Comment by mmooss
3 hours ago
> men need activities more than women to bond. My wife can make friends just by randomly running into other women at events or my daughter's activities.
That describes you and your wife, and that's great to know yourselves. Why do you feel the need to generalize it to everyone else?
People don't need to justify needs by pointing to some greater power that compels them. People have needs; what's most important is understanding them and their loved one loving and supporting them. That one is yours.
Each person has needs; I have no data that it has to do with gender or sex, and why would it matter? The needs aren't predictable based on gender/sex (though socialization is, to some extent). It doesn't change what I do or how I think of it.
This is generally known to be true for men. We have a much harder time connecting socially without some sort of shared activity or action. The OP isn't trying to project on to you.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109051382...
https://psychcentral.com/health/didactic-memory?utm_source=c...
>> I have no data that it has to do with gender or sex, and why would it matter? The needs aren't predictable based on gender/sex
not sure what you're trying to say here, but you seem to have taken a very mild, very general statement incredbly personal.
There is an interesting thing. If you study the socialization patterns there are only small to moderate average differences and huge overlap between individuals (all genders). This is in part social construct and in part nature. When you average things statistically you can mislead yourself pretty quickly reading some of these studies.
There is more overlap than not. So, how do we reconcile that with how things end up: network effect. Small biases in socialization norms lead to significant non-linear outcomes due to amplification of these biases leading to norms that exaggerate these biases and end up creating norms that are quite distorted from the average. Leads to some significant consequences for how different genders end up socialization.
While that may be true, there are exceptions. And hence I think parents comment is more inclusive to say: some people (that are overwhelmingly male) need activities to bond, while others (majority female) do not need that. (May not be the best example here but helps i.e criticising certain toxic behaviours that are somehow more linked to one sex without blaming everyone of that sex)
It might change how a man and a woman discuss (or should discuss) how they might relieve their sense of isolation and poor social life.
Especially if, say, that man and woman always do things together, but one of them is starting to feel like they need a little bit of something else.
It is kinda crazy someone can be so triggered by something so simple as men starting/joining a club.
Why does anyone need to be defensive about what someone has found for them?
For example, studies have shown that men who decide to isolate themselves to be "family men" die earlier at age 58.
It might not need to be a pub, but having a club house to do pretty much anything is enormously beneficial to the human brain to have positive social interaction.
We get to decide our own social interaction.
The world is not responsible to not triggering us.