The silence of men in general is over-talked about and over-criticized. To be sure, men never open up as much as women want them to, but there is a wordless understanding in which we function fairly well especially in friendships.

I believe, in fact, that most women would prefer a man to be gloomily uncommunicative than to spill his guts¹ at the drop of a hat.

The push for men to express their feelings presumes that we have feelings, and we do have a few, but they remain submerged, and the airing of them often violates their authenticity².

I am no biologist, but my guess is that the male human animal was programmed for silence. I would go so far as to argue that men were programmed to be isolated³ from one another and that loneliness is our natural state. Silence in male friendships is our way of being alone with each other.

Once men have established a friendship that itself is the word. The affection is obvious, at least to us. A main component⁴ of our silence is an appreciation⁵ of the affection.