Around puberty. For me, from the age of ten to twelve, 5th grade to 7th grade, it was a totally different world. Before, everyone was honest, and there was no tension, apprehension, intimidation, vying for rank. Cliques formed. 

The first qualifier was what vibe a guy carried. Matching vibe meant no barrier to overcome, on the same wavelength.

Context, and how we developed different masks or roles for different places. Some places the masks could come off easier.

My friending process carried a strong "brother hunger", which I tried to hide and slowly reveal as trust developed, especially because in the early 1970's homophobia was the rule.

What I am wanting now doesn't differ that much from what I wanted all along. A friend who could become a buddy, then hopefully a close buddy, and maybe, the brother I never had.

Friendships are best developed in a balanced way. It's awkward when I was the one who took initiative to be more vulnerable, more honest or open.

This really resonates with me, especially the idea of developing different masks for different places and learning where it was safe to let them come off. I think many of us who grew up in a time when being completely open carried real consequences became very good at reading the room, sometimes before we even realized that was what we were doing.

“Brother hunger” is an interesting way to describe it. There is something different about wanting closeness with another man that is not necessarily romantic or sexual, but is still deeply intimate. Someone you can trust enough to be unguarded with, who knows you well, and with whom vulnerability does not feel like an imbalance. I can understand why that desire might remain remarkably consistent even as everything else about us changes.

Your last point may be the hardest part. I have found that being willing to be open does not necessarily mean the other person is ready to meet you there. A strange negotiation happens in friendship, where each person reveals a little more and waits to see what the other does with it. When one person always takes the next step toward greater honesty or closeness, it can start to feel less like something built together.

I am curious whether you think that “brother hunger” has changed as you have gotten older. Is the need itself essentially the same, or has your idea of what that kind of friendship would actually look and feel like changed over the years?

Not really. What I am glad about is how it is a clear desire, not a vague one. Vagueness would amp up the angst. My Dad managed to come down to my level and be a buddy sometimes, which gave me a template for what I wanted.

That distinction between a clear desire and a vague one makes a lot of sense. There is something reassuring about being able to name what is missing, even when naming it does not necessarily make it easier to find.

What you said about your dad is especially interesting, though. If he could sometimes step out of the father role and meet you more as a buddy, I can see how that might have given you an early sense of what male closeness could feel like. Not necessarily intensely emotional all the time, but comfortable, affectionate, trusting, and without much need to perform for one another.

It makes me curious about the template he gave you. When you imagine that kind of friendship now, what parts of what you had with your dad are you hoping to find again in another man?

Firstly, an acid test would be phallic openness. I have had a couple of friends, one in childhood and one in adulthood who were deadset against allowing me to see their penis, in spite of having seen mine at least twice. Tit for tat, even Steven, reciprocity is vital. I have a hard time imagining, unless he were severely deformed, which neither was. Of course this is only so because my Dad was that way, which you can read about in my old blog posts on BW. There is more to being qualified than that, but that is non-negotiable.

That helps me understand what you mean by the template your dad gave you. What stands out to me is that, for you, the specific example you describe seems to represent something larger: reciprocity, comfort, and the absence of guardedness between two men. If one person is willing to be unguarded in a particular way but the other maintains a boundary there, you experience that as an imbalance in the friendship.

I also find the “non-negotiable” part interesting, because I suspect all of us have tests for closeness, even if they look very different. For one person it might be emotional disclosure, for another physical affection, being able to say “I love you,” talking openly about sex, or simply knowing that you can call each other at 2:00 in the morning. Somewhere along the way, we decide what signals to us that a friendship has crossed from friendly into genuinely intimate.

I wonder, though, how much reciprocity has to mean sameness. Can two men be equally open and trusting while having different boundaries, or does a close friendship, for you, require that each person be willing to meet the other in essentially the same places? That seems to get right to the heart of what you have been describing as “brother hunger.”

I would say that as long as the areas of boundary difference are not more than say 30%, then there is enough latitude for bonding that can last.

That’s an interesting way to quantify it. I’m not sure I could put a percentage on it myself, but I understand the larger point. There probably has to be enough overlap in how two people understand closeness for the friendship to feel satisfying to both of them.

Where I think I keep getting hung up, though, is whether the differences themselves necessarily limit the depth of the friendship. If I’m comfortable sharing something and my friend isn’t, I’m not sure I would interpret that as him trusting me less. His boundary may simply be different from mine.

Maybe reciprocity isn’t always “I’ll show you mine because you showed me yours.” Sometimes it might be, “You trusted me with something vulnerable, and I’ll trust you with something equally vulnerable to me.” The exchange may be equal without necessarily being identical.