Can Men Be Friends With Each Other? Questions From a Girlie 👧

Watching Friendship (2024) felt like peeking into a bizarro parallel universe of male bonding. Just writing this article, I made up scenarios in my head of events in the movie that never happened (before I got severely humbled). It felt so real to me cause it wasn't out of the realm of possibility, a place where friendship is less about heart-to-hearts and more about awkward rituals, silent competitions, and accidental injuries. It’s a movie that had me loling, squirming, and asking way too many questions about what male friendship even is, 'cause god if I ever figure that out.

I remember once watching two of my guy friends sit in complete silence for two hours while gaming. No words, no eye contact, just Cheeto dust and the occasional grunt. When I asked if they’d had fun afterward, one of them casually said, “Yeah, it was great. Really caught up.” That was the moment I realized men might have an alien language.

I’ve always been fascinated, maybe a little suspicious, about how guys do friendship. It’s like watching a secret ritual where nobody’s allowed to say what they actually feel, but somehow everyone’s okay with that. Friendship, starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd, is an absurdist comedy that plays like a nature documentary on male bonding gone absolutely off the rails. The film drops you right at the beginning of a friendship where the only foundation is awkwardness, bizarre activities, and a disturbing lack of emotional clarity.

What Does Intimacy Even Look Like Between Guys?

If you think intimacy means deep talks or tearful confessions, Friendship will challenge you. Male intimacy often looks like a sarcastic jab, a knowing glance after a ridiculous joke, or silently enduring a terrible movie together. It’s weirdly restrained and indirect.

Take Craig’s (Robinson) attempts in the movie; they’re a masterclass in gaucheness and cringeworthy. Early on, during a guys’ night out, he tries to fit in by joining a sparring match but sucker-punches Austin (Rudd), his would-be best friend. Instead of seeing it as a major faux pas, Craig takes it as a sign of finally being “one of the guys.” Later, Craig buys a drum set, hoping to bond by jamming with Austin’s band. Instead of a bonding moment, it turns into a mortifying rejection that only deepens his obsession.

This scene left me intrigued about what guys really think about fighting. I remember guys at my high school just muttering, “5 p.m., be there.” I’d go to see the showdown, but no one ever showed up. It was like they were all talk. I asked some guys if they’d ever been in a fight or if they would ever throw a punch. Most of them said something like, “If I really had to, like if my friend was in trouble or I didn’t have a choice.” For all the ways men romanticize violence on TV, I was shocked they didn’t fantasize about punching an asshole in the face and saving the day.

Of course, as Friendship so obviously reinforces, you can take it too far. One of my friends told me, “Getting hit in the face is really painful, and you can kill a guy if he hits the pavement. I’d rather just swallow my pride than risk that.”

Do Men Get Close by Doing Stuff Instead of Talking?

According to my guy friends, absolutely. They might not text “I miss you” or “You mean a lot to me,” but they show up at your barbecue, in your dumb arguments, sharing snacks during game night. Actions speak louder than words.

In the movie, Craig and Austin’s relationship initially develops through shared (and often chaotic) experiences: sneaking into secret sewer tunnels, jamming out to Austin’s punk band, or wild mushroom foraging. Craig’s well-meaning but strange gestures tend to backfire, but merely because of over excitement most of the time. If the sewer could be a cathartic place for Craig’s wife to orgasm for the first time in years, couldn’t it also be the first time Craig and Austin discovered something real about their friendship? Maybe not in such close proximity… but still. The sewer was a sacred place for Craig where he shared a bonding moment, but because of the nature of this film, it quickly becomes his biggest nightmare. Soiling his pants and his relationships.

Emotional Support: Is There Such a Thing?

Yes, but it’s usually buried under sarcasm, insults, or brutal honesty. One guy told me the male version of “I’m here for you” sounds more like, “You’re an idiot, but I got your back.” But because Tim Robinson's character is generally treated like an idiot throughout the film, I think this silent contract was broken in a subtle way. Equivalent to female friendships that are broken over a single glance or an overly heated dispute.

Friendship has a scene where Austin’s group breaks into a goofy, impromptu singalong to Ghost Town DJ’s “My Boo.” It’s like a locker-room version of “girls in the club bathroom gassing each other up,” except instead of words of affirmation, it’s supposed to be shared laughter and camaraderie expressed through a ridiculous song. Watching this scene, everybody else and I in the theatre laughed. Did the boys laugh because they've bonded this way before? Or because they've tried to and it failed irreparably. I'll never know, and im too scared to ask.

