Experiences of Friendships among Middle-adulthood Men in Macao

Abstract

As men step into middle adulthood, they encounter a series of changes, including friendship. The purpose of this qualitative narrative research is to understand the role of friendship in their lives, the ways of maintaining friendship and their experiences of friendship for middle-aged men between 40 and 55 years old in Macao. Seven participants, selected by snowball sampling, collaborated to complete the convoy model of social support network and participated in a semi-structured interview to provide the textual data for this narrative inquiry in individual interviews. The narratives were analyzed using thematic analysis to identify main themes including the structure of friendship, characteristics of friendship, content of friendship, and maintenance of friendship. Findings show that middle-aged men perceive their friends as mutually supportive and important. They think that the number of friends became larger because of their work, and used collaboration to solve conflicts. Group activities are pursued to maintain their friendships.