|
November
Male Bonding
Tom Matlack asked guys what makes them feel
connected to other men. The good news? Not a single
man said “chest bumps.”
One of the reasons we started The Good Men
Project was to help guys talk about the things they
don’t normally talk about. In that pursuit,
here are men talking (in print, for the world to
see) about what makes them feel most connected to
other men. Guys, there may be hope for us
yet…
Nude yoga. - Daniel, writer
Men prefer not to call it “male
bonding.” We can’t call it “man
time,” either, because that just sounds…
questionable. Either way, it’s usually
something involving little-to-no speech and a good
amount of physical exertion. Your mind might
immediately go to sports, but I’d say
lumberjacking or drinking. Absinthe makes the heart
grow fonder. Oddly enough, the guy friends I still
have today are the ones I used to go behind my
house with so we could shoot each other with
airsoft pistols at close range. The friends that
bleed together stay together. - Seth Palmer,
television producer
I’ve read so many stories about men who
could only communicate with their fathers when the
subject of conversation was baseball (or football,
or basketball, or golf), and it’s gotten to
the point where these stories make me sad.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with
talking to one’s father or to other men about
sports. At best, our games give us glimpses of
perfection and provide great entertainment. But
these guys for whom games and the discussion of
them are all—even when they maintain that when
they’re talking about sports, they’re
really talking about matters more profound and
significant—these guys ought to get out
more… which probably means they should more
frequently walk away from their television sets. -
Bill Littlefield, Host of “Only A
Game”
I choose to bond with men when there is a
vehicle and a long road trip ahead. Guys are most
comfortable speaking when they’re looking
straight ahead (not at each other) and don’t
really have an excuse to escape. My most serious
conversations with all men—my Dad being the
most influential—happen in the car. It’s
partly why I think guys like cars so fucking much.
- Dylan Leonard Brown, executive assistant
Vegas. - Matt Villano, writer.
I can’t believe I’m writing this, but
back in the days of communal life at school,
“poo dollar” was a game played by
adolescent males, where a dollar bill is smeared
with excrement and placed on the sidewalk for an
unfortunate person to pick up. I got to admit that
I’ve never laughed so hard with friends in my
entire life. And I’d love to think that
I’ve outgrown such humor, but 20-plus years
later a friend emailed me, knowing that I’m
working in London for a month, to find out if the
kids here “poo pound.” We still found it
incredibly funny. - Joe Schrank, interventionist
and sobriety coach
As a gay man, I’ve had the best bonding
experiences of my life in electronic superstores.
No matter what you are—gay, straight, bi,
transgendered—most guys love electronics.
Stick a bunch of men in an electronic superstore
and the discussions and debates about plasma vs.
LCD vs. 1080P vs. 1080i vs. Sony vs. Samsung vs.
7.1 surround sound vs. 5.1 surround sound vs.
Blu-ray vs. 3-D is truly extraordinary. It always
brings a smile to my face when a bunch of guys (gay
and straight) can literally bond over a piece of
electronic machinery. - Stafford Arima, theater
director
Primal screaming. My best friend from middle
school and I have seen each other through the last
20 years—all the ups, downs and sideways that
adolescence, high school, college and our 20s
brought us. We have reinforced our closeness in
many ways over the years, but none in as memorably
exhilarating a way as primal screaming. I was
visiting him at his then-new house out in the
woods. The neighbors are distant, and on this
particular night his wife was out with friends. We
were hammered, mixing yet another round of gin and
tonics in pint glasses from the rapidly dwindling
handle of Bombay Dry in the kitchen. I don’t
remember how it started, but we began to yell,
tentatively at first, amazed and somewhat unsettled
at the noise we could generate, but soon increased
in volume and gusto. We took turns, trying to outdo
each other, but then began to overlap; one drunken,
screaming, rope-necked 30-year-old gasping for a
breath while the other continuing to scream, mouth
open with drool stringing toward the floor, until
the other could begin and spell the first. For some
ten minutes solid we yelled into the quiet of his
night kitchen, our bellows echoing around the
house, until our heads were light and our throats
hoarse. When we stopped, we laughed at ourselves in
the uncanny silence, both swaying drunk but
conscious of the catharsis of the moment and
strange intimacy of knowing that there was no one
else in the world but each other with whom that
rawness would have been possible. - Drew DeVoogd,
attorney
My roommate and I used to try to figure out what
soccer team was better looking. That’s
men’s soccer team. We’re both straight. -
Ryan O’Hanlon, Good Men Project Magazine staff
writer and former collegiate soccer player at Holy
Cross
I don’t do anything different with my guy
friends than I do with my female friends. Generally
the best place to bond is an area with a creative
energy, good conversation, and an adequate amount
of coffee and cigarettes. - Eli Cadwallader,
college student
Rafting down the twin fork of the Salmon River
in Idaho with my business partners. I learned how
smart my friends were playing hearts, how their
minds really worked, and saw how they handled
camping and the challenges of a foreign
environment. Some guys I liked less, and many I
liked a lot more. - Todd Dagres, venture
capitalist
The bond that comes from playing competitive
sport on a team is analogous to the bond that is
created on the battlefield in war. Athletes will
tell you that their bond to teammates can be
stronger than any other in their life, including
the bond they have with their wife and children.
