You’re so absolutely right. For context, I’m cis male. In my youth, one of my closest friends took their own life and it was so completely out of the blue, at least that’s what it felt like to those of us who felt we were his closest friends.
What unravelled in the months that followed was discovering how tortured they were and how they never opened up about it to us who were supposedly closest to them.
Those of us that remained made a pact to be open, empathetic, and loving to one another - manliness be damned (and in truth it was easy to be emotional as we were all so hurt and in need of support as we navigated the void of losing the most handsome, charming, popular, and “cool” of us).
Since then, we’ve shared this approach to “male” friendship, even taking the time to tell each other we love each other. We hug when we get together. We have a group chat (originally jokingly called “Agony Aunts”) where we keep a tap on how we’re all doing. We all turn up en masse when there’s a breakup, cancer scare, miscarriage, parental death, you name it.
And from the outside, we’re “men”. Motorsport engineers, industrial engineers, sports-watchers, beard growers. Our openness to love each other has no bearing on our overall outward identities.
But inside, we’re all happier and more stable people.
It pains me this kind of friendship is odd even to cis female. Our girlfriends and wives find it funny how we’ll randomly send each other “I love you because” texts out of the blue and joke that we all must bang each other on our “lads” trips away together.
But we don’t care.
I had to lose one of my brothers in arms to realize how important emotional male relationships are however I cannot see a more beatific way to honour the friend I lost.
If you’re a man reading this, I beg you to cast aside preconceptions of what manliness is. Manliness can be a long hug after a painful breakup. Manliness can be saying I love you to another man. The strength and invincibility you will feel when you know that you are NOT alone and your brothers truly know you and have your back trumps everything.
You’re so absolutely right. For context, I’m cis male. In my youth, one of my closest friends took their own life and it was so completely out of the blue, at least that’s what it felt like to those of us who felt we were his closest friends.
What unravelled in the months that followed was discovering how tortured they were and how they never opened up about it to us who were supposedly closest to them.
Those of us that remained made a pact to be open, empathetic, and loving to one another - manliness be damned (and in truth it was easy to be emotional as we were all so hurt and in need of support as we navigated the void of losing the most handsome, charming, popular, and “cool” of us).
Since then, we’ve shared this approach to “male” friendship, even taking the time to tell each other we love each other. We hug when we get together. We have a group chat (originally jokingly called “Agony Aunts”) where we keep a tap on how we’re all doing. We all turn up en masse when there’s a breakup, cancer scare, miscarriage, parental death, you name it.
And from the outside, we’re “men”. Motorsport engineers, industrial engineers, sports-watchers, beard growers. Our openness to love each other has no bearing on our overall outward identities.
But inside, we’re all happier and more stable people.
It pains me this kind of friendship is odd even to cis female. Our girlfriends and wives find it funny how we’ll randomly send each other “I love you because” texts out of the blue and joke that we all must bang each other on our “lads” trips away together.
But we don’t care.
I had to lose one of my brothers in arms to realize how important emotional male relationships are however I cannot see a more beatific way to honour the friend I lost.
If you’re a man reading this, I beg you to cast aside preconceptions of what manliness is. Manliness can be a long hug after a painful breakup. Manliness can be saying I love you to another man. The strength and invincibility you will feel when you know that you are NOT alone and your brothers truly know you and have your back trumps everything.