Jordan Gray thinks it’s strange that people assume he and his male friends are dating, simply because of how they act with each other.
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I have (apparently) very unique relationships with my closest guy friends.
When we are out in public together we do a number of things that stand out to others.
In fact, we stand out to such a degree that the majority of our servers, bartenders, and new acquaintances assume that we are gay.
“Wait… you guys aren’t together?”
“Well, we’re physically out together tonight.”
“You know what I mean. You guys aren’t dating each other?”
“Nope.”
“But you used to right? You’re at least bi?”
“Nope. Just male friends who like each other a lot.”
Upon scanning my memory bank I’ve never felt like I was doing anything overtly out of the ordinary.
But when I dug into the “You guys must be together” people about why they would assume we were in a relationship, the feedback I received was all true.
Things such as…
– We full-chest hug hello and goodbye
– When we go out for meals with each other we maintain strong eye contact, engage fully in the conversation, and generally do all of the things that men “on the hunt” don’t do
– We readily laugh at each other’s jokes and don’t seem at all competitive
– We tell each other we love each other
– We’re quick to celebrate each other’s victories and brag about each other to new friends
– We look happy and comfortable in each other’s presence
– We frequently have guys-only vacations
– We have lived together in multiple countries
– We’re more encouraging of each other than we are challenging
If these are the things that consistently make people assume that we must be a couple then I’m worried that there must be something lacking in what is currently considered a “normal” male to male friendship.
When did it become the societally accepted norm to have emotionally surface level relationships between men? Why is male affection so stigmatized and feared by so many men?
Why is it easier to challenge or ridicule your male friends than to encourage or verbally praise them? Why has the intimacy in our greetings gone from handshakes, to fist bumps, to head nods?
When did challenging become the new kind?
I don’t know all of the root issues that led to the scarcity of male affection. I don’t have the answers.
But I hope that we are trending towards a world where “male friends hugging” doesn’t automatically make the viewer assume anything about the huggers’ sexual orientation.
What about you?
Has anyone ever mistaken you and your guy friends for being in a relationship for any of the above reasons? Or different reasons?
I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments below.
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If you enjoyed this post, you might also love reading:
7 Things All Women Need In A Relationship
10 Questions To Ask To Go Deep In Your Relationship
Half A Dozen Hacks For A Thriving Sex Life
The One Thing To Remember When You’re Dealing With Any Person, Ever
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Photos courtesy of JordanGrayConsulting.com
This is exactly how I acted towards my former best and closest friend. Unfortunately our friendship ended in catastrophe because his notion of heterolization did not permit anything deeper than superficial on the surface friendship. Anything else would be read as sexual advances on my part. Good grief.
This same thing happens with my girlfriends. I have been called a lesbian by men when out because I wouldn’t give them any attention and was more interested in my friend. Friendships are important and meaningful, true friendships are the treasures in life. To be open to someone is to live in love, that’s why people jump to that conclusion. Our society is partner centric, the thought is: only true love can exist between a couple in a relationship. So it throws people off when they see anything different and begin categorizing, otherwise it doesn’t make sense to them. This… Read more »
I have a question. If two men have lunch and dinner together every single day, every day, and one buys clothes for the other one all the time, that would be a really gay thing wouldn’t it? Both are overtly homophobic.
I read some of the comments wanted to share how much I agree with the general feeling here. I’m gay, but I have a handful of very close straight friends. To be honest, these are some of the strongest relationships I have in my life. I love them, but platonically. It’s hard for some people to grasp this, and I think it might be in part because of the culture-shift toward gays being more open. I’m not flamboyant, but I still feel the judgments. I think it’s a shame that people, men, myself included, are constantly subjected to this unspoken… Read more »
Hey Jordan, I appreciate this article and agree that there are problems with the dynamic in male relationships today. However, I don’t know if the things you listed are why people would be considering you and your friends gay. My friends and I do all those things in manly ways. We care about each other and having good, deep, relationships, but no one calls us gay. In addition to the topic of this article, I would encourage you to also look beyond the issues you see with a stereotypical male relationship and how you contrast those issues. Maybe there are… Read more »
by the way, the email is my wife’s. I think love and how to express it has to be learned from your parents. I never did because they never expressed it. they probably did love me, but I never felt it. I would love to hug some of my male friends and tell them that I loved them, but I can’t. I think because I experienced rejection from the attempt as a child, I don’t have the courage to ever try it again because the hurt you feel is crushing. I even have to wait for my wife to initiate… Read more »
I am an officer at a prison where macho is important. But just like the saying “only real men can wear pink” some of my fellow officers about fifteen years back decided that it was cool to show that they were real men confident in themselves by giving other officers full body hugs. They especially liked giving them to those of us who were not comfortable with them. They’ed catch me off guard and did this many times. Eventually I stopped fighting it. This thing spread so that lots of them do it now. A dozen years after this started… Read more »
OH MAN ! What a story. I think world need more people like you. It’s really great to know that there are men who haven’t lost their generosity and sense of humanity in such a dark age. Please Don’t lose this quality ,ever !