Something special occurs between men when they are
in battle on the playing field-it could be the
hormones that flow or simply the highly competitive
situation-that leaves a lasting impression like no
other. - Dr. Gregg Steinberg, professor of sport
psychology at Austin Peay State University and the
author of Full Throttle
Biking with my older son. Boys and men
communicate better while doing things. Good luck
sitting a boy down across from you and saying,
“Okay, let’s talk.” My wife recently
thanked me for not sharing with her the more
intimate details of what we talk about on our
biking excursions, because ignorance is bliss! -
Geordie Mitchell, educator
The first hour you wake up, hungover as hell,
after an absolute ripshit night of going out
somewhere with your friends. Half your buddies
aren’t there, the other half is scrambled
around on couches, stretched out on pillows or
right on the hardwood floor, or on top of (insert
random potentially soft, or seemed soft at 4 a.m.,
object here). This first hour when everyone wakes
up feeling awful, not drunk but clearly not sober,
and recounts the events of the previous night. The
stories you hear are likely the funniest they will
ever sound. Whatever happened, happened, and it
doesn’t matter who hears it or who thinks
what, because you’re likely surrounded by a
good group of men that you’d trust with
anything. - PW, medical researcher
Every school kid learns how the city of
Philadelphia got its name: The Quakers named it the
City of Brotherly Love. This is probably the
biggest misconception in the English language. As
Steven Pressfield talks about in his novel, Gates
of Fire, the term Philadelphia is Greek from the
Spartans—they used it to describe the intense
bond that is formed between men who have been in
combat together, perhaps the strongest there is. My
brother died in Vietnam … his friends still
remember him, day to day, every day. - Colin
Flaherty, owner of PR and Internet Marketing
firm
Does having sex with men count as bonding? Yes.
Okay. Then having sex with men. Very powerful
bonding happening there. - Anonymous media
mogul
Skydiving. It’s a superb confidence-builder
and a great equalizer among men. You don’t
have to be particularly athletic or muscular to fly
your body with precision, though it does take
numerous jumps to become a proficient body flyer.
I’ll always remember my first 10-man star
formation. I followed nine fellow skydivers out the
door and flew my body to the exact point in the sky
where the others were linked in a round freefall
formation. I remember breaking open the wrist grips
between two of them and settling in as the tenth
man in the star. I’ll never forget the nine
guys smiling at me as I completed the formation.
They knew exactly how I felt. Not only had we had
achieved flight, but we instantly bonded and shared
that powerful moment in time and space. - Ed Scott,
Executive Director of the U.S. Parachute
Association
Watching the 49ers (way back when they were
good) with my dad. - Benoit Denizet-Lewis, editor
of The Good Men Project Magazine.
What began as going out to get a beer with a
friend to talk about marital problems after our
regular Sunday night tennis game has grown into a
weekly tradition known as the Fourth Set. Six of us
now play tennis every Sunday night just so that we
can go out together afterward. I suppose it’s
not unusual for a group of guys to go to the same
sports bar, order the same pitcher of beer, chicken
wings and nachos week after week. What I think is
unique is that we don’t watch any of the games
on the TVs all around us, nor do we sit back and
gloat about how we played on the tennis court. The
difference, I think, is that we actually talk to
each other. We talk about our relationships, our
jobs, our stresses. It’s the time that we know
that there is no judgment coming back at us, only
understanding and, often, advice. It’s not
unusual for someone to finish a story and then say,
“Wow, I’d never told anyone that
before.” The bonding that happens has helped
each of us go through some tougher times with the
knowledge that there is a strong support system
that will always be there. - Stephen Siegel,
urologist
Golf. It gives plenty of time to tell stories,
share a few laughs, and whether you’re 40 or
70, a six handicapper or a twenty handicapper,
every three minutes you have a chance to be a hero
with just one swing. And it’s equally fun
sober or drunk.” - Michael O’Hanlon, fish
wholesaler
I’ve had some great bonding moments with
guys during boxers or briefs debates. Don’t
ask me why. Is that weird? - Justin Goedde, sales
associate
12-step meetings. It doesn’t get any more
real than that, and I’ve never felt closer to
men than I have in those rooms. Throughout my life
I thought I had strong male relationships, but it
was only when I entered recovery that I found out
what true male bonding was all about. I, by the
grace of God, found men who reached out to me and
taught me how to become a real man. A man with
integrity, a loyal, trustworthy and monogamous
husband, a good father and role model, brother,
friend, employer, sponsor and a responsible member
of society. My male friends are the cornerstone of
my success in life, they helped me become the
person I always wanted be, me. - Ron Tannebaum,
co-founder of intherooms.com, a social networking
site for people in recovery
Me and my friends like to sit around and make
fun of Wolf Blitzer. - Marc Lewis, unemployed
Male bonding takes place every day in the
basketball workplace. Couple strenuous workouts
with skillful interactions that have been practiced
daily over long periods of time make for a real
bonding environment. Each player relies on the
other to make the offense or defense successful.
