I'm hugging you, but I'm hitting you!

I thought very seriously about going to see Reign Over Me this weekend. I even went so far as to check show times at Battery Park City and rope Leslie into going with me, even though I knew she would rather endure a continuous loop of babies crying for two hours. I spend a lot of time fully intending to do things, like when I convinced myself that I was going to learn to play the guitar. I bought a guitar. I bought Guitar For Dummies. Maybe it would have helped to instead buy Guitar For Lazy People Who Will Never Get Beyond The Three Chords Needed To Play "Kumbaya": An Inspirational Guide.

Needless to say, I ended up not seeing the movie. Instead I went out to dinner at a restaurant in Tribeca that considers Asia's "In The Heat of The Moment" an appropriate soundtrack for partaking of chicken scarpariello. Part of my decision to bail was the fact that I had read mixed reviews: it's a 9/11 movie that never actually addresses 9/11, Adam Sandler looks like Bob Dylan (surprisingly a dealbreaker in some critical circles!), its resolution is trite, and so forth. The cost of movie-going being what it is these days, I figured that I could safely wait until Reign Over Me made its way to On Demand - only $3.95 and I can bring my own snacks.

In truth, my interest in seeing it in the first place was based almost entirely on two things. Some of the TV trailers used Embrace's "Ashes," which gave my inner music supervisor a big, honking boner. My other motivation was even more perverted.

I have a man-friendship fetish.

Maybe this sort of thing goes both ways, I have no idea. Maybe there's a contingent of men who watch Thelma & Louise, hoping to glean some insight into female bonding. These are no doubt the same men who read Glamour in order to understand women and simply can't fathom why their girlfriends aren't vapid, passive-aggressive and wearing the season's hottest trend - bold prints! On the other hand, they probably are because men make bad choices.

When I was in high school, I was mildly obsessed with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - initially because I enjoyed all things BBC and Jeremy Brett was tremendous. But eventually I became utterly fascinated with the dynamics of Holmes and Watson's relationship. Watson got shit on a lot because, to be honest, Holmes is arguably a malignant narcissist and definitely a drug addict. But for some reason Watson stuck around and dealt with Holmes' crazy because he knew that Holmes needed him, even if the he would never admit it. Very occasionally, when he wasn't busy using $3 words and wantonly casting withering disdain in everyone's general direction, Holmes would give Watson some backhanded props for deciphering a clue or scoring some good dope (because, let's remember, Watson was a doctor and probably had access to quality shit). In those moments, it becomes evident that Holmes and Watson love each other in the glorious, non-sexual way that two men in Victorian England can without every having to say it out loud. Man friendship at its co-dependent finest!

Friendships among women, for the most part, are relatively uncomplicated. And not only because we just sit around drinking Appletinis, discussing our birth control side effects, or comparing vibrators. Right before we have a pillow fight in our underwear and make out in front of a webcam. Women are pretty emotionally articulate, in the grand scheme. We travel in packs. We will talk to each other incessantly about whatever random thing happens to come into our head. We can hug each other without doing that back-thumping move - one step above the fist bump, by most calculations, on the hierarchy of social interactions - to feel secure in our sexuality. There is little challenge in sussing out the subtext in the behavior of women friends. And even if there were, we would happily explain it to you because we've already had a discussion about it amongst ourselves complete with a Powerpoint presentation.

This is precisely why I find the dynamics of male friendship utterly fascinating. Men, having a chromosomal aversion to Appletinis and emotional forthrightness, somehow manage to forge intense, platonic relationships with each other based on the most indirect communication. They can cultivate some innate understanding with each other, expressed only through talking about hockey or watching Clint Eastwood movies. It's a completely alien way of relating to other people, and I'm always suckered into any fictionalization of the whole process.

The funny thing is that the majority of my friends have always been male. I remember once complaining to my mother that I wished I had an older brother. That turned out to be rather ironic, since when I grew up I suddenly found myself with about 10 of them. Considering that I'm pretty much for shit when it comes to lots of the standard man pastimes - drinking beer, watching sports, calling each other gay - it amazes me how much I enjoy hanging out with my man friends. And while I'm quite certain I've become gender-neutral to them in many ways, I'm simply too willing to say things like "You're really awesome, I'm glad we got to hang out." At which point they remember that I possess fallopian tubes, and any chance I may have had to see true man friendship in its natural habitat is gone.

No matter. Eventually someone will make a movie where Daniel Craig and Clive Owen form an deep, outwardly dysfunctional bond that goes largely unexpressed until one of them has some sort of personal tragedy. At which point they get drunk together and give each other shit about who's better at pool. Like Beaches, only with dudes. That would be worth $11.