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TheGouner-News D-1 Help Page D-2 Landers D-3 Comics D-4 Tuesday, September 29, 1987 By ROBIN GABY Courier-News Staff Writer Ul MhLE FRENDS cluding men's response to feminism, men and masculinity and gender and sexuality. "The role for women is one of de-nendencv. so women will learn to de PS 1 Muscle cars brought Chuck Myers and Don Nees together nine years ago. Motorcycles keep the relationship humming today. "We're good buddies the best," said Myers, 29, of Upper Black Eddy, Pa.

"A great friendship," said Nees, a 27-year-old Flemington resident. "We've never had an argument." Webster's defines friend as "a close acquaintance; a person whom one knows well and is fond of." Men call 'em "good buddies" people to drink with, play with, and talk sports, business and women with. Men usually have lots of friends -far more than women do, experts say. But male friendships have traditionally been close encounters of a different kind from the female version. The difference between male friendships and female friendships, is, in a word, intimacy or the lack of it, said Michael Kimmel, assistant professor of sociology at the State University of New York in Stony Brook.

"Women will talk with each other about the most intimate of subjects. And they'll be very specific," Kimmel said. "Like sexuality they'll talk in detail about what they like and what they don't like. They'll talk about real emotional problems they may be having." Men, on the other hand, even when they're among close friends, will talk about topics such as sports, work and women, Kimmel said. "And when it's about women, it's rarely anything specific like their problems with or their feelings about a particular woman." "I think I'd like to be able to talk to friends about more serious things," said Mark Gonzales, a 40-year-old construction supervisor from the Cro-ton section of Raritan Township.

"It just isn't done, usually. So we talk about old times or women or our jobs. That's about it." Even when men do seek out a sympathetic ear, it usually belongs to a woman a wife or a lover, said Barbara Seater, a sociology professor at Raritan Valley Community College in North Branch. "Traditionally, women do the nu-turing work in society the emotional work," Seater said. "So we turn to those who will provide us with what we need.

If we need emotional supportno matter whether we are a woman or a man we are more likely to turn to a woman." But with the increase of male participation in what were traditionally women's roles, such as sharing do- pend on one another," Kimmel said. "The norm for men is independence. They need to appear strong, calm, always in control. This mandates that they not reveal inadequacies or problems to other men." The truth be told, most men are still frightened of emotional intimacy with other men, Kimmel said. Emo-' tional bonding with other men doesn't fit the age-old macho mold.

And even when men do feel deep affection for other men, Kimmel said, the majority of men still don't display their feelings openly for fear that their actions will either lead to homosex- uality or be perceived by others as homosexual. "Women tell each other everything," said Ray Mitchell, 36, a Pis-cataway salesman, "but they also hug and kiss and cry and stuff. That's fine. They're supposed to do that. They're women.

If I did that with my friends, they'd get the wrong idea." Women learn early on from their mothers about how rewarding intimate friendships can be, Seater said. They are taught to be emotionally supportive, nurturing and good listeners. Fathers, however, don't often teach their sons those intimacy skills. Many sons are taught that they don't need anyone they can go it alone. "I don't talk to my friends about things like love," said Walter Brown, a 37-year-old construction company owner from Kingwood.

"And if I have a problem, I'm capable of settling it myself. I don't tell anyone my personal problems. I'll just have a beer and take it out on someone else." 1 But many men particularly younger men can enjoy more intimate emotional relationships with each other today. Don Covert, a 19-year-old Rutgers freshman from Annandale, has a couple of intimate friends. "Sure, I talk about cars and other, common interests with friends," Covert said.

"But I've also cried with friends and discussed problems with them. "We don't have to project any kind of image to each other. That's what friendship is all about being yourself." Other men have paid little attention to societal roles all along. "I've had the same best friend for 50 years," said Herbert Long, a 71-year-old retiree from North Plain-field. "That guy's been through it all with me.

