A grand bromance

Playing it straight ... boy meets boy at the footy.

Tim Elliott
August 23, 2007 - 4:30PM

LAST WINTER I had an affair. Each Saturday afternoon I would meet this mate of mine, just for an
hour or two, at the football. We would watch the game, have a couple of beers and talk about things,
after which we would say how much we enjoyed it and return to our wives - but not before
inquiring, haltingly, tenderly, if we could meet again next week. I'm not sure if my wife ever
suspected anything. I certainly didn't: I just thought I was going to the footy. Only now do I see the
truth.
I was a having a bromance.
A blend of the words "bro(ther)" and "romance", bromance is defined by the latest Collins English
Dictionary as a noun (informal) referring to "a close but nonsexual relationship between two men".
It is also mentioned in the online Urban Dictionary, which defines it as "a display of affection
between two heterosexual men" (eg, "Oh look! Tom and Mike are drunk and hugging! That's so
bromantic!").
Apparently the term was coined in the late 1990s by Dave Carnie, editor of Big Brother, an
American skateboarding magazine. One of many such pearls - Carnie was, by all accounts,
something of a wordsmith - bromance specifically described the relationship between skate-buddies
who spent lots of time together and/or shared hotel rooms on road trips.
Like a "metrosexual", bromance is a yet another product of the great etymological compost heap
that is the English language, where words are constantly being broken down and re-assembled into
something new and, hopefully, useful. Certainly, it's proving useful in America, where "everyone is
using it, especially in LA", says Mark Cherry, an Australian writer who works in film. Bromance
most recently became the name of a group of guys from Watertown, New York, who Podcast their
discussions of blokey issues such as boxing and beer: their online logo is a cupid in a wrestler's
mask.
But does " bromance" have a future in Australia? "In my experience, most straight men tread
carefully around any term that involves the concept of romance with male friends," says Bruce
Ritchie, editor of the magazine Men's Health. "Isn't it just another word for mates?"
Yes and no. Mates meet up for a quick beer at the pub; bromance happens when two guys make a
dinner date weeks ahead. Mates get pissed at Cold Chisel tribute bands; bromantics make
compilation tapes for one another.
"Guys have always hung out together, but these days certain types of relationships are more
permissible," says Dr Clifton Evers, a Senior Research Associate at the University of Sydney and a
specialist on masculinity. While inclined to be sceptical about the term itself ("[it] sounds like
marketing bullshit to me"), Evers says there has been a fundamental change in the way young males
relate to one another. "There's been a shift to relying more on your friends for information. In the
old days, if you wanted to talk to someone about stuff, you'd usually go to an older bloke.
These days, guys go to their peers: they're the first port of call."
Evers discovered this while working on an education strategy for the Rugby League in the wake of
the 2004 Coffs Harbour pack rape allegations levelled at the Bulldogs team. "We assumed that
when it came to information about relationships and behaviour, the younger guys would go to the
coach or senior players. But they didn't. They were going to their peers."
Such behaviour indicates a level of trust hitherto only witnessed in female friendships.
So, with all their team bonding and bum-slaps, could the leaguies have been called the first
bromantics? "Maybe," Evers muses. "But not to their faces."
A fine bromance

