DH is a lovely guy. He's well liked amongst his colleagues, acquaintances, mates.
He occasionally complains that he doesn't have people he would truly call friends - no one he could call in an emergency for instance, or to be best man at our wedding, or to talk about something personal.
I think it's because he's great at shooting the breeze, making jokes, ruminating on life's problems, but he never ever tries to get below the surface of people. For example, he'll meet up with friends from school infrequently, but never ask about their lives, their jobs, their partners - he'd only know if they told him. So his information can stay years out of date. It's not that he isn't interested - it just doesn't occur to him to ask because he'd rather make jokes. I love to have a laugh but I also love knowing about people, what makes them tick and how they got to where they are in life.
I know there are differences in how men and women form friendships. But I think DH is on the extreme end. And I know he'd like to have true friends, he just disagrees with me on why he doesn't have them. I don't know if it's really a difference between men and women or whether he's lacking something. He feels empathy, but he's very poor at expressing it. I don't know how much I am coloured by my own experiences with him because I love when he asks about my day and how I'm feeling - it took a long, long time for him to understand that and he occasionally remembers to do so!
I feel that unless he's interested in some of this stuff he's never going to feel particularly close to his mates and vice versa. He counters that he's just being polite and doesn't want them to think he's being nosy - he thinks they'll tell him if they want to. I counter that is not being nosy to ask a personal question - they probably don't think he's interested because he never asks, and they'll therefore just see him as a mate to have a laugh with, not someone they would turn to.
Who is right? I could just let him be, but we've just moved to a new country and he's a SAHD and feeling a bit lonely, so I want to help him as much as possible.