The normal guy has some combination of male and female friends and possible a female friend. You were right that the bromantics feel a certain way toward guys.

“Therefore if a man sacrifices his homosocial friendships in favor of a romantic relationship with a woman, he will be left in the lurch when she inevitably abandons, betrays, or tries to change (”pussywhip”) him.”

When a small subset of gays make hostile comments about the ‘breeders’ (hetersexual couples), the majority find it odd. When a subset of males have a bromance and disregard the rest of the guys as spineless, derogatory remarks would be a form of misoguyny. (My use of it in a sentence.)

On one hand, this type of behavior seems so odd and unique. But, on the other hand, groups who want to be identified a certain way will do whatever they can to separate themselves from another with language.

Contemplating this today, I was led to think about the relationship between Plato’s forms and their real-world instances.

Plato contended that the forms are permanent, unchanging, and singular and thus better than regular things in the world which are transient, mutable, and multiple.

(Therefore, FWIW, philosophy, which is second-order contemplation of the forms, is superior to art, which is just another layer of mimesis.)

Aside from Sheely’s argument that the concept of bromance is socially anti-progressive, I’d add the observation that the concept involves a sneaky transposition that the linguistic derivation of (homosocial) “bromance” from (proably heterosexual) “romance” masks: bromance is posited as the good original of which romance is a less good copy.

Again FWIW, this idea is also as old as Plato — really, the only social innovation here seems to be the catchy title — hanging around drinking in symposia and having intercrural sex (look it up) with younger dudes was a much better thing to be doing than going home to your wife, who was pretty much just a baby machine.

@Casey- I also noticed that: especially because all of the dudes keep saying things like “Brody totally lives the sweetest lifestyle right now. While I’m sure that he’d be doing just fine if he hadn’t been on The Hills, I’m sure most of these guys wouldn’t even know who he is, and he certainly wouldn’t be hosting this show.

What is also interesting about the role that LC plays in the show, is that it is never a good thing when her name comes up. In the first episode, Michael mentions her when he is quitting the show and in this episode (SPOILER ALERT) the frat president mentions her when he is having is one-on-one with Brody. In both instances, Brody appears pretty peeved that she has been mentioned, and in the latter case, it definitely leads to the frat president’s elimination. I think LC is making an appearance in next week’s episode, so it could be interesting.

@Gab- You’re not missing much by skipping the “reality” dating genre altogether- the only ones that are even kind of worth the time are the first Flavor of Love and both seasons of Rock of Love, both of which are carried by the strength of the stars personalities and a few pretty interesting contestants. But then again, I can also think of many many better things that you could do with your TV viewing time. For instance, have you ever watched the Wire?

@ Gab & Lee-The hooding indeed was a pretty weird choice on the part of the producers- in the episode, it was only on screen very briefly, but the image capture that Wrather did for the carousel really draws out the parallels to Abu Ghraib.

Oh, and yes, I also was weirded out by the hooded dudes, and for the same reason, Lee. Was that on purpose? After all, much of the violence at Abu Ghraib was of a highly sexualized nature.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyqN1sucMzY&feature=related

Yay