Intimacy and distancing: young men's conversations about romantic relationships.

N. Korobov & A. Thorne, Journal of Adolescent Research, v.21, n.1, 2006, pp.27-55.

Little research has been conducted into how emerging adult males construct intimacy in their casual conversations with close male friends about romantic relationships. To this end, researchers recorded, transcribed and coded 10-minute casual conversations between 32 pairs of 19-22-year-old American male friends. Forty romantic-relationship 'stories' were identified within 16 of the conversations. These were identified and coded according to the presence of certain 'discursive devices' indicating either intimate positions ('positive, warm, engaged or supportive characterisations') or distancing positions (mitigating 'intimacy, sentimentality and positive characterisation') towards romantic relationships. Results found that 'distancing utterances were more than twice as prevalent as intimate utterances' within these stories. The majority of stories revealed discursive patterns shifting between intimacy and distancing; just two of the 40 stories were classified as being unmitigatingly intimate. The nature of these conversations shows how emerging adult males use mixed patterns of intimacy and distancing in conversations to 'facilitate identity expansion', constructing and practising intimacy as part of their emerging adult identities while mitigating this with the familiarity of 'traditional masculine norms'.