don’t have an email.using my wifes’. i’ll tell u exactly why male relationships are so estranged. I don’t touch other men, even though I ache for it, because my father never touched me. that behavior, tragically, gets propagated from one generation to the next.
I never read such a powerful article before. This discussion is one that I share with my brother privately but I admire the courage of all of you who didn’t just say, this was a really great post, and I stand with you, but you each went as far as testifying about the vulnerability and connection you share with your male friends. Thank you Jordan for leading such a powerful conversation. I have a book that I am writing on this topic that I believe you guys are going to enjoy, because I want each of us to have a… Read more »
My best friend in college (and to this day) is an amazing human being! It’s safe to say he’s the most affectionate guy I’ve ever met, and yet he’s totally straight. He never hesitated to hug me and say “I love you man!” If I was feeling stressed or down about something, he’d pick right up on it like he could read my mind. Noticing my moods often led to him wrestling me to the ground or floor, pinning me with my hands above my head, looking down at me smiling and saying “I love you man!” That guy’s brotherly… Read more »
Jordan, I read your piece the day it was posted but didn’t have the time to reply. Now I check back, and look at all these fabulous comments! It was encouraging enough to me to read it in the first place, but to see how it has struck such a responsive chord makes it even more so. Thank you, and well done! I’ve had many similar experiences to the ones you describe (mostly, I’m happy to say, of the comical and absurd variety). Now that I’m in my late thirties, very happily married, and the father of two little boys,… Read more »
I’m glad to see you reclaiming a male emotional space that was “shamed” out of the last 3 or so generations of men by mass media example…. Movies, photos, TV, video of how “REAL MEN” act…..a unsustainable/unattainable standard that shredded male friendships and emotional closeness with fears of being seen as less than “MANLY”
This a real issue of male/masculine identity that needs to foster much discussion in this new century. Society, I believe is suffering from malignancies like greed, selfishness and apathy. In this article, we are faced with the menace of stereotyping characterized by a narrow-minded perspective and judgmental attitude. It simply adds fuel to the fire. Having lived a life raised by an emotionally unavailable/distant father, I have found myself longing for a father figure who could bestow the love and appreciation I so desired without reservation. This hardship has driven me to the point where I found myself questioning my… Read more »
Thank you, Michael! I believe this is one of the most insightful and far-reaching in a whole string of very helpful and encouraging comments. The effects of materialism on human relationships; the difference between true love and what often masquerades for it in our society; the malleability of sexual identity and the primacy of choice; the need for evolutionary shifts in consciousness, especially among men; and especially the concept of human nobility, all resonate deeply with me and I believe deserve a WHOLE lot of exploration in as many social spaces as possible. Again, my sincere appreciation!
My best friend of 28 years and I are these kinds of buds. Full on warm hugs… saying I love you all the time… and in fact, there is more affection with him than with my wife… but that’s another story. When I talk about how we are together with my friends (affection, back and foot massages,etc) … I hear things like: That’s not normal… he must be gay… or he must be g0y. Well, I am g0y, but he is totally straight. It is kind of crazy. I often wonder if people see us in restaurants and think we… Read more »
Hey Jordan, Hope you don’t mind a lady weighing in. I read your article with great interest and realised that I have made that assumption before. I was at a restaurant and saw two guys walk in and have dinner together. I remember wondering ‘Are they on a date?’. I wasn’t too impressed with myself when I realised that I have walked into a restaurant with a girlfriend before and would have been confused and perhaps slightly offended if someone was to ask me if I was on a date with her. I wouldn’t think twice about people’s reactions to… Read more »
Why wouldn’t I assume that two guys hugging (as you described) are gay? Just like I would assume that two girls hugging as you described are lesbians or a guy and a girl are together. Who cares what other people think? I think that the level of intimacy you share with your friends will probably make a lot single girls rule you out but who cares? The only issue I had was your formatting of “boyfriends” vs. “boy friends”. Boyfriends equal romantic for me so I was a bit confused.
