TEXT F Betty and Harold have been
married for years. But one thing still puzzles old Harold. How is it, he
wonders, that he can leave Betty and her friend Joan sitting on the couch,
talking, go out to a ballgame, come back, three and a half hours later, and
they’re still sitting on the couch. Talking
What in the world, muses Harold, do they have to talk about
Betty shrugs. Talk We’re friends. Researching this matter
called friendship, psychologist Lillian Rubin spent two years interviewing more
than two hundred women and men. Like Betty and Harold, some were married,
others single. They covered the gamut of what is
chronologically called adulthood, twenty-five to fifty-five. They were
blue collar, blue-blooded, and in between. No matter their age,
their occupation, their sex, their marital status, Rubin found the results were
"unequivocal". Women have more friendships than men, and the difference in the
content and the quality of those friendships is "marked and
unmistakable". More than two-thirds of the single men Rubin
interviewed could not name a best friend. Those who could were ’likely to name a
woman. Yet three-quarters of the single women had no, problem citing best
friend, and almost always it was a woman. More married men than women
cited a spouse as a best friend, most trusted confidant, or the one they would
turn to in times of emotional distress. But even when a married woman named her
husband to one of these categories, it was never exclusively his. "Most women,"
said Rubin, "identified at least one, usually more, trusted friends to whom they
could turn in a troubled moment, and they spoke openly and ardently about the
importance of these relationships in their lives." In general,
writes Rubin in her new book Intimate Strangers, "women’s friendships with each
other rest on shared intimacies, self-revelation, nurturance, and support." By
contrast, "men’s relationships are marked by shared activities." For the most
part, Rubin contends, interactions between men "are emotionally contained and
controlled-a good fit with the social requirements of manly
behaviour." "Even when a man claimed a best friend," Rubin
wrote, "the two shared little about the interior of their lives and feelings."
Whereas a woman’s closest female friend might be the first to urge her to leave
a failing marriage, "it wasn’t unusual," Rubin discovered, "to hear a man say he
didn’t know his friend’s marriage was in serious trouble until he appeared one
night asking if he could sleep on the couch." Which of the following is NOT implied in the passage
A.Rubin interviewed both men and women. B.Rubin interviewed people from different social backgrounds. C.Rubin interviewed both married and single people. D.Rubin interviewed people with different personalities.