[evolve2017]

I agree with you in part - I find the biological explanations very unsatisfying given the many peculiar things we are socialized to do (proms, engagement proposals, baby showers, amongst many others, likely do not find their origins in our genes).

An analogy I thought of while reading this was that of a broken random number generator function. We're more likely to assess the software/environment in which the code is running than to blame the underlying computer.

This doesn't change my overall conclusions, but I think the role of work colleagues in personal friendships is field-dependent, and even then, workplace dependent. In my industry, some work groups spend inordinate amounts of time together, whereas I would rather go home at the end of a work day. These differences don't map cleanly to gender composition.

[Mz]

To be clearer about what I mean, this is something I wrote recently:

http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/07/public-priva...

I wrestle a lot with such questions.

[bjt]

This conclusion seemed particularly insightful: "Where men need to prove they are good and caring people who aren't merely using you, I need to prove this is a formal, public sphere relationship, not a private and personal one. "

It reminds me of something one of my professors, a black man, said about how he decides to dress. He felt like he had to start with the assumption that many people would be afraid of him if he were dressed casually, so he compensates by dressing a bit more smartly than even the average professor.