Male bonding....how do you do that?
 

I've never really had male friends. I have only one male friend (online ones excluded) and he lives quite a bit away. I've never been good at making friends with men...mostly because I don't really get along with them much. There are elements to the "male culture" that I just don't understand or can't stand... I can't stand sports, in fact I hate them all collectively, excluding badminton which I enjoy. I don't know shit about cars, know some about computers but not enough to want to discuss them. In fact, if there was something I wanted to discuss it'd be most likely poetry and music, photography and videography.

I don't like beer. I'm not much of a socialite, but I do occasionally envy men who talk about how they have such great mates, other blokes that they can talk to about most anything. Guys that would help them out if they ever needed anything. Some are even such great friends that they'd take a bullet for one another.

Females make good friends, they're often better listeners, but sometimes the subject matter discussed counters that. Sometimes you need male company, you need the simplicity of it all, the rambunctiousness (sp?) and the atmosphere in which you don't have to be so careful about the things you say.

Maybe what I am looking for doesn't even exist for guys my age (27 in a couple of months).

If you have a best mate like that, how did you meet? How did the friendship come about?

If you really want to meet some new friends, I suggest going to an upperscale bar or lounge. I know you don't drink, but you'll have to put that aside for even a small drink. A bar is a great place to meet people just like yourself. There are places where intellectuals like yourself go that are always up for a good conversation, or there are bars for the more brute guy where you can play darts and such. Just something to get you near other guys, then you can build a friendship from there.

Im 24, I hate sports, I work in tech so I dont talk about it at home or around my friends.. And damn do I love my lit.

My friends (mostly guys) and I sit around playing cards, chess, backgammon..

Best thing to do in my mind if you know how to play.. go to a nice coffeeshop and sit down with a board, ask a few people if they want to play.. The game lends itself to conversation, it breeds it like gardeners and big fat turnips..

And it weeds out the people without brains who just like getting trashed and talking big ;)

Good luck

Doing things with guys that you have in common. Drinking, watching sports, etc.

But other than my long-time male friends, I seem to only make friendships with women. I just find it easier to make female friends.

Hmmm, seems thats all I can be with women....just friends :(

Male bonding at its most extreme and authentic:

http://www.mkp.org

Us men are assholes. Why would you wanna hang out with us. We get drunk and hit on your wife, try to fart in your face, worship things like NASCAR and the NBA...

We don't have manners and we will most likely laugh at you or beat you up for liking badmiton.

Stick with what you got. I mean that.

I usually go to geeky Magic TCG meetings or LAN parties to meet other techie geeks like myself.

I'll have to bring a chess set to peets next time I go there.

Videography? Find the local TV news photographer's hangout and start asking them questions. Most photogs LOVE to talk about their craft, especially to someone who's interested in it. And they don't care whether you're drinking beer or milk.

You could join some sort of club that isn't a sport, just a physical activity, like horseback riding, or rock climbing, etc.

There is ofcourse meeting people at bars and other stores and coffee shops.

its also tuff for a uber-geek to 'bond'
we dont know the meaning of socialising...unless its behind a moniter :P

Begin drinking beer, eat it with rice crispies in the morning, shower with it at night, you will grow to love it like the face of Barbara Bush that a friend plasters to your headboard. Eventually you'll love beer so much that you wont need the friends you've made getting sloshed.

Barbara Bush is a sexy, scary mother of satan.

My 2 close friends are both guys. It's been my experience that men tend to be much better when it comes to honesty and loyalty, which I value greatly in a friendship.

And none of us give a rat's ass about sports. We're more inclined to sit around all night and talk about philosophy.

FWIW, I've never had any luck actively looking for friends. They've all just kind of shown up in my life one way or another.

My best bud became so owing to our enjoying working on stuff together, having similar interests, and the same mildly bent sense of humor.

When wives or girlfriends are almost afraid of the two of you getting together, you've probably found your best friend. :thumbsup:

Yeah man, just think about all the stuff you love to do, and find clubs, groups and activities that revolve around that. Some of my best, lifelong friends (both male and female) I found working in a theatre.

There'll always be peeople who enjoy the same things you do, you just need to find them.

Honestly, most of my best guy friends I know from school. We have grown up together, so we automaticly have a bond. Sometimes I can look at my best bud and tell whats up with out talking to him.
As far as male bonding goes, just chill at home, play some poker or other social passtime games. Surprisingly, I find DDR (dance dance revolution) a great ice breaker, it loosens everyone up. Everyone looks like a fool and you can let your guard down. Just be yourself, you will find others who share interests and those will be the people who can accept you as you are.
As time goes on I have been able to trust my friends better than anyone else, even my parents. There is definitly something to be said for platonic love now a days.

There's enough people out in the world that there is always someone like you. No matter who you are. Just keep doing things that interest you that would contain clubs and such and you should have no prob making a couple friends.

I myself have the opposite problem of you. All my friends are male... ah well.

those crazy video games kids play now-a-days are pretty popular.

How do you do male bonding?

Euhm, I guess it would be easiest by example.

You just go to someplace related to your hobby,

be it a LAN-party, a bar, a gamingstore, ... and look around. Lan-parties around here have a social aspect too since a few years, not just sitting in front of a screen. A bar is always easy, just pick a bar that caters to your kind of people (you'd have to figure out what people you want to socialise with) and have a talk about anything with a person or a group.

Could be as silly as a girl that passes by and stumbles and you make a comment about it.

You just kinda keep semi-talking, that's important :)

hmm, I just realised that's a big part of it, developping semi-talk. You have to be able to keep talking in general, about any kind of thing relevant to the place (in case of a gaming store) or in a bar it can be anything at all.

Afterwards, you don't agree to meet eachother there the next week at the same hour or nothing, you just go again and if you see them there again, you talk some more.

But what is most important, in general you don't share too many specifics or nothing.

Me, I don't like sports, know crap about cars and am not interested in politics.

However, I have several groups of friends, and I can talk to each of them about alot of other things, be it books, games, discuss things about physics or chemistry, or general everyday things.

I think my most important sentence bears repeating:
go somewhere that relates to your hobby and has a social aspect too it as well.

Like poetry, go to a gathering
Like music, go to a concert
Like photography/videography, go to a a festival, ...

And just actively participate, drop a comment here and there, pick in on a conversation, ...

But there are very few men I know that actually are good listeners, you're gonna have to have a little bit of luck to find that. Most men need a great level of comfort around somebody to want to be an active listener about all kinds of details of another person's life.


How I met some of my best friends?
1 Because he lived really close by,
1 Because of regular trips to the movies
1 Because of the fact that we played the same computergames and happened to meet in school
1 Because of a wanting to play roleplaying games, and I just looked up a list on the Internet and just went to the games a few times first.

Really, anything that has you meeting and/or working actively with people will have you bonding... Just don't think that male bonding is so profound or anything. In the end, it's still somewhat shallow

edit: sorry it got so long :)