Perhaps It’s Time for Straight Men to Start Dating Each Other

I have a proposal.

How about straight men start dating each other to combat the male loneliness epidemic we keep hearing about?

I’m not suggesting that men should go gay, because God forbid a straight man indulge in something that brings into question their masculinity.

All I’m saying is maybe it’s time we start normalizing men hanging out with each other in more intimate ways — think going to the movies, dinners, nature walks, staycations, you know, typical bromance stuff. Minus the sex, of course.

The reason I bring this up is that recently I stumbled upon a study that proved something I have long suspected.

It’s published in the journal Men and Masculinities under the title “Privileging the Bromance: A Critical Appraisal of Romantic and Bromantic Relationships.”

The findings revealed that men’s friendships with other men were actually more emotionally satisfying than their romantic relationships with women.

Here is a snippet from the abstract:

We find that the increasingly intimate, emotive, and trusting nature of bromances offers young men a new social space for emotional disclosure, outside of traditional heterosexual relationships. Participants state that the lack of boundaries and judgment in a bromance is expressed as emotionally rivalling the benefits of a heterosexual romance. Our participants mostly determined that a bromance offered them elevated emotional stability, enhanced emotional disclosure, social fulfilment, and better conflict resolution, compared to the emotional lives they shared with girlfriends.

It was after reading through the study that it dawned on me…

Men enjoy each other’s company way more

So, they should just date each other.

Let’s think about it for a second.

We have a raging male loneliness problem — a phenomenon often characterized by men being unable to find partners and growing increasingly isolated and frustrated as a result.

On top of that, we have large swaths of men who have bought into the red pill/incel nonsense, who have nothing good to say about women. So why not just have them all seek each other out?

Clearly, they are more likely to have positive experiences given their compatibility. It only makes logical sense for them to be together.

The male-male bond has lower maintenance costs and a higher probability of working out in the short and long term.

Men won’t have to swipe endlessly on dating apps anymore or grind through dates they don’t particularly want to be on. Gone will be the need to perform masculinity to maintain attraction. They could finally be their authentic selves and, as a result, develop deeper connections with their bros.

Women already do it, and they have lower loneliness levels, so why not men?

Oh, and did I mention bromances are a lot easier to start than romantic relationships?

This paradigm shift would go a long way toward freeing up the dating space for men who genuinely love women — minimizing, if not eliminating, the gender war entirely while simultaneously reducing loneliness. Is this not a win-win proposition, or am I missing something here?

Do let me know.

Before I close, I know there is still the issue of sex, but that’s not going to be a biggie for much longer; AI and robotics will sort that one out soon enough. In the meantime, there is the hand, some lotion, and smut.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.