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Billy Baker Quotes

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Famous Billy Baker Quotes

“Ball busting [a friendly form of humor]...contains a fundamental flaw, one that has done immeasurable harm to the male psyche, and basically eliminated dance and music as potential outlets for bonding. That is the use of the term 'gaaay.' It's a form of self-policing, some fucked-up safe word that got called out if any behavior approached a level where it felt intimate or affectionate. Really anything that felt 'feminine,' and that list was long. It was not used to describe romantic attraction to another many--though it certainly insulted that entire idea in an inexcusable way--but instead was used to reinforce what Niobe Way, a psychology professor at NYU, calls the 'crisis of connection' among men. We so fear being called -gaaay- for making connections that are 'feminine' that we sacrifice intimacy for casual banter. It's a huge disconnect, perhaps the central one at the heart of the problems of with modern male bonding. And unlike many 'male' things, it cannot be blamed on genetics. It's cultural. It's learned.”

GaynessMale FriendshipMale BondingMale Intimacy
Book:We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends
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“In a wonderful essay for -Salon-, the sociologist Lisa Wade wrote that 'to be close friends, men need to be willing to confess their insecurities, to be kind to others, have empathy and sometimes sacrifice their own self-interest. "Real Men," though, are not supposed to do these things. They are supposed to be self-interested, competitive, non-emotional, strong (with no insecurities at all), and able to deal with their emotional problems without help. Being a good friend, then, as well as needing a good friend, is the equivalent of being girly.”

Male Friendship
Book:We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends
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“Just like that, we started to see each other most mornings, which meant we quickly went from two guys who liked each other and kept saying they wanted to hang out to actual full-blown bros. This of course meant that every woman who knew us...was falling over herself to label our relationship a 'bromance.' That's a term that was coined in the nineties by the skateboarding magazine -Big Brother- to describe skaters who spent a ton of time together, but it has morphed into a gentle insult for any guys who dare to get too close. It's not as condescending as 'bros,' and it doesn't cut quite as wrong as being shouted down with 'gaaay.' No, the bromance lived in the category of the oh-aren't-you-cute pat on the head.”

BromanceMale Friendship
Book:We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends
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