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I wonder if a lot of straight guys are afraid others will perceive them as gay (if they are seen dining with just a male friend)? So this makes them feel uncomfortable. Just a thought.
I don't think this is accurate at all...If you are worried people will think you are gay just because you are out to dinner with guy friends, you might have deeper issues. Most guys just don't go out to eat at nicer restaurants together. I think because it involves dressing more nice then jeans and a t-shirt which is usually associated with going out on a date with your wife/girlfriend etc. Something about getting dressed up with a bunch of guys and going out to eat is awkward and takes more effort then going to a bar and getting chicken wings or a burger. Also, sitting in a nice restaurant with a bunch of dudes in low lighting with folded napkins in your lap staring at each other is just weird. I am not worried about being perceived as gay, more worried about how weird and awkward it would be. Guys don't sit around and talk like that. At a bar it's casual and more natural for guys I think
I don't think this is accurate at all...If you are worried people will think you are gay just because you are out to dinner with guy friends, you might have deeper issues. Most guys just don't go out to eat at nicer restaurants together. I think because it involves dressing more nice then jeans and a t-shirt which is usually associated with going out on a date with your wife/girlfriend etc. Something about getting dressed up with a bunch of guys and going out to eat is awkward and takes more effort then going to a bar and getting chicken wings or a burger. Also, sitting in a nice restaurant with a bunch of dudes in low lighting with folded napkins in your lap staring at each other is just weird. I am not worried about being perceived as gay, more worried about how weird and awkward it would be. Guys don't sit around and talk like that. At a bar it's casual and more natural for guys I think
I think there are a lot of good points in this post. I think this is mostly a difference in style. Specifically, guys are more likely to go to a place like Buffalo Wild Wings, or a fast food joint together. My impression is that guys are not nearly as enthralled with the idea of dressing up, spending extra money for aesthetics such fancier looking food or the way a restaurant is decorated, and making casual conversation with each other.
That being said, everyone is an individual first and foremost, and it is important for all to do what what we really want to do regardless of what is expected of us. By this I mean that everyone's age, gender, and race (yes.. still ) comes with certain expectation of preferences and behavioral patterns. A lot of people are really insecure about defying these expectations. In my experience it seems as though more men tend to be more insecure about this than women. This may be a consequence of how society has worked over the last half century.
What that means is that if you are trying to get another man/other men to go out to dinner at a nicer restaurant, you are not only fighting the fact that more often than not men are not interested in such a social event, but the fact that the ones that are may feel insecure about doing so because of the way they will be perceived both internally and externally.
I think there are a lot of good points in this post. I think this is mostly a difference in style. Specifically, guys are more likely to go to a place like Buffalo Wild Wings, or a fast food joint together. My impression is that guys are not nearly as enthralled with the idea of dressing up, spending extra money for aesthetics such fancier looking food or the way a restaurant is decorated, and making casual conversation with each other.
That being said, everyone is an individual first and foremost, and it is important for all to do what what we really want to do regardless of what is expected of us. By this I mean that everyone's age, gender, and race (yes.. still ) comes with certain expectation of preferences and behavioral patterns. A lot of people are really insecure about defying these expectations. In my experience it seems as though more men tend to be more insecure about this than women. This may be a consequence of how society has worked over the last half century.
What that means is that if you are trying to get another man/other men to go out to dinner at a nicer restaurant, you are not only fighting the fact that more often than not men are not interested in such a social event, but the fact that the ones that are may feel insecure about doing so because of the way they will be perceived both internally and externally.
I take my initial post back. I didn't realize everyone was talking about dinner and fancier places. I never really do with my guy friends ever. Usually we will go to more laid back bar/burger joint type places if it's just couple of us or a few.
I'd have to agree I prefer, after work, to wear casual clothes, ie jeans and a t-shirt, so I might be less inclined to eat at a restaurant where I would look/feel out of place wearing that.
I wasn't referring to fancy dinner places. Just dinner. Whether it be thai, chinese, mexican, american. Most places I go for dinner have lots of folks in jeans and t shirts.
Guys do dine out together, just not at eating establishments that are geared to be a social experience #1 and a place to get food #2. Go to a Five Guys and you'll see guys together eating. It's just that the average male isn't as interested in social experiences as is the average female. To delve deeper is to examine the fundamental differences between males and females.
Hi ChiGuy2.5. I am wondering why guys don't go to dinner together.
