A bromance is a very close friendship between two men — the kind where they spend huge amounts of time together, know each other’s rubbish, and clearly care a lot, but it is not a romantic or sexual relationship. Newspapers and magazines like the word because it is catchy. Film people use it for buddy movies: two male leads, lots of feeling, no kiss. The word is informal and a bit magazine-ish. Friends might tease two men with it; the men themselves may or may not like that. It was coined in the 1990s by the American editor Dave Carnie, in the skateboard magazine Big Brother, for the tight bonds between skaters who were always together — and then magazines ran away with it. Though actually, people now stretch it: you will hear bromance for milder male friendships than that original “together all day” skating life, and you will even hear it, a little jokingly, for other pairs, which rather misses the bro part. The useful core is still: close, warm, not a couple.