brutal thing.”
What is “Close”?
“Close” begins with Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav De Waele) on summer vacation: running, cycling and napping together in the idyllic Belgian countryside. They think nothing of their close bond — sharing beds at sleepovers or resting their heads on each other’s shoulders — until they return to college, where they are teased and called homophobic slurs by their classmates. class. Embarrassed, Leo begins to avoid Rémi and joins a hockey team. Rémi, meanwhile, becomes deeply depressed.
Dhont was inspired to make the film after reading psychologist Niobe Way’s 2013 nonfiction book “Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendship and the Crisis of Connection.”
“When Niobe (interviewed) all these 13-year-old boys, she realized how lovingly they spoke to each other,” Dhont says. “I really connected to that. I was also a young boy who felt the power of friendship, but then started to fear intimacy as I went through puberty. It was something I always thought of it as very related to me being queer. I realized after (Way’s) research that it wasn’t about me being queer, it was about me being a man.”
How we think boys should behave
Society’s general unease with close male friendship is rooted in outdated ideas of gender and masculinity.
“From an early age, women are socialized to be more nurturing and relationship-oriented than men, who are often taught to view intimacy as feminine or weak,” says Daniel Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life. “There are all kinds of societal norms that lead men and women in very different directions when it comes to friendship, what function it serves, and what to expect from a friend.”
Part of the problem is that young men are encouraged to form “shoulder-to-shoulder friendships” in team sports or group activities, rather than individual relationships.
“Girls and women tend to feel more comfortable in face-to-face interactions,” says Dr. Geoffrey Greif, a professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Social Work. “Some parents might say that if they watch their (boys) play a lot of sports and compete with another guy, that may be more typical. Whereas if they see them having long private chats, that would tend to go to against gender expectations.
Homophobia creates ‘deep stigma’ around male friendship
Although the parents of “Close” do not wink at Leo and Rémi’s friendship, other students make fun of them for kissing and sitting together.
“We’re conditioned to view that closeness as something sexual,” Dhont says. “We’re so unused to seeing this intimacy in a platonic way that we immediately sexualize it.”
Nick Fager, mental health counselor and co-founder of Expansive Therapy, attributes these fears of male intimacy to a pervasive, often unconscious homophobia.
“Romantic friendship between boys is generally allowed up to a certain age in our culture, but homophobia sets in and creates a deep stigma around boys who love each other,” Fager says. “The boys must then make a choice between staying with the tribe and surviving, or keeping their hearts open to their friends and being driven out.”
Young men need to see that vulnerability is OK
According to the Survey Center on American Life, the number of people who report having no close friends has quadrupled since 1990. Young men, in particular, are 12% more likely than women to rely on their parents for personal support, instead of reaching out to a friend.
But close friendships are paramount to our mental and physical health: A study published by the journal Psychological Science in 2018 found that boys who spent more time with their friends in childhood had lower obesity and lower blood pressure in childhood. ‘adulthood.
“Research indicates that people with good social networks live longer, happier and healthier lives,” says Greif. “If you feel like you can’t ask for support from a friend, you’re going to experience greater social isolation.”
As a father himself, Cox says he tries to model meaningful friendships with his two sons, showing them that “it doesn’t have to be all superficial: you can talk about deep and important things, and not worry about anything. ‘to be mocked.’
Hollywood “bromantic” comedies also tend to poke fun at male friendship, rather than give it the weight it deserves. But movies like “Close” can help show young men — gay and straight — positive examples of male intimacy.
“They need to have role models and actually see men being vulnerable with each other,” Fager says. “If there is no example around them of male love and vulnerability, and they are simply told that intimate friendship with men is healthy and normal, the message will not stick and the hurt will continue.”
USA Today
