Modern millennial men get more out of "bromances" with their best male friend than romances with their girlfriends, a new study has claimed.
Modern straight men have ditched the macho image and are prepared to embrace their emotions saying they find their close relationship with other men more satisfying, academics suggested.They felt less judged and less likely to be nagged than by their girlfriends, while being able to express their emotions more to their male friends.
Scientists said the increasingly intimate, emotive and trusting nature of bromances offered young men a new social space for emotional disclosure, outside of traditional heterosexual relationships.
The findings showed how men who would once have avoided showing their emotions to their male friends for being labelled as gay has been cast aside.
Adam White, a postgraduate qualitative researcher at the University of Winchester said a recent study analysed straight undergraduate men's perspectives on a bromance.
He said: "That study showed that young men openly pronounce love for their bromances and engage in highly intimate behaviours, both emotionally and physically, which have until recently been socially prohibited in same-sex male friendships.
"In this article, we examine whether close male friendships have the capacity to rival the intimacy and affection traditionally reserved for romantic, heterosexual relationships."
He explained "the level of physical and emotional intimacy expressed between heterosexual young men is dependent on a number of socio-historical variables" and "homosocial intimacy flourished before the modern era."
In the late 19th and early 20th century, men could be open about their friendships with men but growing homophobia from the 1970s and the AIDS crisis curtailed this.
White said: "In this epoch, straight men began to fear being homosexualised for displaying physical or emotional intimacy."
They regulated their behaviour and judged their friendship with other men "when they engaged in activities together, like playing sports, drinking, fixing things, or gambling."
Women on the other hand generally "maintained friendships through sharing emotions and disclosing secrets."
But there has been "decreasing homohysteria" and young teenage boys do not aspire to be Rambo but instead "prefer the feminised charms and homosocial tactility of the members of the boy band One Direction, or popular YouTube vloggers or the intellect, financial success and charity of Bill Gates."
This has been helped by a new generation of buddy movies such as "Lad Movies" 21 Jump Street, Due Date and The 40-Year Old Virgin.
The study questioned 30 sports undergraduates at a British university on how they compare their experiences of bromances to that of their romantic relationships.
Source: thesun.co.uk
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