Why I wouldn’t survive as a man in a world of strict male friendships
Men find it deeply annoying and disgusting to receive personal photos from their male friends.
What you need to know:
- Men who receive photos from their male friends are appalled.
- They accuse their friends of being gay, and consider the photos a sign that their male friends found them sexually attractive.
While browsing X (Elon Musk’s Twitter, in case you live under a rock), I saw a thread that piqued my interest. An X user asked men to send four photos of themselves to a close male friend, and share the response they received.
I clicked on the thread because I didn’t understand what could be the deal with sending a close friend, of the same gender, four photos of myself. I do that all the time – but this is not about me.
Let’s just say the responses were startling. In summary, all the men who received photos from their male friends were appalled – they accused their friends of being gay, and considered the photos a sign that their male friends found them sexually attractive, which was deeply annoying and disgusting to them.
For the life of me, I could not understand why I would be offended if a female friend sent me four or hundred photos of herself, or even see that as a sign that the photos pointed towards anything sexual. But as I said, this is not about me.
To be sure the ‘Internet men’ were not being melodramatic, I asked several male friends and colleagues if they would send their male friends photos of themselves. “Why would I do that?” One asked with quite an offended look, as if I was completely cuckoo.
“Say, for example, you have bought a new outfit, or got a new haircut and you want to show your friend, would you take photos or selfies, and send to get their feedback on it?” I said. The answer remained the same.
“Why would I want to do that?” another asked, with an equally offended and impatient look. It was as if the question I asked them was the tabooest subject anyone could bring up.
“Okay, what do you talk about with your friends?” I posed to them, trying to see if I could make sense of how the male interiority, especially where friendships are concerned, looks like.
“We talk about deals and how to get money!” One of them said, hardly allowing me to get to the end of my question. I told him that I talk about deals and how to make money with my friends too, but that doesn’t stop us from sharing photos.
An older female colleague who had been following the conversation came to my rescue. “Daisy, you will not win that debate. Male friendships and female friendships are as different as night and day. You know how me and you can gist about everything – from our clothes to the parts of our bodies that we do not like? Men do not do that,” she said.
The guys laughed in agreement. And as the conversation progressed, I realised that socialisation gives women many liberties that men are not socialised to enjoy. A lot of what women will view as the warmth of friendship; most men will think of it as something that crosses the sexuality line. “What else do you see women easily do that you would not do as a man?” I asked one of the guys.
“Sharing beds. I see my sisters and other female relatives easily share beds with their friends. I wouldn’t share a bed with another man, even if it was a king size bed. Heri I sleep on the cold floor,” he said matter-of-factly.
Ladies and gentlemen, this conversation left me completely convinced that I would not survive as a man in this world. I watched a hilarious TikTok video that was castigating men who celebrate birthdays. I also hear men cannot use certain emojis when chatting with fellow men – oh, men cannot stand too close to each other when taking photos because surely you cannot be seen to be leaning towards a fellow man – and the list goes on.
I know there is male privilege and historical injustices against women. I also know that as a woman, I have to worry about many things such as period maths. This means having your period at the back of your mind when you are planning your fun activities, because you don’t really want to be bike-riding in Karura when your uterus is running the show. All that and more. But when the chips are down, I’d rather deal with the inconvenience tangled in femininity than the boring men’s world where you cannot even send your friends photos of you without them thinking…
But I have to ask this question before I end this piece today – I hope I will get some answers: Dear men, why do you choose to make your lives difficult?
The writer is the Research & Impact Editor, NMG ([email protected]).
