Me and the boiz - Writing male friendships

 

Oh my god, I can see that I will step into a hornest nest again, but here we go…

In the era of the internet I heard a lot about how men fail at writing women, their personality, their body, and when I looked at the examples I had to agree with the complaints. However, I have never heard about complaints about women writing men – which can be just as bad. 

I first met this issue in a play-by-post forum, when two girls played male characters and tried to depict their friendship. It was cutsie, warm and gentle, so the exact opposite of what I see when looking at the relationship between my male friends. Then Dar started reading a book, where a female author tried to depict what could happen when a bunch of men are stuck together for a few weeks, and also failed terribly from a whole other side. It seems that men’s mind is just as big of a mystery for women as the women mind of most men, so we are here to help in the matter.

This post tries to serve as a source for writers struggling with the topic, so I did a bit of research. Since I mostly see the friendship between Dar and his best friend--not a very representative sample--, I went to our other male friends and asked them what are they talking about among themselves. 

Here are the results:

They talk about women about 10% of time. At best. And even that is mostly about past mistakes they made (e.g. laying the wrong women), and the others bringing it up to tease one another. No, they don’t talk about huge tiddies constantly, if they see something very memorable they may mention it once. They also don’t talk about their cocks above the age of 15. 

I let all of you digest this for a moment: Not everything is about women. 

Okay, we got over this, so if not women, then what could they be talking about? Well, let’s look at some archetypes, described by our friends:

The philosopher: There is usually that guy in the party who is concerned about the future of our world, and they always feel the need to express this concern. They might believe in conspiracy theories (I’ve heard a lot and they have a whole lore, somehow it’s amazing and someone should definitely write a fantasy book based on them.), or they have strong religious and/or political views and they will talk about it if given the chance. Especially with the boys.

The merchant: This guy wants to go big. He will always have something to sell you, he knows about a good deal, he has a new startup idea or something like that. “Listen pal, if this is working we are going to be rich!” I’m sure you can name at least one person around you who fits this category. I personally know several, and they all speak like they are sharing the secret of success with the chosen few they call friends.

The sportsman/gamer: I put them into the same cathegory, because in this golden age of e-sports they are mostly the same. They want to talk about the latest match, their favorite team and the players in that team. They will invite you to watch the TV/stream together, they will have theories about who will win and why. From the medieval era’s knight’s tournament (or even battle strategies), through horse races to modern day’s football, soccer, baseball to the even more modern League of Legends All-Star it’s always present. It is considered a very masculine thing, although I don’t know why.

The one from Carthage: Dad jokes aren’t born along with the babies. They exist long before that, but we are usually spared from them. Or at least most of us, because I heard more puns from my male friends than from my father. This was the first thing my little group said, almost immediately. “Puns! We are talking about puns!” 

The memelord: I don’t know how widespread this cathegory is, but in my circle everybody likes sharing and talking about (and sometimes in) memes. I happen to like them as well, and recently it turned out that a female coworker of mine also loves them, so it’s possible it’s a unisex thing, but I’ve never talked about memes with my girl friends.

Of course, there are many other things like the omnipresent menace of work, recent events in someone’s life, movies, games, Civilization VI strategies, so just normal things. But from the cathegories above one could write a team with 4-5 members who are all very different from each other, and giving them some extras could lead to amazing characters. 

And just to be authentic, while I’m writing this, there is a big party going on in the flat next to mine, and from the shouting I think they were playing something, and now they have a debate over another thing… You know, male friendship things.