Brody Jenner stared at me from the other side of my TV, spray-tanned and wide-eyed. "What's a bromance?" he asked, incredulously. As if I should innately grasp the homosocial premise for his new series. Uh, you tell me - dude.
Because, for months, I haven't been able go to a movie without feeling the man-love. The social phenomenon of bromances goes beyond the carefree but charmingly homophobic friendships of a simpler time; it embodies the type of drama and unbridled admiration that borders on "Brokeback." Where did this come from, and, more importantly why are relationships now defined through portmanteaus?
George and Jerry foreshadowed the "man-crush" back in the early '90s. Then came Wayne and Garth. Beavis and Butt-Head. Joey and Chandler. J.D. and Turk. By 2000, the allure of bromances expanded beyond TV and into reality. We watched the love between Damon and Affleck flourish, the playful pranks of Pitt and Clooney and the shirtless escapades of Armstrong and McConaughey.
Even sports were given some soap-opera-style drama with the advent of the bromance. Would Shaq and Kobe ever get along? Does D-Wade seriously spend the night at LeBron's house when their teams play one another? Were Romo and Witten really slipping each other secret plays, as Terrell Owens accused, or was T.O. just jealous of their tightness?
Movies now glorify the somewhat sweet, somewhat creepy trend. This weekend, when I saw the John Hamburg-directed "I Love You, Man," I couldn't help but feel like I'd already heard the man-crush jokes in every other comedy of the past few years, beginning with "Wedding Crashers."
But of the current crop of directors, Judd Apatow is the most bro-lific of all, pairing Michael Cera and Jonah Hill in "Superbad," Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen in "Knocked Up" and Seth Rogen (again) and James Franco in "Pineapple Express."
To be fair, the ladies celebrated their Traveling Pants and Ya-Ya Sisterhoods. They shared cosmos and sexcapade stories on TV. Chick-flicks abounded, and chick-lit poisoned bookstores nationwide. Yet no one knocked the female bond, or accused the women of being lesbians.
A bromance sounds ridiculous, but offers pragmatic solutions to our quarter-life crises. We're graduating, but most of us sure as hell aren't getting married, and a lot of us aren't even getting jobs. Bromances are the perfect codependency tool, filling the emotional void a serious girlfriend otherwise would have.
Shacking up with your special man-friend during the post-college, pre-marriage drifting period makes sense financially and saves guys from quick-to-commit girlfriends.
So, here's to making nonsensical nicknames for one another. Here's to caring more about how you look in front of your special man-friend than you do in front of your girlfriend.
Here's to sleepovers, giggly gaming marathons and matching…well, anything.
Here's to you, bromosexuals.
