CHANGE: Modern male friendships. “The report argues the evolution of friendship has moved from the reserved 19th and 20th century model, in which men were more independently minded, to a 21st century interconnected world of the kind depicted in films such as ‘Wedding Crashers,’ in which two friends openly profess their emotional reliance on each other.”

Actually, such friendships were common in Victorian times. Things changed because of growing awareness of homosexuality, and resultant fear of looking gay, which has now abated since nobody cares.