I guess the easiest way to answer what an honorary bro is being a girl in a group that is mostly guys and being treated like one. Either unofficially like always being invited to a group hangouts or officially like verbally being told that you are a bro or experiencing something like a tradition. Doesn’t matter if your a Tomboy just that your an honorary bro. Bonus points if you can pin the moment you became a bro.
EDIT: after finding out how much of an asshole I sound like I’m going to first apologize because after having it explain to me from an outside perspective I do in fact sound like one of those idiots who actually refers to himself as an alpha male so I am instead going to ask how did it feel being in a mostly men friend group. I am really sorry i didn’t mean to make anyone upset or uncomfortable for asking the question. I fully accept any ridicule you have of me in any way.
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Pretty fun since there’s no drama and a lot of banter, I’ve noticed it’s about how much you love shooting the breeze and whether you have thick skin or not. My group is made up of family members though so it might be different for others.
I was an honorary bro all throughout university. I loved it. They guys even wanted to invite me to their bachelor party. There was no drama, no talk about dieting, we mostly drank beer and hung out at pool halls which suited me just fine.
After I graduated a had a whole new group of girlfriends and I realized I had been missing out on the compassion and intimacy that hanging out with women tends to afford more than men.
Meh. It’s fine, but nothing special to me. I’ve been the token girl who was “an honorary bro/not like other girls” in groups of guy friends before. To me, those friend relationships tended to feel more casual and lack the emotional connection, support, and intimacy I experienced in women’s friend groups or mixed-gender groups. There was always a lot of posturing and faux/real dominance/aggression in their interactions with each other even though the guys were otherwise fairly cool as individuals. In the group setting, it was pretty off-putting to me. I stopped being in those kinds of friend groups largely because someone in there would always catch feelings/become attracted to me and then the entire group dynamic would be pressuring me to date that person or more than one person would be interested and the group would get tense over that. Either way, that part wasn’t fun and wasn’t worth it. The last time I left a group like that, it was because despite their protestations of platonic friendship and “being an honorary bro” I found out they were having very inappropriate discussions together about wanting to have sex with me, so I cut them all out of my life.
Um. Yeah. It’s good. I want to be treated normally. I don’t want my friend group to feel they need to censor themselves or treat me differently just because I’m a woman.
Meh, tastes like internalized misogyny to me.
Well, I’m a lesbian, so lots of guys call me “bro” and I am treated as such. It’s just okay. Sometimes I need some grace and sensitivity and that was never gotten from a group like that. It’s very much superficial, shallowed friendships. It’s based on surface things like beer, girls and cars. There are exceptions to the rule of course, as I have one guy friend that I’m able to talk to anything about but if I try with the others they get uncomfortable and walk away. So it’s just okay.
Not a fan of the term. If they can’t just have a friend who’s a woman and feel the need to call someone an “honorary bro”, it’s probably because they don’t ever have women friends to begin with.
Like u/nevertruly said, it usually ends up being a bunch of toxic masculinity and posturing instead of a proper friendship.
My experience was a group of guys constantly using my sexuality (bi) to justify objectifying women in front of me and saying that I was “basically a dude”.
Do you mean do I have male friends who treat me equitably? Yes. Am I a “bro”? No, as I matured beyond high school. Additionally, I don’t seek the approval of anyone, especially men. I’m not a bro, I’m a friend. Bros don’t do drama? Bros don’t talk about their feelings? Bros make fun of people who make mistakes? How toxically masculine of you. Jesus.
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THIS shit is why men think they’re being allies when they really, really aren’t. You allow women into your friend group. How very generous and kind of you! /s FOH
I was ‘one of the guys’ during university and now I have a very diverse circle of friends.
I can’t attest to women having more drama, gossip was about the same amount though slightly different topics. I know way too much about all of their horizontal adventures, regardless of gender.
I did kind of feel like I couldn’t be *too* feminine in the bro group without loosing respect which sucked. I did like the nerdy discussions and how passionate they got as a group about niche hobbies.
I get and provide emotional support from male, female and genderfluid friends, though the women tend to be a bit more forgiving/accepting of faults and mistakes and make more of an effort to understand other people.
I did notice that when new men joined the bro group that there was almost always a point where they’d in their mind reassign me from ‘date potential’ to ‘bro’ while I haven’t experienced that with lesbians, female bis or pans in a mixed group.
The moment when it became obvious that I’m one of the bros was when they’d start discussing women and dating in front of and with me without the “What is your perspective as a woman?” part…
I didn’t want to know what it felt like to be a pseudo-male. I just wanted to know how it felt to be a girl in an all guys group I’m such a fucking idiot.
When we got married I was the only girl involved in any of my husband’s friend’s lives. I was always invited along, always part of the group. About 10-15 years later the guys started to get married/have serious girlfriends/start families and suddenly I wasn’t really welcome to go out with them anymore because their wives couldn’t go because they all have little kids and it was “awkward to just have me there” and “ I thought it was guy’s night why is she going?” It really sucked and gradually my husband stopped meeting up with them as often.
I’ve been the only female in a group of males but they never explicitly told me I was an “honorary bro”, they just treated me the same as all the others. It was remarked upon occasionally that I was the only girl, but it was never a big deal. We’re just a group of friends who love hanging out – gender isn’t really a consideration!