I've been thinking about the way society has different expectations for men and women and the way they have relationships - romantic or otherwise - and I wanted to hear the thoughts of people here. This is all just my own thoughts based on my experience and observation, but I feel like it explains some of the imbalance of power in relationships.

Men are socially expected to be stoic. The friendships between men are generally expected to be casual. If a man wants to have a deep relationship with someone, society generally expects that that would be a romantic relationship with a woman.

For women, on the other hand, it's expected that friendships involve sharing emotions and secrets and confidences. Women have deep friendships in which they can talk about very personal things.

Then, when each of these people enters into a relationship with each other, the men are getting access to a type of relationship they do not otherwise have access to, while women are getting access to a relationship that feels different (romantic and sexual) but is still a similar level of depth as her other relationships. If a man is lonely or craving a deep relationship, this is usually the only socially acceptable form it can take, and so his dependence in the relationship is greater. When a man loses a romantic relationship, he is more likely than the woman to lose his only confidant. The man and woman have different levels of emotional power in the relationship, because of the different emotional opportunities each has if the relationship fails.

I bring this up because I wonder if a partial fix for many of the problems described here would be for men to have stronger/deeper platonic relationships with other men. Then the threat of losing a romantic partner would still be painful, but not as isolating, and the power balance between men and women in romantic relationships would be somewhat more balanced.

Thoughts?