When Anne goes to Lyme and the Musgroves meet with CPT Wentworth's friends, both males and females met and seem to have found a good sense of camaraderie. In fact, Anne claims that he could have made friends with all of them.

This seems to be an indication that Austen used youth and its carefree qualities to point out how the youths in the story do not hold the social friction nor establish the foolish boundaries of which Anne is so used to in her typical life.

It also indicates that youths also enjoy each other's best attributes in both genders. Notice how in their acquaintance the topics of marital obligation nor the pressures of society seemed to have played a role in their conversation.

Therefore, Austen uses friendship between genders as a way to filter the role of youth and freedom in how people communicate in the story.

Are friendships among men different from those among women in Persuasion?

In the story, as well as in Austen's society, men had to be more careful than women when selecting their friendships. Friends were not only amicable companions, but also endpoints for networking, and making business. Male friendships defined the man, as well. This is why males often associated with their equals, so that they could get admittance (for example) to all-male clubs, hunting, and other networking activities.

Women, however, did not have such intense pressure on their shoulders because they did not negotiate, held businesses, nor had the responsibilities given to males. As you can see Anne free to associate with whomever she wanted, but her father would suggest that she keeps it at level (which she did not do, as she continued to befriend Mrs. Smith). Still, women may have had a harder time associating with each other because there is a chance that women did invest themselves emotionally into their friendships with other woman and, should one woman betray the other, the social and emotional consequences are more bothersome than those of males.