Conquering the Boundaries of Friendship: Making and Maintaining Meaningful Male Relationships

by Mark Roman

Men are at a disadvantage when it comes to forming relationships with other men. As boys, men are taught to suppress their emotions and to avoid vulnerability at all costs—to be winners and warriors. Mark Roman spent a year collecting interviews with men from dozens of countries around the world and found that these societal and cultural boundaries exist everywhere, and have created a male population that deeply longs for friendship, yet can’t find it.

This doesn’t just hurt men—it hurts the women, children, and families who love those men. It results in men who struggle with authenticity, who don’t know how to share and live fully in their relationships.

This book will encourage as many men as possible to develop and maintain deep and meaningful relationships with other men. Mark Roman shares stories and techniques that have helped other men find success in crossing societal boundaries and forming male friendships—and in turn helped them become better, happier, and more connected humans.

220 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 15, 2019

Reviews

[Francis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I came in with high expectations -- I was just reading a New York Times article about a "growing male friendship recession" and I resonated with this sentiment deeply. I have often found it incredibly difficult to meet and make friendships with other men. I was hoping for more from this book, when in the end it boiled down to being vulnerable, honest, trustworthy, and continued communication. Not exactly mind-blowing, and not particularly unique to the male-male friendship experience. Chapters on cross-cultural friendships, or friendships which cross racial, SES, or other such boundaries were not something which I'd ever struggled with, and the discussion on introverted and extroverted is territory I'd read about extensively elsewhere too. I think the audience for this book might have been slightly older professionals, married with kids, relying heavily on their partners and unsure why they don't have male friends anymore. This didn't quite fit me. Perhaps I'm being harsh, I guess I just wanted more from this and finished it quickly without much excitement or new information.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark leverages his years as an IBM consultant and interviews numerous people from around the world in order to get a very unique perspective on men and the friendships they (we) develop. An enjoyable read. I would recommend to both men and woman as Mark addresses topics that are not typically addressed in our men must be machho society, giving one insight to true friendships and how to grow them or rekindle the ones that have faded.

[N.A.K. Baldron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly commonsense, but maybe a few good ideas of how to start up a conversation in the first place.

[Mark J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good observations and practical advice from the hundreds of interviews conducted and collated to research Conquering the Boundaries of Friendship