[aaren]

> because the entire point, unstated but present, throughout the article is that women have 'got it right' and men should be more like women .... true point of the article: slating the traditional male gender role.

That was not my reading at all and on re-reading I still can't see it.

Then Liz would let out a big theatrical groan that said, in essence, What kind of friendship is that?

I thought it was a great friendship, if I thought about it at all.

To me, this suggests that there is a model for male friendships that works perfectly well. I perceived the problem to be that not all men are good at implementing or maintaining this model, especially over distance.

The author acknowledges that the female model isn't necessarily the single optimal model:

At the same time, a wave of feminist sociologists and psychologists began describing female friendship, with all its confessional talk, as the optimal model. Many feminist thinkers now see those views as overly simplistic.

> ...before even bothering to prove if there's anything to actually get right in this situation

But there is something to get right! Not feeling lonely.

> Has anyone actually read the studies linked by the author to back up his drivel?

No. I skimmed over that bit and didn't feel it was actually necessary for the point of the article. The author spoke to me on a personal level, through a narrative that I can relate to. They didn't need to prove anything to me: speaking to my lived experience was more than enough to make me think.

[dgreensp]

The problem is that the only point of the article, besides telling a story, is to raise the question of whether the author is unsatisfied with (or sometimes merely insecure about) his friendships because men are bad at friendship compared to women. It doesn't make it better to present both sides and say "but who knows," it just makes it a worse article. Without any real facts or insight to talk about, attributing something you don't like about yourself to your gender is just psychological projection and spreads negative feelings towards men.

Imagine if a Dad wrote an article, "Do men suck at parenting?" that assessed men on what was essentially their ability to "mother." Or imagine if a male teacher wrote, "Do men suck at teaching?" or a female programmer wrote, "Do women suck at programming?" None of them motivated by a new study or based on anything but a personal anecdote. We'd all rightfully rise to the defense of men and women in general.