Then add the game intensity when people are
watching and rooting for and against, and this
connection just gets magnified. This is the most
cherished of all the feelings an athlete can
experience. Much more than the wins and losses, I
remember the personalities most from my playing
days. This bond amongst us lasts until this day;
30, 40, 50 years from the actual time we laced it
up together. - Dave Cowens, NBA Hall of Famer
Constant, never-dying harassment. - Carlo Perez,
CEO of uknowa.com
Until I was in my 30s, I had very few close male
friends. I was raised surrounded by women, and as I
went into adolescence and early adulthood, I tried
to make certain that women were always around me.
It wasn’t just romantic or sexual
relationships that I was seeking; it was emotional
support. I was absolutely terrified of intimacy
with men. Men were colleagues and rivals, but never
friends. I made all sorts of excuses as to why I
didn’t have more male friends; the most
frequent one was that “most American men are
sexist pigs, and I can’t relate to that.”
(That was a lie on several levels!)
Oddly, it was my work teaching women’s
studies that forced me to work on my relationships
with men. It finally hit home to me that much of my
academic interest in women’s studies was
rooted in my own fear and dislike of my fellow men.
I liked being in classrooms (as a student or as a
professor) where I was often literally the only man
in the room. I felt safe. As I did the work of
questioning why I felt so safe when men
weren’t around, I realized to my shock that
the judgment of women did not carry as much weight
in my life as the judgment of men. In nearly
all-female environments, I was at least temporarily
free from the fear of being evaluated—and
found wanting—by other males. It was a hard
realization to come to at 31!
Many writers in the field of men’s studies
talk about the concept of
“homosociality.” It’s a simple
principle: in American culture, young men are
raised to value the approval of other males far
more than the approval of women. Any young woman
whose boyfriend acts completely differently when he
is alone with her (as opposed to when he is with
his buddies) recognizes this phenomenon instantly.
As a shy, unathletic, narcissistic child, I had had
a pretty unhappy and rough time in elementary and
junior high school—mostly from my male peers.
I realized, with that sudden mixture of shame and
relief that accompanies such a realization, that as
a consequence of these early miserable experiences,
I had spent two decades avoiding intimacy with
other men. - Hugo Schwyzer, Gender Studies
Professor
©2011, Tom
Matlack
* * *
While all complain of our ignorance and
error,
everyone exempts himself. - John Glanville
Tom Matlack,
"I am a sucker for real-life heroes, particularly
the ones that get overlooked. My profile work grew
from my first published piece, THE RACE, which
describes my own life altering experience in an
athletic event barely worthy of the local paper.
Coaches and athletes in the sport of rowing were my
initial focus before expanding to mainstream sports
like professional basketball. Music, film, and
television have proven fertile ground for heroic
journeys of a different, but related, kind.
Finally, I have continued to write bits and pieces
of my own story in an attempt to inspire and
enlighten."
Thomas Matlack was Chief
Financial Officer of The Providence Journal until
1997. He was the lead investor in Art Technology
Group, which reached $5 billion in market
capitalization in 2001. He founded and ran his own
venture firm, started companies like American
Profile (sold to Disney for $260 million) and
Telephia (sold to Neilson for $560 million), before
turning to writing. His work has appeared in
Rowing News, Boston Common, Boston
Magazine, Boston Globe Magazine and
Newspaper, Wesleyan, Yale,
Tango, and Pop Matters.
In 2008, Matlack founded
www.TheGoodManProject.org,
with his venture capital partner James Houghton. He
has appeared on national and local television and
radio as well as print across the country. The fall
of 2009, Matlack led a non-conventional book tour
for The
Good Men Project that
started inside Sing Sing and ended in Hollywood
with a screening of THE GOOD MEN PROJECT
documentary film followed by a panel discussion
including Matt Weiner and Shepard
Fairey.
Contact
Us |
Disclaimer
| Privacy
Statement
Menstuff®
Directory
Menstuff® is a registered trademark of Gordon
Clay
©1996-2023, Gordon Clay
|
