It began innocently enough. A friend from years past moved to town and called another friend to reconnect. The two of them went out for a run together one Saturday morning, found it satisfying, and kept it up. Soon they added a second running date Sunday morning before they went to church. Then another friend joined their little conclave and another and another. I was the sixth guy. That was almost 20 years ago.
Before we began pounding out the door together beginning at 6 each weekend morning, we had all traveled different roads. One is a contractor; the others include an HVAC guy, a yacht captain, a filmmaker, a business consultant and a non-profit guy. When we started, we all had young children, new businesses and mortgages. Over the succeeding two decades, we raised 17 children between us, lost most of our parents, changed jobs (or not) and stayed happily married. Looking back, it is a miracle of sorts.
To what do we owe the longevity of this group? Or to be more direct, why do men bond? Some people think that men are descended from apes; but wolf packs are actually our closest behavioral group.
Like wolves, our low-browed forebears who ventured forth from caves to hunt collectively discovered they were actually more effective than when they hunted alone. Hierarchies are well understood; the den is a matriarchy. Chaos occurs when these roles are unclear. As Keith Richards once said about the Rolling Stones, “The only thing Mick and I disagreed about was the band, the music and what we do.” Art is chaos. And of course men do not need to run, hunt or sing together to reinforce the male bond; poker games and bars will also suffice.
But there’s even a more basic reason behind male bonding — and here I am going to let you in one of nature’s most important secrets: men are different than women. Yes, it’s a shock to learn this, especially for those of us who came of age when women began to demand to be treated like men. But the truth will set you free.
You might think our wives would object to the time our runner’s group spends together on weekends, especially considering the average length of the weekend honey-do (not a melon) list. But actually our wives have become enthusiastic boosters for the group. From long and painful experience, they have learned that when their husbands ask advice from their runner friends, they often come back with an acceptable answer and the worst instincts of their husbands nipped in the bud.
In truth, because we are guys, we tend to be straightforward with each other, which is to say, blunt. One of our favorite sayings with each other is, “If I had feelings, they would be hurt.” Sometimes we use a slight variation, “You hurt my feeling.”
When we ask for advice, the rest of us do not have to figure out some roundabout way of responding to protect the sensitivities of, for example, a cherished mate. A typical response to each other might be, “That’s about the stupidest thing I have ever heard you say.” Or, “Which tree did you climb down from?” These are completely acceptable forms of social intercourse among guys. If we responded to our wives like this, we have learned that silence can be deep and enduring enough to make the ocean look shallow.
It has gotten to the point that if a marital disagreement occurs, our wives will now actually suggest that we bring the issue up with the runners. Because we are gentlemen and because we know that men are always wrong and finally because we do not have to live with the consequences, it is easy to take the other wives’ side in any debate. Plus, with respect to the most acute issues that matter within a family, our wives usually are right. It is just hard for men to retreat, even when defeat is inevitable. That’s why we go to war.
Sometime back, a particularly earnest young woman who had heard about the runner’s group said she thought our weekend regimen was a perfect way for guys to communicate.
“You can be out there pounding away on the pavement in the early morning when no one else is around and say really honest things to each other without having to look each other in the eye.” She hurt my feeling. I mean, we say really honest things to each other because we are not agile enough to dissimulate. Plus we are guys. Nevertheless, when I related this comment to the runners, we decided to gather around in a circle, hold hands and look each other in the eye before starting our run each morning.
It didn’t last.