Hi there, can attest: have a childhood friend whom I’ve known for years, know surprisingly little about him. I think it might be a cultural thing, for men to not bond too deeply, which is a damn shame.

I stood up in my best friend’s wedding, and he took the photos at mine. I went in and covered for him when his wife started labor for their first child. I bailed him out of jail when we had a particularly wild night of drinking. We often have the same or very similar daily driver vehicles. I wrote him letters and post cards nearly every day when he was in basic training, and they were such a hit with his group, he asked me to write them all a letter. I’ve known him 18 years, could not with confidence tell you his age.

Is an outsider perspective allowed? I have 2 older brothers close in age. My oldest brother has very superficial relationships with his “friends”. In German, he would call these types of people “Bekannte” or “Leute mit denen ich rausgehe” (people I hang out with).

He is in general quite closed up and I can remember that he had a sharp change of heart when he was about 16. For a reason that he won’t disclose. When you ask him about anything that would need any type of reflection on his part it’s typically “I don’t know” and “Why do you ask?”. His friends are similar and when someone tries to talk about something more personal you can feel the awkwardness and it’s usually shortly discussed then brushed aside with a joke to change topics.

My other brother has actual friends. They buy each other gifts for their birthdays, call each other when something happened and they need advice or vent. Just “normal” stuff from my perspective.

Interesting things I’ve seen over the decades I studied them: In oldest brothers people-group the wives and girlfriends don’t really mix with their husbands/boyfriends. They mostly meet separately.

My older brother is much more irritated when my other brother asks him about personal stuff than when I do it.

I don’t think he talks with anyone about how he’s feeling, apart from his nervous breakdown each year on Christmas.

I’ve got a male friend getting married soon. He struggled to invite many of our other male friends as he didn’t know their surnames, addresses, or in some cases phone numbers. These are close long term friends.

He can however tell you a hundred stories about stupid stuff our friend Adam has done while drunk.

I just don’t think male conversation includes details or personal stuff often.

I don’t have any friends

A bit of hyperbole I think, though I know my friends much less than I would like and I wish I’d be more comfortable speaking openly with them and learning about their life.

Not sure if it’s a personal thing, a social thing, or both, but I just find that extremely easier with a partner and have huge difficulty doing otherwise.

Less than I would like to be honest.

I have a pretty close group of male friends from highschool that I would like to say I know pretty well. I moved away from our hometown in my early twenties 10 years ago so it’s hard to keep up with the lives, who they’re dating, etc. We have a group chat that’s mostly just memes and stuff but it gives us a chance to reach out.

I know what industry they work at, but if they switched to a different employer, I might only find out months or years later sometimes because we almost never talk about work outside of work unless someone asks for advice.

Birthdays are actually quite easy, every time I learn of someone’s birthday, I put it on an app called Birday and I get a notification two weeks before their birthday. Before that, I missed people’s birthdays regularly.

I know if they are single/have a partner/married, have kids or not, or are divorced, but I might not know if they have had an argument with their partner and are sleeping on the couch or something.

At the same time, I have a lot of personal things I don’t share with anyone, and I don’t expect them to share it with me. I just prefer it this way.

I don’t even know my best friends birthday.

If I was organized I’d have my friends birthdays. I know what my friends do but not specifics, I have a friend who’s a bartender and I know his schedule but not the name of the bar he works at. I have a friend who’s a packaging engineer and know some products he’s worked on but not the name of the company. I have a friend who had a girlfriend, now fiance, and I didn’t know her name for a long time. I had a friend who broke up and I didn’t know for months. Why? Nobody told me these things. And largely, I don’t ask, because both I don’t want to pry and I’m probably going to forget anyways. It goes the other way as well-I have a friend who vents a lot to me about his family and I know how his parents have hurt him far better than they do.

I know tons of my best friend of 24 years dirty laundry, his background and job, etc, but I’ve never met his gf of six months, and only incidentally seen his other friends. He has never met most of my friends, but he knows my gf and family well. I see his parents constantly.

I have a close friend group and several non related friends who I’d say I know a lot about and vise-versa. With the group, certainly some more than others.

When hanging out with people I often find the most satisfying activity is to just chill, talk, and get to know each other better; pick their brain to see how their views differ from mine or are the same. Often an easy thing to do when we’re low on energy too

You guys have friends?

I mostly know what they do for a living. I am not really sure how old they are or what are their birthdays. But it simply isnt relevant.

I had my bachelor’s party weekend last weekend, and my best man rented an airbnb. We were 9 guys and some of them did not know each other before. Doesnt matter, we had beer and a great time. I think, such details really dont matter, if not for small talk.