So, How Do Men Actually Bond?

Mostly through shared experiences, shooting hoops, gaming, or just doing something together without having to talk about feelings. One friend told me that society teaches men to “man up” and keep emotions locked tight, so they express closeness through activities instead of conversations. Another said games create a “safe space” where emotional walls can come down without actual emotional talk. I rolled my eyes at both but kept an open mind.

In Friendship, Craig’s awkwardness is endearing because he’s unapologetically himself. Whether he’s showing off a dagger, obsessing over a drum set, or guarding Austin’s baldness like it’s state secrets, his clumsy efforts reveal how much guys rely on “doing stuff” to build friendship currency. Unlike the typical female trajectory of growing up and leaving behind childish games, men often keep their “backwards baseball caps” and continue bonding through simple, sometimes silly, activities. It’s kind of charming—like they were told just being themselves was enough, and they actually believed it.

Craig takes this to the extreme, of course, attempting to bring his son to a bar on a Tuesday morning in the name of father-son bonding—only to be (rightfully) rejected. All of Craig's pleas to “bond how men do” go awry because he was never taught the socially acceptable way, even childish men are expected to behave. It’s like there’s a hierarchy of how childishly it’s socially acceptable to act—and Craig never got the memo.

Do Men Gossip?

From a woman’s perspective, gossip is friendship glue. For guys, it’s a different beast, less juicy relationship drama, more teasing and competition. “Who’s the worst bowler?” or “Who got dumped by a stranger?” It’s more playful ribbing than deep emotional excavation.

Friendship mines this dynamic for laughs with Craig as the perpetual social outcast. Austin and his friends berating him is all out in the open, nothing to discuss without his presence in any scenes or any mystery about his social ineptitude. Craig knows he screwed up, and so do his friends, there's nothing left to disect. I found that insane. There's always something to overanalyze, right? Whether it's a projection or a snarky look, if you can't talk about it in detail later, what's the point of being part of it?

Friendship, But Make It Complicated

Watching Friendship made me realize that male friendships are sometimes a painful dance. Guys figure out closeness without the emotional toolkit most women have. It’s like watching someone learn to swim by jumping into the deep end. Sometimes they sink, sometimes they splash, and occasionally, someone manages a decent joke and everyone laughs– and you feel like the manliest man in the world.

I also wondered, if the movie were about two female friends, would it have the same charm? I laughed throughout Friendship because I recognized the cringeworthy, awkward attempts at connection, men trying to say what they can’t put into words. It’s as if Craig’s blunt, goofy, awkwardness is what most guys think but can’t say without putting up a wall.

Friendship isn’t some deep exploration of human nature. It’s not a commentary on the male loneliness epidemic, and you’re not really meant to take it as seriously as some people I’ve seen have. Not that it’s bad if this film made you feel seen, but Craig’s character is clearly not meant to be a general stand-in for the male population (I hope). It’s an absurdist comedy, shot in a stylish art-house horror vibe that makes the awkwardness even more potent. But beneath the humour, the film does show how fragile male friendships can be. Craig’s obsession with Austin spirals into jealousy, violence, and betrayal, reminding us how these connections often hang by a thread—unclear boundaries, poor communication, and a whole lot of emotional confusion.

So, Do I Get It Now?

Honestly, no. But Friendship made it weirdly wholesome how desperately dudes try to connect over anything they can call a shared interest. I’ll take margarita chats with my girlfriends over a silent stare contest any day, but I’m also starting to see the parallels. Female friendships can be emotionally fluent, yes, but that doesn’t mean they’re simple. We cry together, we therapize each other mid-brunch, we send 1,200-word texts unpacking one vague tone shift. But underneath all that expressive language is the same fragile thread. Maybe we just decorate it better. Where guys grunt and spiral into awkward jealousy like Craig, we might smile through gritted teeth and spiral into passive-aggressive digs about each other's partners or weight size. Emotional repression just wears a different outfit.

If Friendship were about two women, the cringe might come not from what’s left unsaid, but from what’s said too much. Over-analysis, emotional exhaustion, and the performative intimacy of trauma-dumping—girl friendships have their own flavour of chaos. I get the impulse. And if understanding that means watching two grown men grunt at each other for 90 minutes and call it growth, I'd watch that movie indefinitely.

EverythingA24 at Peliplat has a Great article about how everyone is Craig (or something like that)