Meditate Awake

Boys crave emotional closeness with their friends. But by mid to late adolescence they turn away from that platonic intimacy. Why? Because that’s what they’re taught to believe is required of them in order to become men. Developmental psychologist Niobe Way discovered this shift in the behavior of young men, and urges us to recognize that what we see as ‘human nature’ is actually just cultural bias and conditioning. In other words, we don’t have to disconnect from human connection in order to be real men. That’s just what society tells us. Way also points out that late adolescence, that point at which most men stop seeking emotional intimacy with friends, is the age when rates of suicide and violence increase significantly. We need to start teaching boys that they don’t have to be alone in order to be men.