I love the man and he knows it." 0 has helped Chuck Myers, front, Trcditionily, They drank tcr p-y; 1 1 togothcr, but ti i if ir 'n't hnv3 lh 3 in l.rn 2 sj v. 3 1, enjoy. Eut tiit'ircy 13 Yuppies focus of Thirtysomething' Psychologist says eccentrics may be happier, healthier ZUCKERMAN Columnist 1 1 Courler-Newi photo by Bod Hertwrt "I taught Don things that I learned from my father hunting, fishing, how to ride a motorcycle," Myers said. "He showed me other things things about music and airplanes. And he got me to go skydiving.

"I can tell Don anything," Myers said. "We have no inhibitions with each other. It's nice to have someone who's willing to listen. Attitudes are changing. It's OK for men to be close.

The macho stuff does still exist but not as much." Kimmel, who taught the course "The Sociology of the Male Experience" during his five-year tenure at Rutgers University, has researched a variety of male-related topics, in See the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the average individual age 25 to 44 spends about 6.8 hours a week on housework, down 40 percent from 11.3 hours a week in the mid-'60s. Men's participation in housework a category in Juster's study that included cooking and washing dishes as well as cleaning has risen in that period to 2.4 hours a week from 1.3 hours. However, a time-use study by Rebecca Lovingood and Nancy Barclay, professors of resource management at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, found that some men are hardly helping out with the housework. In a study of 210 Virginia families men were spending an average of 6.3 minutes a day on housecleaning in 1978, a figure that dropped to 1.6 minutes a day by 1986, Lovingood said. Ruth Cowan is the director of wom By FAYE Syndicated In tribulations must with attachment with In Michael never Meanwhile, because frightened infant Does problems? has a friends A mutual interest in motorcycles mestic chores or helping to rear children, the rigid societal rules for acceptable male behavior are loosening.

"We're all rethinking our roles," Seater said. "And we are increasingly taking on different aspects of each other's roles. Are we moving toward androgyny? I think so. Slowly." And while male images on television still reinforce the stereotypic male, a few shows, including "St. Elsewhere," "L.A.

Law" and "MASH," offer different models of men those who are emotionally connected to each other, Kimmel said. "Men are just beginning to realize how much they need their friends," Kimmel said, "and how much more centric is "out of the ordinary, odd, unconventional." Weeks' aim is to encourage the acceptance and cultivation of eccentricity in society, he said. He also hopes to familiarize mental health workers with eccentricity as a condition distinct from mental illness. That new understanding, he believes, will prevent patients from being wrongfully committed to mental hospitals when they are simply eccentric. While eccentrics may exhibit one or two symptoms that are consistent with mental illness, they retain a hold on reality and have insight into their own behavior, he said.

The psychologist has identified 20 traits indicating that a person may be eccentric. Eccentrics are often loners from as early as age 7, they are convinced they are different or visionary, they proffer profound ideas that don't quite operate within the laws of logic, they are egotistical and they don't hesitate to bring up their unusual preoccupations with anyone they meet, Weeks said. An all-consuming preoccupation with a single or several topics is the most characteristic trait of eccentrics. For instance, a self-described eccentric who lives in San Francisco and is participating in Weeks' study is obsessed with the game of chess as a key to spiritual knowledge. The subject, a 40-year-old accountant, began playing chess at age 7.

Now that he has a computerized chess game, he estimates he plays more matches in a week than most people play in a lifetime. The psychologist also rounded up a number of eccentrics in the "deviant science" category. These have devoted their lives to inventing fantastical machines, though not all of the machines are wacky. See ECCENTRICS Page D-2 friendships can be than talking cars or sports." What began as a relationship built around cars for Nees and Myers eventually grew into a friendship ce- 5 i J. your '30s? Married? Single? Have children? Upwardly mobile? ABC's "Thirtysomething" at 10 p.m.

tackles the trials and of yuppies. The major problems "Thirtysomething's" soul-searching characters contend with include balancing a career family life, coping with a young mother's to her 9-month-old child and dealing extramarital affairs. tonight's premiere episode, Elliot (Timothy Busfield) confides to his business partner (Ken Olin) that lie had an affair and told his wife, Nancy (Patricia Wettig). Michael's home life is falling apart his wife, Hope (Mel Harris), is too to entrust the care of their fussy to a baby sitter. the show present solutions to these As a matter of fact, it does.

