Vulnerability in the Context of Masculinity, Manhood, and Fatherhood
By: Agents Of Change
Tags: Death, Life Lessons, Vulnerability, Men, Friendship

LMB: Now, I know because I’ve read enough about the two of you that your backgrounds are… not that they’re so different, but you have differences certainly. It isn’t as though you agree on everything. Why do you think the two of you… Robert, this one will be for you since John just gave us some of his perspective, why do you think the two of you were able to develop such a solid friendship even though you have many differences?

RJ: John’s a bright individual, and I’m attracted to that. I’m attracted to bright people. By bright, I don’t mean just intellect, it’s more than that, emotional capacity, capacity for live, capacity for love and living. I sensed that immediately. I would almost call it in the spiritual realm of things, a spiritual sense of things. I wasn’t afraid to reach out to him. I wasn’t afraid to share things with him that most people I think at the beginning of a friendship might not share.

LMB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

RJ: I felt a comfort with him that was evident pretty soon after we met, and that builds. When you can build on a foundation like that, it makes it stronger and stronger I think going forward, and there’s a dependence and a reliance on the person. I mean, John and I, it’s not like we’re on the phone or seeing each other every other week. We have about almost an hour apart, but when we get together, it could have been two months, three months, four months since we last saw each other, and we just pick right back up.

***

LMB: What can other men learn from reading your book about friendship and compassion?

JR: That’s a really good question. For me, we as men, even in our enlightened days, as we tend to think they’re enlightened now, we’re still taught at least implicitly to some of those classic male, masculine attributes around strength and protection. Those are valid and necessary, and can also get in the way of being open and vulnerable, especially with another man. I don’t know if there’s a secret or not, but there’s something I think courageous and brave in being vulnerable. It’s not like I say, “I’m going to be courageous and brave and be vulnerable today.” It doesn’t really work that way, for me at least.

JR: I don’t know if it was my background, my parents, or what, or the DNA. I’m 54 years old now, so I’m not sure this has been always true, but at this point in my life, when Robert and I met, which was 18 years ago, even then I think that we somehow let out clues to each other that we had had some life experiences that weren’t fun, and rather than focus on politics and religion where people tend to shut down, we were able to see past that, and see that we’re connected through the broad experience of human life, and suffering that comes with that.

JR: That sounds big and fancy I think hearing myself say it, but I think that’s what attracted me to Robert was he was able to share what was going on in his life at the time. Fairly quickly it was like, “Okay, this is a deep thinker,” as Robert was complimenting me, I appreciate that. Robert is also a deep thinker, extremely well-read, maybe the most well-read person I know of personally. I don’t know, I don’t have this same friendship with all men. I think there was something in the way we were able to connect, but I think we both came to the table like this, just being able to open up just enough. It wasn’t like we were just jumping into our own personal 12-step program right away. It wasn’t like that.

LMB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).

JR: But there was just enough of, “Oh, tell me about your kids,” or, “Are you married, or what’s going on? Oh, I see. Life’s a little more complicated than it looks like on the outside.” You know? Things like that.

LMB: Robert?

RJ: For me, I’ll start out with the caveat like John did that this is for me personally. I’m a poet and a novelist, so by those definitions alone and by what I do, I tend to think more, grapple with life, question more than your average bear, and it’s taken me some time to understand that and feel comfortable enough in my own skin to own that. It was about that time when I was meeting John, soon after that going through my own divorce, and it was almost like a rebirth for me to come into my own. And really to shed previous thinking, previous modes of being, if I want to call it that. It sounds like a cliché, but embrace who you are and to feel comfortable in your own skin, and that’s okay. For me it was nothing more complicated than that. Meeting John was fortuitous maybe in that timing that maybe he came into my life at the time that I needed to have a good friend like that. [crosstalk 00:10:37]

LMB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Go ahead, John.

JR: Not all my male friendships are like… I do have other close male friendships, I just wanted to be clear.

LMB: Okay.

JR: I have other close male friends who might be watching this thing.

LMB: Good point, sure, that’s fair.

JR: My friendship with Robert is distinct in its own merit, you know what I’m saying? So I could count two or three other men with whom I have close relationships that are distinct on their own merit.

LMB: Okay.

JR: You know what I’m saying?

LMB: Yeah.

JR: But not all my male friendships have that same… I just can’t, I don’t think. You know?

LMB: Let’s continue with that then, because what I want to know is what are some of the elements those friendships have in common with the friendship that you have with Robert. Is it about the vulnerability and the trust? What do you think are the commonalities?

JR: There is a level of trust. I think oftentimes in male friendships there is an undercurrent, maybe a competitiveness, an undercurrent.

LMB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

JR: Even if it’s not stated. But I don’t feel that. Sometimes I do, but it’s not a prevailing emotional undercurrent with those relationships. They’re free to be sort of how they are. I think these friendships are ones that came to me, not at the exact same time in my life, but in my… you know, I had already become an adult. I have some close friends from my youth, but those are different too. I think I was able to make these friendships or be a partner in those friendships from a different adult stance, if you will, as a man having, I went through a divorce in my 20s, getting married again, just whatever lumps, bruises, and scars we accumulate as we grow.

LMB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

JR: Enough of that had happened that I didn’t feel like I had to be somebody I wasn’t necessarily.

LMB: So authenticity is a factor as well.

JR: I think so, I think so, to the extent that we know who we are.

LMB: Yeah.

JR: Like any of us.