Why men don’t say ‘I love you’ to each other

True story: The other day, I called my friend after a long time.

We talked and reminisced over the past: over how we all became engineers 101 connecting ‘illegal’ electricity to cook (campus name withheld for degree-level security reasons); how we’d chase chapati mandondo with a shot of mursik and how we’d finish every conversation with Lol before emojis sanctioned us. Lol.

It was a hearty conversation, and since the economy is currently up in the stratosphere, I had to go earn my day’s keep. But just before I did, he said: “I love you.” I waited for him to drop the bro, wapi! Nothing. Nada. Seven seconds. 10 seconds.

I knew what was coming. Say it back, I thought. But a red alert blares in my brain. Emotional honesty: Abort! Abort! I can’t lose my man-card.

Is this the kind of bromance you see in the movies, I wondered?

That’s another thing: I say this in no exaggerated terms whatsoever, but I believe I am an extremely lovable guy. I’m telling you. I can whip up a good meal and I have a closet full of dad-tier dry jokes that would put Machakos to shame. See?

Any ancient Greek would recoil at such hubris, that pride and arrogance that the gods love to punish. And the Greeks would be right.

It’s not the first time a guy has told me they loved me. Again, extremely lovable. It is not the first time I have frozen in my stance, the words choking my trachea. The L-bomb detonates my subdued insecurities, so to speak.

There’s no romance or sex in this. No chocolate, candles or candy. Not even dancing, which is apt because if dancing is what will open the gates of heaven, let the devil start mixing my Bloody Mary in Hades.

What keeps nearly all young men from being able to tell their male friends that they love them?
When people say, “I love you,” I like to read between the lines. To what they are not saying. Maybe it’s, “Do you love me?” (the question smuggled inside the confession), or, more urgently, “Please love me.” There’s a man (or men) every guy has loved without ever finding the words to tell them so. My shoe plug comes to mind.

Masculinity asks us to perform certain linguistic gymnastics to stay within the acceptable bounds of manhood: Saying a straight “I love you” is poking the bear’s ass. Saying to another man “Much love” or “I got love for you” is fair game.

You can colour outside the lines of an “I love you” if it is quickly followed by “bro” or “man” or “buddy” to soften the emotional impact.

It’s uncomfortable. Weird. The lesson is burrowed that deep. I hesitate, flinch. Does he expect me to say it back? This is what I have come to know as the purest kind of love: expecting nothing back.

I’m more of an action-oriented guy: I’ll buy you lunch. Connect you with my shoe plug. Let you beat me on Fifa. Usual stuff. But to pull those words out of my mouth? I’ve never known how to say it back. Much less how to say it.

It's tedious. Like an incessant cat scratching on an iron sheet. I love y..ugh. I’m choking even writing those words.

It's not that it’s a rude statement. It’s that this statement has tendrils in every corner of a man's life. This is the thread that if you yank it, the whole coat unravels and leaves you standing there naked for all to see. Which is not a good look. Especially for a self-proclaimed gangster like me.

I never thought I'd be this guy, the weird guy who gets put in such a position. But then, I never thought I'd be the other guy, either. I just didn't think, which explains a lot. As a younger man, I scorned the herd, now I wonder.

Matters of identity and purpose aren't so straightforward for a man in Nairobi, the international capital of the untethered. It's always a nice day for an existential crisis out here.

Some would tell you to be in touch with your feelings but those people don’t know what they are talking about. If you like art, then love lives in the cracks of a broken heart. If you like Science, love is a chemical reaction for breeding.

If you like religion, then the love-hate bromance between Judas and Jesus that culminated with the former planting a wet smooch on the latter (the reasons are not relevant to today’s sermon) should be warning enough of how volatile emotions can be.

So, when we react with disdain—a little haughty maybe, a bit asshole-ish, a little cold—please understand. Think of the burden we carry into conversations. Our fathers and grandfathers led with fiat, converting homes into their personal fiefdoms. These were men with heavy souls.

These were men who believed they earned the right to be an asshole every now and then. These were the men who taught us how to comport ourselves. We weren't coddled by these men. They didn't text us selfies on a business trip and tell us they missed us! Or send us emojis. Men who never tried to be woke, or not seem toxic. Men who just wanted to be hugged in silence. We do not carry their burdens, but their darkness has shaped us.

This was how our fathers say “I love you” without having to say it. And so many of us are not expected to say it either, but instead, express our love through gratitude and service and obeisance, synonyms for reading their script over how we should live our lives. Even my father, whom I love dearly, never said he loved me, and I never told him.

My closest pals are the same, if not similar. They are more likely to drop f-bombs than l-bombs. The dearth of male role models who say “I love you” doesn’t apply just to our fathers, brothers, uncles and friends. It permeates the entire culture.

We think “I love you” projects weakness, but it takes strength, I’m realizing, to be emotionally open in a culture that dissuades it. But I’m not there yet. I’m not ‘soft’ yet.

As a late-20s-year-old man, I’d like to think I straddle the masculine middle ground: another guy in the streets who likes sports and memes and wants to be a good dude while being cool with, you know, feelings. You can say, I like my men how I like my whisky: old fashion.

Can I paraphrase the book of Matthew from the Holy Bible? I'm going to paraphrase the book of Matthew from the Holy Bible.
Judge not, lest ye bro-ness can be judged.
“Hello? Bro? Buda?”
He startles me back to reality. Urrm…
My words are soft. “Me, too,” I say. I’m not sure he even hears it, but next time … next time I’ll do better.
 

[email protected] @eddyashioya