What do you think is the reason?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gunner0325
I don't think this is accurate at all...If you are worried people will think you are gay just because you are out to dinner with guy friends, you might have deeper issues. Most guys just don't go out to eat at nicer restaurants together. I think because it involves dressing more nice then jeans and a t-shirt which is usually associated with going out on a date with your wife/girlfriend etc. Something about getting dressed up with a bunch of guys and going out to eat is awkward and takes more effort then going to a bar and getting chicken wings or a burger. Also, sitting in a nice restaurant with a bunch of dudes in low lighting with folded napkins in your lap staring at each other is just weird. I am not worried about being perceived as gay, more worried about how weird and awkward it would be. Guys don't sit around and talk like that. At a bar it's casual and more natural for guys I think
I personally think guys dont go out to dinner together because they prefer not to. I think going to a nice restaurant with a guy would be sort of awkward. Its fairly taboo in our society to do such a thing as a straight male. Also, I dont really like getting dressed up and paying lots of money to eat fancy food. I would rather watch a game and eat a cheeseburger and keep some extra money for some more beer.
Also, you got to keep in mind that "guys" are not usually talkers. We gossip a little bit and talk about work, etc. But some of the time there is no conversation. If you go to a fancy restaurant with no TV's, your going to be sitting in awkward silence during those times. Thats where going out to watch the game is perfect. You can have something to distract you from conversation. Girls are wayyyyy chatty with each other, so for them I am sure it doesn't matter.
I think some guys aren't comfortable with the level of male/male intimacy required to go to dinner with a male friend and sit and talk. They are more at ease in a loud bar with distractions and sports to watch.
I honestly think it is a guy thing. Women seem more ok going to dinner with their same sex friends.
The notion that we [men] "don't like to talk" and "would rather watch a game and grunt" is a huge stereotype.
Men were once considered "more intelligent than women", and while it was a total BS thing to believe, lots of people bought into it. Now, we're moving in the opposite direction.
The point I'm making is that these gender stereotypes come and go, and are based on social expectations of the day. Nowadays (and by "nowadays", I mean mid-20th century to present), we also have a mass media, that amplifies these gender stereotypes, and tells us what we're supposed to be like. In the 1950s, a proper gentleman was thin and wore a suit and was smart (and women were supposed to be mindless followers). Now, you have to be dumb and/or a slob to be "masculine", and women are the logical ones in the family. This is how the media bombards us with gender expectations which shift from time to time, and have nothing to do with the inherent nature of males and females. And I'm not saying that there are no inherent psychological differences between men and women...of course there are, due to evolution. But some of it isn't biological...it's social.
I'm always reminding people that where I grew up (NW side of Chicago), most of the guys of my generation (late 20s/early 30s) from the NW side of Chicago, we don't really care about sports that much. It's mostly the suburbanites and the Midwest transplants (from other parts of the Midwest, like Iowa) that are so obsessed with sports. Personally, I'm a mild soccer fan, and that's as far as it goes...I could never get excited over an NBA game, and my attention span is far too short to watch an NBA or NFL game.
I do agree -out of observation- that women are more likely to go out to dinner just with their girlfriends, than men are to go out to dinner just with their buddies. But I do go out to dinner/lunch with buddies on rare occasion. But my group of male friends are all foodies, and we do it because we love Thai/Indian/Chinese/German/Greek/Spanish/Japanese/Lebanese/Mexican/Brazilian/Cajun food, etc, and one of my friends just loves to challenge himself with anything spicy. Whereas, women go to dinner with their girlfriends just for the fun and intimacy of it.
What exactly we talk about depends on which male friends I'm out with. A couple of them are not talkative at all, and those are the friends I'd never spend too much time with alone. But with most of my male friends, we just discuss politics, or the same stuff we talk about here on city-data...politics/urban planning, etc. So, we don't just watch a game and drink...I tend to talk a lot with most of my male friends. We just don't talk about the stuff that women tend to talk about. And this is an observed fact: women are perfectly capable of discussing intelligent issues, but when they're with their girlfriends they get "girly" and that's when they talk about who's-dating-who, and who-said-what-to-whom, and that-girl-from-work-said-this-and-this-and-can-you-believe-that-b*tch, and I-bought-the-cutest-shoes-the-other-day. Do I talk about this stuff with my male friends? Of course, not. But we do have lengthy conversations about politics, and travel (and the next road trip), and architecture and urban planning (yes, a lot of my friends have the same interests as me)...there's lots of "guy topics" that don't involve the Sox and Bears.
