Banter and shared activities may be more beneficial for men’s mental health than opening up about their feelings, according to Professor Thomas Yarrow, who found that male friendships often thrive on humour
Banter is better than sharing feelings for men, a professor claims(Image: Getty Images)
Banter can be better for blokes than bleating on about their feelings, according to a human behaviour expert. Professor Thomas Yarrow reckons men can be better off mickey-taking with pals and skirting serious issues.
In some cases he believes sitting in silence could be more helpful than opening their hearts. The boffin, a senior lecturer in social anthropology at Durham University, said men can form strong bonds and friendships without baring their souls.
He said: “There’s a discourse about men opening up, and we think that real connection and real friendships are about sharing our innermost feelings and emotions. I had those assumptions myself – that repressed older men can’t talk about their feelings.
“But I slowly realised that it wasn’t that they couldn’t, but that they didn’t want to. That men, particularly older men, can find support and intimacy in forms of friendship that are not at all about those things – they’re centred on activities, doing things together, often in companionable silence.
“And that this isn’t bad or anachronistic, it’s just a different way of relating. The friendships I saw in the group, and made myself there, were…
“I hesitate to call it therapeutic, because that term is part of the problem. But they were supportive in a very unobtrusive way.
Banter can be better for blokes than bleating on about their feelings(Image: Getty Images/Image Source)
“I came to love that quiet companionship.” Yarrow, 48, rumbled the theory five years ago while going through a marriage breakdown.
He was aware of advice given to men that it was important for their mental health to open up to friends, talk about feelings and express emotions. Instead his saviour was chatting about welding, axles and engine parts to fellow train buffs at a Yorkshire steam railway group.
“It became my sanctuary,” he said. A study of his findings – called “Rethinking male friendship and the value of personal reticence” – will be published later this month in the journal American Ethnologist.
“I came to love that quiet companionship” (Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
It maps his analysis of the relationships between the railway volunteers – retired men from former industrial towns in the north-east – within the group of enthusiasts. His findings fly in the face of much accepted wisdom in mental health.
Repeated academic papers have claimed men not discussing their emotions is harmful and mental health charity Mind says they “must learn to talk about how they feel”.
But Yarrow’s railwaymen were unimpressed. One told him: “Let’s face it, we’re just not that into emotions.”
“It’s a paradox, you know” (Image: Getty Images)
Despite that Yarrow found the group full of warmth and care. He said: “A member became very ill.
“His friends saw his decline and were concerned but they didn’t talk about his feelings. He didn’t want to do that and they realised he didn’t want to.
“Instead he got a huge amount of support just from being with them.” His pals made tea, blitzed him with jokes and provided him with the ‘normality’ he wanted in what was a ‘deliberate ethic of care’ in which humour was key.
“It means you’re not poking or prying or assuming that people want to share everything”(Image: Getty Images)
“The point at which I felt I’d been accepted in the group was the point at which the banter got sort of harder,” he said.
He said male banter – the trading of mutual insults on which many male friendships rest – has become unfashionable.
But for those in the group it was a way of expressing trust. “It’s a paradox, you know,” he said.
“The harshness expresses the intimacy.” He said not talking much suited many men.
“It’s not an ‘unthinking’ not talking – it’s a conscious decision about what you share and what you withhold. Focusing on the interest you share is often the sensitive thing to do.
“It means you’re not poking or prying or assuming that people want to share everything. Because not everyone does.
“In all the talk about male mental health there’s an assumption that these relationships based on a shared activity are sort of pathological, or superficial, that the connection is less valid. That blinds us to the other ways people can share feelings without talking about emotions.
“The men are aware of these societal shifts and they’re quite critical of that confessional culture. Although they don’t talk about their own emotions they talk about not talking about them.
“And they’re quite happy the way they are.”
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