TKOG Who rules the broletariat

NTKOG #178: The kind of rabid beer-swilling she-bro whose idea of bonding time involves beer, sinkin’ shots in the corner pocket, and not going on any teary tangents about early childhood experiences.

I am: more Byronic than brotastic. Candlelit one-on-one emotional pour-out, anyone?

I am not: great at relating to people who aren’t.

The Scene: Mother’s Day in New York, hanging with Muscles, Brogre, and Dartmouth Brah. Because Justice was busy doing future-lawyerly stuff, we decided to spend the day as frattily as possible. And maybe it’s just because we had the pong-y power of Dartmouth on our side, but we succeeded.

Stuff we did: billiards; beer; tear-inducingly spicy wings; more beer; Iron Man 2; so much fucking beer; enough high fives, fist bumps, and “bro” puns to last Barney Stinson through a whole rack of suits.

Stuff we did not do: feel feelings.

Seriously, the bro puns were brolific and bombrostic. Even days later, I was in broverlode. My only regret? I couldn’t stay true to my roots and refer to them as portmanbreaux — little tip I picked up from uber-masculine Muscles, who stopped me cold after referring to the broeuvre of Bon Jovi. Turns out punning in French is a bit of a braux pas?

As a long-time wannabe she-bro, I’ve spent many hours with my ladies eating cupcakes (total no-bro) and swapping anecdotes in order to figure out the secret order of dudely comportment. Turns out I learned fifteen times as much during a day of field study than we ever put together in our theoretical studies. So, for your edification:

Tenets Of Exemplary Brohavior

1. A raging bro has a wide array of high fives and fistbumps at his disposal. Solid moves: the Top Gun; the good ol’ exploding fist bump. Less solid: the Fresh Prince; “I cordially request you knock it, lock it and — jeans-tightness permitting — store it in your pocket.”
2. When going for the Top Gun double windmill high five, if a bro accidentally grabs another bro’s ass on the follow-through, first bro does not radioactive-blush and apologize profusely. (Brofusely?)
3. If, calling balls for a game of Suicide, a bro specifically calls dibs on a set containing one of the pink billiards balls, he will be joking. Do not immediately squeal: “You read my mind!” Just — just don’t do it, bro.
4. If a bro needs to pee, he just goes. He does not pretend he’s going there to wash his hands.
5. When sitting in a Belgian beer hall, a bro does not order yummy raspberry Framboise. Even if he does call it Frambroise. (See also: “French punning, dudely ramifications of”.)
6. When ploughing through face-melting hot wings, a bro is legally obligated to grunt: “I can barely taste these” and mock anyone who dares use bleu cheese as a cooling agent. This is double-manly if there are tears literally streaming down your face as you do it.
7. Pro Tip: to unambiguously rule the wing-out, once you’ve eaten all the meat off, go ahead and eat the fucking chicken bones. Chew ‘em up and swallow them. Feel them shredding your innards. Knock back a little beer to drown the pain. (Guys. Guys. Brogre literally did this and didn’t realize it was weird until we and our waitress told him.)
8. Apbropriate reactions to Iron Man 2: “Where was the plot?” “Man, total suckfest.” Bros do not comment to other bros about how hot Robert Downey, Jr., is.
9. If a bro spills details of a recent or impending break-up, bros will grunt “sucks” or “lame” and order another pitcher. No crying, no over-analysis, no detailed gossip round-up later.
10. Bros probably don’t immediately hop online and blogcap bro’s night. But, dude, guys, there’s a learning curve here.

The Verdict: Anyone wanna hit up a monster truck rally later this month? Seriously, this was easily one of the best days of my year to date, and definitely the easiest time I’ve had integrating with straight guys in, uh, ever.

Late in the day, beer-hazy, I turned to Muscles and grinned: “Why is this the best day of my friggin’ life?” Characteristically, he had an answer ready: “When was the last time you did something so indulgent? Just beer and fun stuff, no responsibilities.”

A-friggin’-men, dude. It was nice to spend a little bonding time free of drama and intimacy. I wouldn’t want to do it forever, exactly, but man would I like to do this more often. Guess it’s time to go brah-shopping in Boston.

Tagged as: also if you read my blog by now and don't know the meaning of portmanteau/x then maybe you should look it up because it seems i say it every fifteen seconds, apparently i don't hang with a lot of straight guys, at one point we discussed muscle cars. MUSCLE CARS., bars, beer, billiards, bros probably also don't make lingerie puns about collecting new friendships, new york city, this is mostly ironic because these guys are in actuality total intellectuals who are almost as far from broishness as i -- but isn't pretending nice?, too bad we didn't have time to form an air guitar band, uncharacteristically i WASN'T the frambroise offender -- brogre was, wanna make it a mother's day tradition?