世論 What Japan Thinks

goo Ranking took a look at what guys can’t understand about female friendships and what girls can’t understand about male friendships.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of March 2013 1,083 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.7% of the sample were female, 11.6% in their teens, 15.0% in their twenties, 24.9% in their thirties, 24.7% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 11.1% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

My wife does most of the things in Q1, and I don’t understand them at all either, so I’m glad to see it’s not just a cultural gap that I’m experiencing!

Ranking results

Q1: As a man, what can’t you understand about female friendships? (Sample size=469, male)

Rank		Score
1	Slagging off their close friends	100
2	After having one vicious argument, never again making up	91.4
3	Getting excited with rumours and insults of other people	85.3
4	Spending two hours or more talking over a cup of tea	81.0
5	Cat fights over guys	70.7
6	Breaking up a friendship merely over both liking the same guy	68.1
7	Making plans with friends, then casually changing or canceling	59.5
8	Detailing out the progress of their love lives	54.3
9	Having an atmosphere of married people are of higher status than singles, and looking down on them in one way or another	50.0
10	Usually going out, etc as a group	45.7
11	Frequently exchanging email about the neighbours	40.5
12	Having more than five people to call close friends	37.9
13	Remembering each other’s birthdays and exchanging presents every year	34.5
14	Even though they used to be really close, they drift apart after marriage	32.8
15	Even though they used to be really close, they drift apart if they don’t meet for a while	24.1

Q2: As a woman, what can’t you understand about male friendships? (Sample size=614, female)

Rank		Score
1	Both withdrawing if two of them like the same girl	100
2	Not knowing each other’s birthday, where they live, etc	62.6
3	If one breaks up with his girlfriend, they soon want to introduce him to another	59.4
4	Regardless of how close they are, they inform the others a while after they get a girl	46.9
5=	They don’t talk to each other about relationship issues	46.2
5=	After a no holds barred argument their friendship becomes even deeper	46.2
7	They happily say to each other “We’ll always be a bunch of idiots!”	42.0
8	Even though their chat doesn’t flow, they seem to be just enjoying each other’s company	38.5
9	They love sharing with each other their embarrassing experiences	37.8
10	They don’t interfere too much in each other’s business	35.7
11	Barring major issues cropping up, they don’t cancel nights out with the boys	34.3
12	They don’t need to meet that often	33.6
13	Conversation is not necessary when watching sports, gaming, etc	32.2
14	When talking over old times, they get excited however often the same event comes up	31.5
15	Even when they know they are not going to meet up again for a while, they casually leave	28.7