Historical friendship fact: men, yes men, were the original bffs.
So to kick-off this brief--I mean really, really, really brief--history of male friendship
let's go way back to the ancient days when male friendships were considered supreme relationship
among humans. Thus was it written in the Bible in the second book of Samuel David writing
of his friend Jonathan, 'Wonderful was thy love to me, passing the love of women.' Next
up lets take a massive historical leap to the 18th century at which point friend in
English takes on its modern meaning of someone that you're really really close with. Before
that point, friend just meant anyone you had any kind of social relationship with, which
means that ye olde guys were all like ah friend yes! Oh you too friend yes. Ooh friend! Up
until the 1850s extremely close friendships between men were quite common, so much so
that the term romantic friendship is used to denote those earlier more intimate bonds
between men. During this pre-homophobic era it wasn't uncommon for men to even share beds
sometimes, especially in the United States during the Frontier Days. Most famously in
fact President Abraham Lincoln is known to have shared a very, very small bed with his
best friend Joshua Speed for 4 years. Four score and seven years ago I did share a bed
with my best friend Joshua Speed. Who cares? From the 1850s and well into the 20th century
you see the breakdown of those male romantic friendships. Some scholars attribute changes
brought on by the Industrial Revolution, the rise of leisure activities and organized sports
for men becoming more competitive with each other rather than cooperative. As this is
happening society is also becoming more blatantly homophobic so that men are becoming even more
physically distant from each other at the same time this concept of really close bff
friendships forever is being reconstructed as a girlie thing. Hey friend bring it in
for a hug. Hands off man what do you think this is pre-1850s or something. All of which
leads us up to the start of the 21st century at which point statistically white straight
adult men have the fewest number of friends out of anybody. [Singing] All by myself. But
in the early 2000s male friendship started to see a resurgence or should I say a brosurgence.
That's right in April 2001 the portmanteau bromance was born in the magazine TransWorld
Surf with the sentence, 'Lets say there's a bit of a bromance between Ryan and Matt.'
Direct quote. Pop culturally speaking you can also see this evolution of male friendships
towards the 21st century bromance on the big screen. In the 1940s and 50s you have men's
friendships on screen being that of wartime buddies, men in the trenches, bonding together,
which then gave way a few decades later to the buddy cop movies. Eh guys on the job together,
getting things done and having a good time. Finally you have the rise of the bromance
film in which guys aren't on the job, they're just hanging out expressing their emotions
to each other saying yes, I love you man. An in-depth survey on male friendships that
was published in 2013 concluded that for 21st century men, friendship is more important
than ever before. And while society does still have some homophobia-laden hang-ups about
the appropriate closeness of masculine platonic friendships, it does seem like things are
getting better of the male friendship front. So guys I want to know from you. What's it
like being friends these days? Let me know in the comments below.