>Listening to boys, particularly during early and middle adolescence, speak about their male friendships is like reading an old-fashioned romance novel where the female protagonist is describing her passionate feelings for her man. At the edge of manhood when pressures to conform to gender expectations intensify (Hill & Lynch, 1983), boys speak about their male friends with abandon, referring to them as people whom they love, and as Justin says, “this thing that is deep, so deep, it’s within you, you can’t explain it.” They tell their interviewers in great detail and with tremendous affect about their best friends with whom they share their deepest secrets and without whom they would “feel lost.” Set against a culture that perceives boys and men to be “activity-oriented,” “emotionally illiterate,” and interested only in independence, these stories seem surprising. The lone cowboy, the cultural icon of masculinity in the United States, suggests that what boys want and need most are opportunities for competition and
autonomy. Yet over 85% of the American boys we have interviewed throughout adolescence for the past 20 years suggest that their closest friendships - especially those during early and middle adolescence - share the plot of Love Story more than the plot of Lord of the Flies.

From Niobe Way's "Boys Friendships During Adolescence" (via Journal of Research on Adolescence)