The Best Mate
thoughts on male friendship || an elegy for an era
This is the ninth post in a series titled “The 10 Types of Friends an Adult Man Can Make.” To see the first post that gives an overview of the ten categories, click here.
Sometimes, you meet someone and you know basically immediately that you’ll be friends with them. From just an initial conversation, you see glimpses of a future laid out in front of you the way you normally reflect on memories of the past. You can’t articulate exactly why it is you feel that way. You just know.
I met A in July 2023, less than a week after he moved to NYC.
I’d been living in New York for a little under a year at that point myself, and my closest male friends were in various other Northeastern cities — close enough to visit, but not close enough to experience the day-to-day rhythm of living together.
Incidentally, I had recently asked my (manifold) female friends to set me up with more guys to become friends with in the city.
As aforementioned in The Disgusting Brothers, I struck up conversation with A in a run club by asking him if he had a favorite Premier League team (after hearing his English accent). He responded with Manchester United and I said “that’s disgusting.”
In our first conversation, while we leisurely ran through Greenpoint, I recommended my hairdresser. My pitch mainly rested on three things, which were that: 1) it’s one of the cheapest barber shops in the neighborhood; 2) she cut Channing Tatum’s hair; 3) my hair looks good.
It was apparently a good pitch, because he immediately became a regular of hers. The fun thing about sharing a barber with your boys is that there’s no legal requirement for patient confidentiality. So, when I’d go to get my hair cut and sit down in the swivel chair, I’d hear something like “so, I cut A’s hair this morning” or “I knew he shouldn’t have gone on that trip to see his ex.” It’s part of the service.
Recently, we had coincidentally scheduled haircuts back-to-back in the shop. Our hairdresser insisted on pouring a round of tequila shots to celebrate. As she was just about finished with my hair, I certainly didn’t mind her drinking on the job. A was slightly less enthusiastic since she hadn’t started on his hair yet. (But rest assured, it turned out great.)
Anyways, back to the disgusting brothers. Back to us.
Disgusting brothers are any group of guys who are friends and frequently insult each other. These groups can range in size from 2-10+. These insults aren’t meant to actually put each other down. Instead, roasting is an opportunity to compete, to play a game. It fits within the broader context of the group because these guys are usually competitive with each other in other ways too.
In this competitive spirit, I’ve put together an objective, unbiased inventory of several dozen types of competitions — and who is better at each of them, A or me. None of this is hypothetical, it’s all empirical from when we’ve engaged in these sports/games/mischief.
Competition inventory: Who is better at…?
Soccer: him
Basketball: me
Tennis: him
Badminton: me but it’s close
Long-distance running: him and it’s not close
Chess, classical: me, and BTW this is the more legitimate form of chess
Chess, bullet: him, and BTW this is the less legitimate form of chess
Trivia: me
Weightlifting: him, but he’s nice about it
Fantasy basketball: me, although he could prove me wrong in the playoffs next month. He won’t, but technically he could
Super Smash Bros: him
Mariokart: neither; V clears both of us
Finishing one-pound margaritas: him
Wisely choosing not to finish one-pound margaritas: me
Matching with lots of beautiful women on Hinge1: him, since I’m not on there
Being married: me
Being correct about the CR7 vs. Messi GOAT debate: me (it’s Messi)
Being correct about the LeBron vs. MJ GOAT debate: tie (we both say LeBron)
Years gone by
In just a few painfully short days, A will be moving back to London.
Somehow, so much has happened since that first summer evening run.
A and I wandered around the city exploring potential rooftops that might work for when I proposed. (I ended up proposing in Mexico City instead, but for a second there I thought about doing it in the Big Apple. Look, here’s what I’ll say: the rooftops in Williamsburg would be perfect if you were planning to propose to someone you’d never met before and just needed something generically “stunning.”)
We created the salon.
A, V, and I successfully did not starve together during our numerous Don’t Starve Together game nights, although we did get killed 80x by hounds.
A officiated our wedding.
Almost every Tuesday night for the past ~3 years, we’ve played trivia at the same bar. This has been our friend group’s most important ritual. This past Tuesday was A’s last trivia before the move. Not only did we win — we scored the highest we’ve ever scored in three full years of playing. V helped carry us to a perfect score in the picture round, which consisted of naming different types of flowers. I got 8/8 in the list round on naming the least densely populated states. A made clutch contributions in the music round.
When it comes to these types of essays, there’s always a risk of overgeneralizing what are ultimately specific and/or situational experiences. In that spirit, I’m going to end with the following statement:
Male friendship mainly involves talking about women and playing various kinds of sports and/or games together until eventually your friend moves back to London.
I’m emo.
It’s a veritable parade of baddies on his feed, but sadly the most interesting thing on many of their profiles is that their favorite show is HIMYM? I think this is more an indictment of what he has trained the algorithm to do than anything else.