October 12, 2008

In this age of divorce and singles, friendship is playing an increasingly important role in our lives,
especially friendship between men, John Elder writes.
LAST Tuesday night, Bart Simpson fondled a tatty T-shirt and quietly whined how he'd never forget
the week when bully-boy Nelson had "been my friend".
At that moment, Nelson pulled up on his bike outside and reflected: "I touched your heart." He then
gave his trademark car-horn bleat of mockery: "Har! Har!"
The Simpsons is forever giving the finger to current cultural trends. In this instance, it was the so-
called "bromance" or "male crush" — generally characterised as a non-sexual love affair between
two males.
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In the old days you might have called it the thrill of being best mates — except you wouldn't have
talked about it out loud at all lest someone think you were a couple of girls.
But now, it's not only OK for two fellows to be fond of each other, to feel a little giddy in each
other's company, and perhaps even to talk to each another about meaningful things … it's, like, cool.
A recent story in the Boston Globe pointed to emotion-rich male friendships on TV dramas such as
House and Nip/Tuck as evidence that man-crushes are fashionable: "Intimacy, understanding and
admiration in male friendships are no longer cultural taboos."
If this is true, will tabloid sociology continue to profit from the long-held notion that women have
more emotionally rich and satisfying friendships than men? Probably.
"There is some evidence that the nature of friendships between men is changing in some instances,"
says Dr Gordon Walker, a senior lecturer in psychology of men and masculinity at Monash
University.
"A strong influence of generational differences needs to be acknowledged when looking at the
changes … For example, a lot of the younger males, who are more emotionally expressive and
responsive than previous generations, were brought up by feminist mothers of the '70s."
The capacity for same-sex emotional bonding is most evident and least complicated in children.
Boys and girls fall in love with their new best friends. It is mostly a kind of gratitude and thrilling
admiration, a validation via recognition: we can get along.
The in-loveness, or even the friendship itself, may last a week, a month or just a couple of hours.
Forty years ago, I fell for a popular sporty kid who one afternoon suddenly spoke to me as if it was
no great thing. For a couple of hours he may well have been Santa Claus (who I was still
desperately holding to be true at the time). It was all over in an hour, and yet — like Bart Simpson
bathing in the afterglow of his time with bitter-sweet Nelson — I was moved by the fact that this
fellow had been for a short time my friend. In a way, I felt raised up as a citizen.
Aristotle was talking about the power of friendship in 300BC. In Aristotle's social theory, based on
his idea of the "good life", he defines friendship as a virtue — or an expression of, and contribution
to, one's goodness.
He regarded true friendship as a state of mutual caring and appreciation by which each man was
better off morally and spiritually for knowing the other: "It is those who desire the good of their
friends for the friends' sake that are most truly friends, because each loves the other for what he is,
and not for any incidental quality."
The great man was making the distinction between friendships where people find each other useful
(such as farmers sharing tools) or pleasurable (the adolescent excitement of simply hanging out),
and the kind of relationships that are good for us on a deeper level.
Friendship itself is hot. This is largely the accumulated consequence of divorce, which has
reportedly started to decline after an elongated boom; and because of extended single-hood, which
also seems to be slowing but remains a prevailing trend. Hence, friendship has become the prime
style of relationship for an increasing number of people.
Says Relationships Australia CEO Anne Hollonds: "It's undoubtable that friendships are
increasingly important in our lives, and arguably take on much of the responsibility that the support
of a family may have given more of in the past.
"As our society becomes more self-focused and we separate from family, the importance that we
place on our friends for similar emotional support increases. This is consistent with other invested
relationships, where people will often sacrifice monogamous relationships for the sake of
professional, social and physical mobility."
But what kind of friendships are prevailing? Is quality being abandoned for sheer numbers and
expediency? Hollonds says research shows a tendency for people to take the good and leave the
bad. "It seems we have taken on a 'buffet' ideal; a strong sense of being able to dip in and out of a
relationship … taking from it what serves us best."
While the younger generations tend to be labelled the shallow swimmers in the social pool, sex
columnist Maureen Matthews says it's the baby boomers — now ageing and often drawing on a
smaller friendship circle — who set the standard for buffet-style relationships. "It's the baby
boomers who gave us 'friends with benefits' … in which the individual has a surface relationship
with another, and with mutual understanding engages in sex acts when both parties are willing."
Matthews says friends with benefits, like other friendship trends, has evolved with the divorce rate.
"Having gone through marriage and raising kids and being spat out the other side … there is an
arm's-length approach to the investment in these relationships. It is not expected for the individuals
to produce emotional ties to the person, and generally won't be involved in the other's life or daily
issues."
However, as Hollonds notes, it becomes harder to make friends as one ages, and the value of
friendships rises with the declining availability. "For the older generation, their friendship circle
tends to include less people, but hold deeper meaning," she says.
I HAVE a very small circle of friends. I'm not sure I'm having a bromance with any of them —
although adventurer Peter Hillary, who has been my "best mate" for about 15 years, once gave me a
bottle of cologne.
Hillary reckons it's harder to make and keep friends as you get older because "you have higher
expectations of what friendships will be about, but you also have lots of commitments with business
and family. You don't have that rambling open time that teens and people in their early 20s have …
when you're open to all sorts of people coming in and perhaps are not so judgemental.
"Keeping up with your long-standing friends can be difficult if you're all living in different
countries."
Hillary is based in New Zealand but spends much of his time on the international speaking circuit or
leading treks in Nepal or Tibet.
"I think the internet can help keep things going, but it depends on the effort you put into it. If you
don't make an effort to share a bit of yourself, make a bit of time, I think your friends can rightfully
feel they are excluded from the core of your life.
"Ultimately, if you're an excluder, it comes back on you … People stop making an effort on your
behalf, the phone stops ringing."
In terms of making new friends, Hillary reckons it happens by surprise. "You can't manufacture it,
there has to be some natural chemistry. And often there needs to be time to recognise and nurture
that."
Historian Dale Blair — who 12 years ago was in need of friends when he wrote Dinkum Diggers, a
book that argued most Anzacs were terrified human beings rather than supermen who laughed in the
face of death — says there's a qualitative difference between the friends we make as we get older,
who are more likely to see who we really are and what we're currently dealing with, and long-
standing chums from school. "I suspect the friends I made from college have a view of me that I
don't have of myself. They see me as a persona that no longer exists."
Professor Helen Bartlett, pro-vice-chancellor and research gerontologist at Monash University,
Gippsland, says that when social networks decline later in life, people become at risk of isolation
and health-related issues such as depression. What's crucial here is maintaining a confidant,
someone to share your thoughts and worries with. "You don't need vast numbers of people in your
life, but having a confidant is critical to the emotional and mental wellbeing of a person. Men are
known to be more at risk because they are not natural social networkers."
Peter Hillary lost many friends in the mountains over the years. As a boy, his best friend was his
mother. She died when he was 20. Of late, he has watched in horror as some of his older friends
have started to fall off the twig. He is known as a great survivor. But how will he cope at 80, if the
rest of us have gone?
"I would think if you can't share some meaningful conversations with someone, you'd be starting to
wonder if your time was up," he says. "The richness of your relationships is a critical part to being
alive."