Hi Jordan Gray! I read this article. And i think it´s fascinating. The way you relate to your friends is so good. I have a classmate that plays with his friends at class, and they say stuff like meaning they´re just playing. Once this friend showed the group his ass. The way they relate is fascinating. Me. I have problems relating to others. At class, i´m all alone. People say i m gay. etc. Im 31 and over my student life i´ve seen my classmates show their sexuality in many ways. Even one that hit me at school, was gay.… Read more »
It may shock you to discover a group of men who have ALL the answers. Today is the 1st day of your massive paradigm shift: These men are called g0ys -spelled w. a zer0. The group is growing explosively on a global scale. G00GLE g0ys (spelled w. a zer0). Find the depths of what this article hit on.
I feel like if you had a similar kind of relationship with a female friend you’d have people assuming you were together as well. Nothing wrong with a relationship like this, I just think that many people are only likely to experience this kind of closeness and intimacy with someone they’re romantically involved with.
I keep getting drawn back to this article because I think my generation was caught by a cultural shift. Maybe we who grew up in the the 60s should thank the hippies for that. I still do the one sided guy hug with those who automatically turn to the side. But with others, like you Jordan, I prefer the heart to heart hug with a friend who I know has got my back. Thanks for writing the article. Btw, it’s actually “safer” with a guy friend because there’s no issue with groping. That was kinda blunt. Sorry. Couldn’t think of… Read more »
This happens to my friends and I ALL THE TIME! We always tell people that “if we were gay we would totally be together, but we aren’t.” It is disturbing that men can’t show any affection for one another anymore. We just have to reclaim healthy male friendships and show everyone that it is ok again.
I love this so much! I was recently talking to a friend of mine who I spend a lot of time with and one of us posed the question that some people may think we are a couple. We have no problem showing each other brotherly physical affection, but it’s occurred to us that many people could interpret our behavior as gay. Neither one of us is “straight” but that is a line that neither of us has a desire to cross. Ours is a brotherly relationship and that’s where it’ll stay. I love having my friendships like that! Another… Read more »
Amazing Spencer. I love it! And yes, we’re definitely trending in a more open, emotionally healthy direction as a society 🙂
It would be interesting what the reaction and comments from the public would have been had all you guys been girls. In this world of sexual equality, it’s so strange that it only works in the ONE direction – towards the female gender. I am certainly getting far more open with my male friendships, telling them that I love them – even when there are other people about, hugging them when I can, instead of the more formal handshake – which some people don’t even like doing in case they spread some germs. – Duh, weren’t those same germs still… Read more »
Reading your piece made me recall when a close male friend, returning from a long stint abroad, greeted me by pulling me into an embrace that I felt myself instinctively withdraw from. Why? He was the father of 4 children, and my wife thought his display of affection sincere and heartfelt. Years later, when my dad came to visit—a man I hadn’t seen in more than a year—I found myself pulling him into an embrace that he very pointedly recoiled from. This was my father, the closest male figure in my life, fending off his son’s overt expression of love!… Read more »
Sounds like you’ve made leaps and bounds in your progress Merv. Thank you for sharing brother.
i have the same relationship with many of my guy friends. So much so that my ex girlfriend broke up with me because she thought I was gay or at least bi. I’m very much a straight male but I do love my guy friends so much so that I consider many like a brother to me.
I totally hear that David. Many people find these kinds of relationships threatening because it’s so outside of their mental paradigm about how relationships “should be”. Usually, on some level, they’re envious of the level of intimacy and connection that you and your friends have. You are a lucky man to be able to have such amazing friends in your life. Much respect brother.
And thank you Jordan for voicing this story publicly. There very much is a stereotype of what a “man” should be. But men can be intimate with each other too, not in a sexual or homosexual way, but with a love for each other!