Louisa Simmonds

Three april fools looking at camera with different expressions

For those still oblivious to the intellectual stimulation to be had from the new Bachelorette series in Australia, you will remain unaware of the focus on the cute bromances between competing males than any hot and steamy love-making for our poor Bachelorette.

I think most woman have been surprised by how touchingly loyal and supportive a roomful of boys together can be. And how much they touch each other! What is more embarrassing to comprehend, is how much less confrontational the ambiance in the house is, compared to when it was full of women.

Although it’s still very early days…

My old man is a man’s man and has had his fair share of bromances, although he has only recently secured his friendship pack here.

Which means he must have dragged himself off the sofa and called them back at some point.

He plays golf with these bros, gets inebriated with them, discusses his relationship with them – well, I imagine the others do, while the old man smiles on stupidly – and at the end of the evening they all shake pinkies, do funny handshakes, hug or exchange blood to seal their friendship, come home and trip over the chest of drawers in their drunken effort not to give themselves away.

Because in Bachelorette terms, that would be breaking the bro code.

I didn’t think I’d mind if the old man eventually ‘got himself a life’ in Australia ie. some friends. I’ve never been the type of woman who wants to live in her man’s pockets and the evenings he’s out with the pack now, provide me with the perfect opportunity to test new Ben and Jerry flavours, drink Chardy and eat chocolate. To be honest, he has grieved for far too long over the loss of his university chums due to me ripping him away from the motherland to seek my own opportunities in Australia.

But there are two things I hate most about men and their bromances:

1. How men are so super-defensive of their bros, can never be objective about them, and how whatever their mate says is always ‘gospel’ – like it makes complete sense, even though I’ve probably said the very same thing for the eons that constitute our marriage.
2. How secretive they become about what goes on when they’re together. That ‘what happens on tour, stays on tour’ bullshit.

I had to cope with this type of irrational bromancing with his brother’s influence for the first ten years of marriage in the UK.

It went something like this:

I would suggest an idea, which the old man would respond to with ridicule, followed by one of those scathing looks (like I’d come from another planet), and he’d want to dismiss the idea instantly – I believe, because it had emanated from me.

Then he would go away to the bat cave, rub his forehead a few times, process and ruminate over the idea for a while – probably to try and think up a way he could make it his idea. When his brother suggested the exact same thing a day or so later, the old man would jump on it like it was the best, most innovative idea in the world, because suddenly it had come from a reliable source.

What is it with men and their ‘bromances’, that they always manipulate their groups into some male society that is exclusive and closeted and women-free? The old man’s social life for the past ten years has been facilitated by my friendships, my effort and the kindness of my friends who have taken pity on him, yet the minute a few guys take him in, our calendar is booked from here to eternity with boy golf days, boys nights out and general willy-holding sessions.

Why can’t men share their friends?

#bromances #men #Humor #Friends #Relationships