As a man in his 50’s who grew up in the southern US, I rarely saw men showing any outward affection to their platonic male friends. Sure, you’d see a congratulatory pat on the butt playing sports, but that’s about it.
Interestingly, before that back in the 1940’s and 50’s, men were much more outwardly affectionate toward each other. I assumed the change was mainly due to societal pressures about homosexuality and the “hugging is for sissies” mentality. In the past 20 years that pendulum has swung back again and you see it more often.
So I’m curious what it’s like in your friend group? Are you uncomfortable with it? How do you tell your friends you love them? Or do you?
Edit: to clarify the title
I have a lot of video (sans audio) that covers my grandma from a baby all the way up to her college years. Approx. 1931 - mid 1950’s in Chicago. Actually used it for a multimedia installation that ended up being my thesis. While there were some clips of kids playing, my grandma doing cartwheels, they mostly used the video camera to take what we now call live-photos. Everyone was gathered as if for a picture, but they would wave, smile, and kiss on the lips (or sometimes cheek). Everyone kissing everyone, my granduncle kissing his buddies, his sister, aunts n’ uncles.
It’s so odd that all that affection is lost on modern male Americans. I was lucky enough to be apart of a southern-baptist-esque church community that was super affectionate, and while I have lots of negative and complicated feelings about Christianity and those times (I’m now Buddhist), that was something that was very powerful for me. Hugging many people I didn’t know, but knew cared for me.