Concludes Rosenblatt: "There's a deep, basically serene well of silence in most men, which, for better or worse, is where we live."
We men are notorious for bottling up our feelings. It's considered unmanly to blab and blubber about our doubts, fears, sorrows, and setbacks. Women have a natural talent for such unburdening; we don't. Result: We men can suffer inwardly and imperil our well-being.
"Most guys, privately, say they want more substantial relationships with other men but don't know how because of social stigma that include homophobia and fear of being considered soft, weak, feminine," says Rob Garfield, a Bala Cynwyd psychiatrist who has been coleading men's groups for 20 years and is now writing a book titled My Guys: How Men Can Make and Keep Close Male Friendships.
"There's a lot of medical evidence about the impact of men's friendships on health. The silence that can appear manly on the outside can really work against you, not just in terms of connection and mental health, but also physical health.
"When grief gets frozen, when you have a culture that says boys don't cry, it gets into the arteries and bones and organs, and we don't develop resilience and don't live as long."
If that's the case, then my friend Ted Glackman and some of his buddies should live well into their 80s and 90s. Glackman, 58, of Ardmore, is a psychologist who heads the Joseph J. Peters Institute, which deals with sexual-abuse issues.
For a dozen years or so, Glackman has participated with four pals in a men's group that meets twice a month.
"In general, women are more verbally facile than men," Glackman says. "Men and women think differently and process things differently. Men understand other men in a way no one else does. We have the capacity to understand the pressures, the struggles, the expectations we face."
