Bromance: Finding Your Buddies, Mates, Pals, and Bros

Take a look around. If you are a woman, does the man in your life have friends? Does he have real friends that he goes fishing with, attends ball games with, or grabs a beer after work with? If you are a man, do you have that kind of close friends?

Chances are if the answer is No to these questions, you go to work, you call your wife or significant other on the way home from work, run an errand or two, eat dinner, put the kids to bed and collapse in relief in front of the TV while partially listening to your spouse or partner. That's what life is like for most men. They are responsible; they hold down their jobs; they support their families; and they try to be as domestic as they can.

But if the above man is anything like you, he may be feeling lonely. Yes, lonely in spite of a wife, two kids, an office full of coworkers and less time than he ever imagined.

Don't get me wrong, women lose friends and all sense of themselves, too. But at the risk of writing about generalities, most women tend to maintain some sort of connected friendship even if it is by phone and email most days.

A 2006 study by sociologists at Duke University and the University of Arizona, found that the number of friends that we discuss things with has decreased 33% in the past 20 years. And the young, educated male has lost friends in a number higher than that average. Male-to-male companionship is almost lost in the United States, according to these experts.

Other researchers in the area of male friendships have pinpointed four key areas where most men commonly make their friendship mistakes.

One problem, and probably the biggest, is time constraints. Marriage and parenthood take up a lot of time, after all. Career eats up another big chunk of time. The average American has added 10-20 hours per week to their time outside the home. This doesn't leave a lot of leisure time that the best kinds of friendship require.

The second area is how American males view their wives or girlfriends. There is a growing trend to make one's mate, partner, or significant other the best friend, confidante, and social arbiter. This not only places a great deal of strain on a marriage relationship not designed to be everything to everyone, but robs both men and women the opportunity to make intimate confidantes of their own sex.

The third area is closely related. Most men relegate their social lives to their wives or girlfriends once they have acquired one. This makes it easier when juggling multiple schedules, that's for sure. But that means at most social gatherings, a man will be surrounded by the male partners of his wife's girlfriends.

And the fourth impediment to making and keeping real lifelong male friends, is the perceived male character itself. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood didn't need friends: they were lone riders, self-sufficient, brave and silent.

But there is hope. 18^th and 19^th century men had close, deep heterosexual friendships with other men. Just look at such examples as Lewis and Clark, explorers and friends; or Wordsworth and Coleridge, poets, collaborators and friends. European men are more comfortable with having close male friends whom they hug, kiss and share their thoughts with.

And now we have bro-mance. This term seems to have originated in urban slang, and has definitions such as "Describes the complicated love and affection shared by two straight males" or "an emotional attraction between bros, often expressed by wrestling, nuggies or headlocks". It just goes to show that men aren't going to go without their buds or bros for too long.

Whether that version of friendships attracts you or if you'd prefer your acquaintances to be more buttoned-up and stiff upper lip, all experts agree that friendship is key to emotional and even physical health. People with a poor social network, for instance, have a lowered immune system and get sick more frequently.