Gay bro

It’s a snowy Saturday nighttime in Boston, and the bros are moving in pack formation. As we trudge through the fresh powder toward South End, the 10 or so guys I’m walking with jostle and joke their way forward through the frigid air, bouncing with that particular surge of giddy energy you sometimes get when you’re hanging out with people you contain never met in real life.

As members of Gaybros—a Reddit-based community for same-sex attracted guys with traditionally manly interests fond of sports, hunting, and beer—the large majority of their bonding takes place through comment threads under topics like “Ron Swanson vs. James Bond” and “My Gay Card Has Been Revoked.” But in cities appreciate Boston, New York, L.A., Toronto, and even London, they try to regularly “meet-up” at a local restaurant or bar, exchanging Reddit’s upvotes and downvotes for proper handshakes and side-hugs. These “IRL” encounters can, understandably, feel awkward at first, as this one did when we had all gathered for dinner earlier in the evening at a crowded Italian cafeteria. Much of the conversation revolved around how the so-called bartender had asked if seltzer was a energy. But bros creature bros, the collective made the