Hope pat explanation for why she and her are troubled adults: "I think our parents and Don Nees remain friends. mented by mutual affection and trust. The friendship began in the summer of 78 when Myers noticed Nees working on his high-perfor- mance automobile. Between 1960 and 1987 the percentage of women in the work force rose to 55.8 percent from 35.7 percent, according to the Bureaus of Census and Labor Statistics in Washington, D.C. According to a 1986 survey of 1,409 households, sponsored by Johnson Wax, women still do about 84 percent of the housecleaning.

"The more time women spend at jobs, the less time they have to spend on housework," says Susan Strasser, a historian at Evergreen State College in Olympia, and the author of "Never Done" (Pantheon, 1982), a history of American housework. "Despite the fact that men may be doing a little more now, women remain primarily responsible for these tasks and they don't have the time they once did." According to a 1982 nationwide study of 507 adults by Thomas Juster of the Institute for Social Research at iTrr Ken Olin and Mel Harris are yuppies in Cleanliness bites the dust for many By ANN JAPENGA Los Angeles Times Most families have had to tolerate at least one bona fide eccentric: the great-aunt with the habit of speaking only in Shakespearean quotes, or the brother-in-law who remains sequestered in his garage and assembles perpetual- motion machines. Some families cope by having little to do with such odd relations. But those who have ostracized an eccentric in the past might want to reconsider. If psychologist David Weeks is right, that zany aunt or daffy in-law is happier, healthier and longer-lived than those of us who conform to social standards.

He asserts that in addition to being happier, eccentrics have the capacity to bring healing and happiness to people with whom they're in close contact. "Eccen-t tricity certainly does rub off," said Weeks, 40. If Weeks himself doesn't exactly claim to be an eccentric, he said he has become more cheerful and more offbeat since getting to know nearly 200 decidedly different individuals in the course of an ongoing study of eccentricity. "The experience has loosened up my horizons," he said. "I'm less worried about what people think of my ideas more willing to be speculative." Weeks, originally from Garwood, N.J., moved to Scotland in 1975.

He located his first crop of eccentrics in Edinburgh, Scotland, Dublin, Ireland and small villages in the south of England, an area he calls "a heartland of eccentricity As he expands his search to the United States, he is finding California to be equally fruitful, with a full 50 percent of his American subjects residing there. By dictionary standards an ec Coming up tomorrow TV on Page D-3 en's studies and a professor of history at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the author of "More Work for Mother" (Easic Books, 1983), a sociological history of women's work in the home. She says that a generation ago houses were "compulsively clean," but standards have now changed. "Twenty-five or 30 years ago the standards of house cleanliness were really bizarre," Cowan says. "There was this notion that your floor had to be so clean that you could eat from it.

Well, that's ridiculous we don't eat from floors." "I see this whole phenomenon as part of a certain indifference characteristic of this generation," says David Riesman, Henry Ford II Professor Emeritus of the Social Sciences at Harvard University in Cambridge, See CLEANLINESS on Page D-2 By STEVEN D. STARK New York Times Syndicate The oven has not been cleaned in weeks. The floors need a shine. There is dust on the furniture and last week's leftovers are still in the refrigerator. If this describes your home you are not alone.

According to recent surveys, Americans in the '80s are cleaning less and buying fewer cleaning products. The result, academics and industry analysts say, is that the American home is dirtier now than at any time in the last four decades. These changes are attributed to everything from new attitudes toward cleanliness to a decline in average household size, but there is agreement on the major factor: More women have taken jobs outside the home and they have less time to spend cleaning it. APPLE SEASON: Recipes that make the most of nature's bounty. MYSTERY MEAT: Food holds a prominent place in several of today's novels of intrigue.

TO CALL THE LIFESTYLE STAFF LifeStyle Editor Connie Ballard can be reached by calling 722-8800, ext. 439..