I would have to disagree with the other repliers that this is cultural. I was born and raised in the US (assuming that is the culture the article was working f

I would have to disagree with the other repliers that this is cultural. I was born and raised in the US (assuming that is the culture the article was working from), and I very much agree with a lot of what you said. I have a decent number of healthy friendships, where I cherish and seek out those deeper conversations, where we both goof off, or nerd out or something or whatever. Some of those friends are girls and some of them are dudes. Sure the female friendships are more likely to end up that way, but I would argue that the length of the friendship and time you put in are bigger factors in terms of getting to the "My girlfriend just left, holy fuck what happens now" kind of conversations.