Are you the pilot or the wit in your circle of friends?
The average man has six defined types of friends, according to a new report on male friendship, which says most men rely on the pilot, rock, explorer, wit, hero and coach for moral guidance and emotional support.
The Evolution of Friendship report uses research and interviews with experts and academics alongside chats with groups of men in New York, Shanghai, London, Moscow and Mexico City to explore the dynamics of 21st-century male friendship.
It argues that it has become more important for modern men to forge deep relationships with a core group of friends as a way to operate in an increasingly complex world. Those men are more in touch with each others' feelings, it states.
London-based psychologist Felix Economakis said in the report, from whisky maker Chivas Regal, that modern men have left behind the austere rules of friendship for more emotional demonstrations of frailty.
"I see quite a lot of young men who aren't afraid to say, 'I had an argument and I burst into tears,' or 'He's my best friend and I love him,' " Economakis said.
The report adds the evolution of friendship has moved from the reserved 19th and 20th-century model, in which men were more independently minded, to a 21st-century interconnected world of the kind in which two friends openly profess their emotional reliance on each other.
It describes such dynamics as "fireteam friendships," a basic unit of four or five friends who watch each others' backs, and argues that men who are in closer contact with their friends are happier, healthier and wealthier.
