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Mad Bromance

Mark Phillips , , , ,

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Best friendships can be complicated. But complicated is beautiful. There’s something about a best friend: a possessiveness, a passion, a closeness, a curiosity. Sometimes the relationship can be so intense it’s easy to mistake it for something it’s not. Because we rely so much on best friends, it can be easy to think your best friend is your perfect match. Maybe they are, but probably not like that.

This is the problem friends have when relationships seem a distant memory and love is something that only happens to other people. Sometimes we get tangled and can’t see things like we should. It can be easy to rely too much on each other and get lost in that reliance. But when you think about it, and allow yourself to look away, is the friendship really what you want it to be? Giving all your love to a best friend, someone you trust and know will never hurt you, can be seductive. But seduction isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Between straight best friends, when the boundary between love and friendship blurs, they call it a bromance. With gay best friends, it can be even trickier. There can be undercurrents of sexuality in any friendship, usually because of the emotional intimacy, but with gay best friends there’s more of a likelihood of something happening. The tangles can get worse. But sometimes the tangles get too tight, to breaking point, and you find yourself set free. Other times you just get sick of not being able to move and take to the tangles like Nicky Clarke in an advert for scissors.

Sometimes it takes sex to simplify things, to clarify them. If in the heat of the moment you find yourself thinking just a little bit too much, actually just going through the motions, then it can straighten out the queerer parts of any friendship. What comes after can go back to basics. Back to the start. You can shake off those too-close-moments of underlying unease and get closer (emotionally closer) than you realised.

Best friendships can be complicated, but it’s better when they’re just beautiful.