And if/when we do go out to dinner, it's not going to be an expensive "fancy" restaurant, but it shouldn't have to be a crappy "masculine" hole-in-the-wall either. You don't always have to "dress up" for a decent non-fast-food restaurant.
Last edited by skyduster; 03-04-2012 at 02:31 PM..
The notion that we [men] "don't like to talk" and "would rather watch a game and grunt" is a huge stereotype.
Men were once considered "more intelligent than women", and while it was a total BS thing to believe, lots of people bought into it. Now, we're moving in the opposite direction.
The point I'm making is that these gender stereotypes come and go, and are based on social expectations of the day. Nowadays (and by "nowadays", I mean mid-20th century to present), we also have a mass media, that amplifies these gender stereotypes, and tells us what we're supposed to be like. In the 1950s, a proper gentleman was thin and wore a suit and was smart (and women were supposed to be mindless followers). Now, you have to be dumb and/or a slob to be "masculine", and women are the logical ones in the family. This is how the media bombards us with gender expectations which shift from time to time, and have nothing to do with the inherent nature of males and females. And I'm not saying that there are no inherent psychological differences between men and women...of course there are, due to evolution. But some of it isn't biological...it's social.
I'm always reminding people that where I grew up (NW side of Chicago), most of the guys of my generation (late 20s/early 30s) from the NW side of Chicago, we don't really care about sports that much. It's mostly the suburbanites and the Midwest transplants (from other parts of the Midwest, like Iowa) that are so obsessed with sports. Personally, I'm a mild soccer fan, and that's as far as it goes...I could never get excited over an NBA game, and my attention span is far too short to watch an NBA or NFL game.
I do agree -out of observation- that women are more likely to go out to dinner just with their girlfriends, than men are to go out to dinner just with their buddies. But I do go out to dinner/lunch with buddies on rare occasion. But my group of male friends are all foodies, and we do it because we love Thai/Indian/Chinese/German/Greek/Spanish/Japanese/Lebanese/Mexican/Brazilian/Cajun food, etc, and one of my friends just loves to challenge himself with anything spicy. Whereas, women go to dinner with their girlfriends just for the fun and intimacy of it.
What exactly we talk about depends on which male friends I'm out with. A couple of them are not talkative at all, and those are the friends I'd never spend too much time with alone. But with most of my male friends, we just discuss politics, or the same stuff we talk about here on city-data...politics/urban planning, etc. So, we don't just watch a game and drink...I tend to talk a lot with most of my male friends. We just don't talk about the stuff that women tend to talk about. And this is an observed fact: women are perfectly capable of discussing intelligent issues, but when they're with their girlfriends they get "girly" and that's when they talk about who's-dating-who, and who-said-what-to-whom, and that-girl-from-work-said-this-and-this-and-can-you-believe-that-b*tch, and I-bought-the-cutest-shoes-the-other-day. Do I talk about this stuff with my male friends? Of course, not. But we do have lengthy conversations about politics, and travel (and the next road trip), and architecture and urban planning (yes, a lot of my friends have the same interests as me)...there's lots of "guy topics" that don't involve the Sox and Bears.
And if/when we do go out to dinner, it's not going to be an expensive "fancy" restaurant, but it shouldn't have to be a crappy "masculine" hole-in-the-wall either. You don't always have to "dress up" for a decent non-fast-food restaurant.
Location: Cleveland, OH USA / formerly Chicago for 20 years
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Quote:
Originally Posted by skyduster
And if/when we do go out to dinner, it's not going to be an expensive "fancy" restaurant, but it shouldn't have to be a crappy "masculine" hole-in-the-wall either. You don't always have to "dress up" for a decent non-fast-food restaurant.
Yep... All through this thread that's what I've been thinking. There is a considerable middle ground between expensive, dressy "fine dining" restaurants and sports bars/burger joints. Especially in a city like Chicago. I myself tend to gravitate more towards casual, one-star ethnic eateries... the kind of "come-as-you-are"-type places that have minimal decor and use paper napkins instead of cloth, where you could get, say, a $10 Thai meal or whatever. I don't see why guys can't do something like that together without being uncomfortable.
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) comes with certain expectation of preferences and behavioral patterns. A lot of people are really insecure about defying these expectations. In my experience it seems as though more men tend to be more insecure about this than women. This may be a consequence of how society has worked over the last half century. 
