From the sporting field to Hollywood, the bromance is the hottest relationship right now, and it could change the way we all think about friendship, vulnerability and masculinity.
Erling Braut Haaland and Jude Bellingham. Image credit: Getty Images
Male friendships are the funniest things. On the one hand, guys can charge shoulder-first into each other on a footy field, spend a long weekend sleeping less than a metre apart in a tent, or devote 17 consecutive texts discussing whether a backup halfback deserves a start next season. What they couldn’t do, apparently, was admit they actually liked one another.
Now, as a card-carrying guy myself, I’ve always been pretty comfortable with hugging my Absolute Boys candidly and often. I’m lucky enough to have a close-knit group of friends I’ve known for nearly my entire life, whom I see regularly. We chat about serious things just as frequently as we rattle off the names of obscure sportsmen from bygone eras in the name of entertainment (it works). As easily as this comes to me, I know this is not as ubiquitous an experience as it once was, but there’s something in the air. Something is shifting. Bromances are popping up everywhere. The modern bromance has become so widespread that we’re no longer expected to nervously append outdated and casually homophobic caveats (“no homo”, “pause”) to every display of male affection, as though friendship itself required legal clarification.
Perhaps the best example of late comes in the form of two devilishly handsome sportsmen who are very, very good at what they do. Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham took their longtime bromance to the biggest stage at the recent World Cup, their heartwarming friendship laid bare for all the world to see. As the two became the heartthrobs of the competition, part of this was driven by their willingness to show one another tender affection and then return to being vicious competitors when the whistle is blown. Their friendship has become a celebrated cultural product of competition and fondness without ever threatening to become a punchline.
Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart in 2026 (L); Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in 2008 (R). Image credits: Getty Images
There’s NBA champions Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges, the modern-day LeBron James and Dwyane Wade (in their bromance, I’m not getting into a debate about basketball ability on here). Ever since the platonic ideal of sporting bromance, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, male affection has become increasingly normalised among elite athletes. Emotional scenes at tournaments are celebrated rather than mocked, hugs are commonplace and doled out without shame on the sporting pitch.
Here at home, we have the youthful excitement machines at the Hawthorn Hawks. Led by the two small forwards, Nick Watson and Jack Ginnivan, the Wizard and Ginni are the first to celebrate each other’s goals—and have helped usher in a contagious bromantic feeling that you can’t help but think underpins the recent success of the club. Even between clubs, former teammates Jarome Luai and Brian To’o have turned a lifelong friendship into an endearing bromance (“disrespectful” best man’s speech aside) that has carried on throughout both their careers.
It helps that wider culture has also shifted the conversation. The Hollywood of the noughties loved to treat male friendships as a punchline; think I Love You, Man, You, Me and Dupree, Superbad, and the like. The idea that men wanting emotional intimacy with one another was inherently awkward, absurd, or even embarrassing. Now, we’ve got more nuanced depictions like Andrew DeYoung’s Friendship or Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal that paint a more accurate picture of the anxieties and almost terror of cultivating male friendships: this shit is not easy.
Jack Ginnivan and Nick Watson (L); Jarome Luai and Brian To’o (R). Image credits: Getty Images
But the gag is being abandoned, slowly. Shows like The Bear, Ted Lasso, and The Pitt, are populated by men who openly support, challenge and care for one another without canned laughter. They dramatically highlight the power of developing such bonds, and push the idea that some of the most compelling relationships on screen aren’t romantic at all, but friendships built on trust, loyalty and emotional dependence.
What changed wasn’t simply Hollywood’s storytelling preferences, it was what the audience wanted. As cultural attitudes towards masculinity evolved, viewers became more interested in seeing men connect than watching them squirm at the prospect. Take the much-loved on-screen queer romance in Heated Rivalry between Ilya and Shane, which has extended into very real displays of platonic affection between the leads Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams. Neither of the two have publicly labelled their sexuality, but haven’t shied away from presenting themselves as extremely comfortable with where their friendship lies.
As my colleague at GQ Savannah Sobrevilla writes, “today’s viral guy-on-guy moments—coming amid a right-wing backlash against aspects of gay life as anodyne as Pride Night baseball caps—don’t ask audiences to contend with a queer romance. They just invite us to enjoy the pleasure shared between men, no homo.” The love is there, we just need to follow through.
Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd in Friendship. Image credit: A24
It all comes at a time where a gender disparity in friendship is at its most pronounced. In Australia, the rates of men experiencing social isolation are higher than those for women. A 2025 Productivity Commission report estimated that the effects of mental ill health and suicide cost Australia over $200 billion a year. The responses have varied in tactics and effectiveness. Manosphere-type figures lament the erosion of traditional male roles, an idea that is propelled by historic assumptions around stoicism and silence, and propose a return to ‘traditional values’. Sporting codes have discussed the introduction of mental health rounds after deaths of former players in both the NRL and AFL, but so far, there is not a league-wide designated round. There are community-focused proposals, run clubs, chess clubs, poetry clubs, and the like. Some guys are just going out for a few mid-week beers. We’re showing that we’re willing to engage with initiatives, the key is to get a little deeper with it.
Now, I’m not saying that canoodling with your guys—with their consent—is going to immediately zap any feelings of loneliness that may plague you, the solution isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Especially within a Western culture that has long grouped being close with another man through a homophobic lens. But physical touch shouldn’t be an immediate signifier of sexual interest, and historical evidence says it wasn’t always the case, and it certainly isn’t the case in many other cultures today. The resurgence in the bromance should be an open invitation to connect with your boys without pretence.
Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie. Image credit: Getty Images
Whether it comes in the same team colours or as rivalry—both Heated and room-temperature—or through another offering of support, a new paragon of friendship is evolving between guys. The bromance is not a quirky cultural trend. It’s evidence of a broader shift in how men are willing to understand friendship and themselves. For decades, masculinity often demanded emotional distance, and no matter how many podcasters might tell you otherwise, that is not the case. Today’s most admired men—from athletes to actors to creators—are increasingly demonstrating the opposite.
But as the broader rewrite of masculinity’s rulebook comes into play in the real world, the lessons are there to be learned. You need to be hybrid: physically capable but emotionally articulate, ambitious but self-aware, and confident enough to express physical intimacy without fearing what it might imply. Find your comfort zone and embrace it. Friendship, as scholar Tiffany Watt Smith writes in Bad Friend: How Women Revolutionized Modern Friendship, was once a field that men were the “great experts” in. Are we on track to getting our mojo back?
