True BROMANCE

First: a confession. I'm in love with a man. Well, quite a few men, actually. It's not sexual love. It's not even romantic love. It's bromance.

Bromances are what happen when heterosexual men decide it's OK to, ahem, admire each other. There's no funny business - but it's more than just friendship. It's bringing into the open what only used to get confessed at last orders. The slurred, teary: "I bloody love you, mate," is no less genuine for coming out drunk - it's just that the modern bloke is happy admitting it sober.

Bromantic images of guy pals are everywhere. David Beckham and Tom Cruise, Jude Law and Guy Ritchie, Lance Armstrong and Matthew McConaughey... all recently pictured happily 'bonding'.

Closer to home - and on a rather less physically impressive level - where would Ant be without Dec? And what about the bond forged between I'm A Celebrity!'s Stuart Manning and Gino D'Acampo? And, more recently, Alex Reid and Jonas Altberg in Celebrity Big Brother.

There's no suggestion of physical intimacy between these couples - barring the entirely red-blooded and in-no-way-gay man-hug, or backslap, or quick flick with the towel in the changing room - but there is a bond beyond just mateyness.

'Men's men' have always felt an urge to express their platonic attachment to each other. Think of Tom Cruise and Anthony Edwards' half-naked beach volleyball games in Top Gun, Edward Norton and Brad Pitt getting sweaty together in Fight Club and Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze splashing in the waves in Point Break... all simply boys getting close.

I'll be honest: I've had more bromances than romances. I've had my celeb crushes - there's been Joe Strummer of The Clash, Ian Brown of The Stone Roses, Eric Cantona...

But among my real friends there have also been bromantic connections. I was a little bit in love with all my best mates at school and university - even if I can barely manage to Facebook most of them now.

And today - with a wife and two kids limiting male-bonding opportunities - I still see a number of guys who are more than just good friends. Would we admit to each other that we were bromantically connected? A few years ago, certainly not... these days, why not? We might as well - our other halves tease us about it all the time.

So why this sudden openness about our feelings? Perhaps it's the example set by the antics of Clooney, Pitt, Law and co. Or perhaps it's because now that much of the stigma has been removed from homosexuality, men no longer worry that admitting to caring for each other will label them as gay.

It's becoming true for even the most unreconstructed blokes - during the World Cup this summer, pubs will be full of lager-fuelled, heterosexual men expressing their love for David Beckham (or Steven Gerrard, or Frank Lampard). And, after England inevitably loses on penalties, those men will find more solace in the arms of their tearful mates than with the women they stagger home to at the end of the night.

A word of advice, however - that particular evening will probably not be the best time to tease your man about his bromances...

PHOTOGRAPHY: REX, FAMOUS, BARCROFT MEDIA, CAMERA PRESS

This article has 0 comments