Let Men Love Their Friends Out Loud

My father never hugged me until the day I came out. We had three years after that. I've been thinking about him, and about every man taught to keep his distance.

My father was a good man. He wasn’t an affectionate one.

Maybe he was when I was small. I can’t remember. What I remember is being a teenager and not once being hugged by him. Not once hearing him say he loved me. We weren’t close, and for a long time I thought that was just who he was. Later I understood that part of it was me. I kept my distance, because I was gay and I was hiding, and staying hidden meant staying at arm’s length.

He was fair. He worked hard. He made sure my mother and I never went without. He was a good father. But there was a wall between us, and I’d, unknowingly, helped build it.

When I came out to my parents in the 80s, I braced for the worst. Instead my father crossed the room, pulled me in, held me hard, and told me he loved me and that my being gay didn’t change a thing.

We had three years after that. three years of talking, of making plans, of becoming the father and son we'd both wanted the whole time. Then he had a heart attack and died. I was twenty-three. I was devastated. I had finally gotten the father I'd wanted my whole life, and I'd spent most of that life keeping him at a distance over a secret that should never need hiding.

That’s what I think about every time I see two men hold each other at arm’s length.

The other day I read a post on Reddit about a woman who had seen her boyfriend being affectionate with another man. An arm around him, standing close. And her first thought was uh oh. Did I miss something. Is he gay.

I want to be fair to her, because that flinch didn’t come from nowhere. She didn’t invent it. We handed it to her. We handed it to everybody. The idea that a man being warm with another man must mean something is up, something hidden, something on the down low.

But the more I sat with it, the more I saw what was underneath. Men hiding from each other. Not just who they love, but that they love each other at all. I know that hiding, I spent years doing it with my own father.

Somewhere along the way, we taught men that affection is bad. Not complicated. Not risky. Bad. We taught them that a hug better not last too long. That “I love you” between friends needs a “no homo” stapled to the end of it so nobody gets confused. We handed boys a weird little rulebook where the only touch allowed between men is a handshake, a fist bump, or a shove.

And look where it got us.

Photo by Mojtaba Ravanbakhsh on Unsplash

Men are lonely. Not a little lonely. There are grown men out there who cannot name a single close friend. Men who haven’t been hugged, really hugged, in months. Men who love each other deeply and have never once said it out loud, because nobody ever gave them permission to.

Straight male friends light up when I hug them hello, like some part of them forgot that was even allowed, and they hug back. With me, there’s nothing to protect. So they let go. Guys who get quiet, then a little teary, when another man just asks, honestly, are you okay. Not as a joke. As a real honest question.

None of that is weakness. That's a whole part of a person that got locked away. It's not like the closet I had to come out of. It's a darker room than the one I left. Solitary confinement. A cell. I know what it costs to be told a piece of you isn't allowed. So does every man who learned to keep his friends from getting close. Different door. Same cell.

To be clear, most of those men aren't hiding what I hid. They're not secretly anything. They got the same rulebook and followed it, that's all. You don't need a secret to end up in that cell. You just have to be a man who was taught the rules.

When you see two men close, warm, tender with each other, your first thought does not have to be suspicion. It does not have to be “what are they up to.” It can be something much simpler. Wow. That’s awesome. Good for them.

To the men and the boys reading this, let me say it plainly, because maybe no one ever has. You are allowed to love your friends. Out loud. You’re allowed to hug them and mean it. You’re allowed to say the words. You will not lose a single shred of your masculinity by doing it. If anything, you’ll find out how much of you was waiting to be let out.

If no one ever told you that, let me be the one.

It’s not too much. It never was.

Here’s where I get hopeful. My son is straight, and he hugs me every single day. Yes, I’m his dad, so of course I notice. But I’ve watched him with his friends too. He reads them. The ones who want a hug get a hug. The ones who want a fist bump get a fist bump. He meets each guy where he is. He never learned that rule in the first place, and that wasn't luck. My husband and I made sure of it. He grew up watching two men love each other out loud. It's all he knows.

The world got a little darker teaching men not to reach for each other. We don’t have to keep it that way, and we shouldn’t. We can put a little warmth back. One friend, one hug, one honest “I love you, man” at a time.

When I say we, I mean all of us. Me included. This isn’t something we get to pin on some vague “they” who ruined men. We built this rulebook together, and we keep handing it down. So we’re the ones who have to teach something better. And the men handed this rulebook carry the hardest part, unlearning it one hug at a time. But not alone.

Here’s what I’ll leave you with. Think of one guy in your life you’d be gutted to lose. Text him. Call him. Tell him he matters to you, in whatever words you can manage. Watch what it does. To him, and to you.

My father and I had three years. Three of them, after years at arm's length. Give the men in your life more than I got. Tell them. Hold them. While they're still here to hug back.

Be bold, be free, and most of all, be you.

-David

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This started as a short video for A Queer POV: Friends, Loves, & Life. If it hit home, forward it to a man who needs to hear it. That's how this changes.

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A Queer POV: Friends, Loves, & Life with David
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