Friendship: Pages 72-90 Summary and Analysis

Lewis says that most friendships are men to men and women to women because there's seldom those shared activities between men and women that form the basis for friendship. There's nothing that precludes friendship from crossing the lines of gender and it is possible for men and women to be friends. A possible pitfall is when one offers friendship and the other mistakes it for something more. Lewis then talks about the particular situations that exist in some "neighborhoods." When men of that community have spent their lives working, the women may have sought out literary or artistic pursuits. With this difference in interests, the men may seem "barbaric." In another neighborhood, the men may have been well-educated and become white-collar professionals. In that case, the men may view the women as child-like because they are not...