Reason #432 John Mayer Is The Ultimate Bro: He Gets His Gay Friends Laid As ‘The Ultimate Wingman’

If you love a good trend piece on sexual identity and gettin’ laid, head over to the New York Times to read last week’s gem,  “The Rise of the ‘Bromosexual’ Friendship.” To be totally honest, there’s nothing about it that will shock any progressive millennial with a large social circle — The entire gist of the story is how straight Bros and gay Bros help each other get laid when they’re friends, which is a topic we’ve explored quite a lot here at BroBible over the years.

One of the best nuggets from the piece is about John Mayer,  a man who’s bro-ness needs no introduction here at BroBible. Mayer is a savage and pretty much the model example of how to Bro-out gracefully in your 30s. As I’ve written before — “he has a watch collection worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, has dated Katy Perry and Taylor Swift, and knows how the shred the shit out of a guitar.” Plus, Room For Squares was one of the defining make out albums of my high school career. I’m sure it was for anyone reading this age 26 – 32, too.

As the Times notes, Mayer has a solid “Bromosexual” with Bravo Network’s Andy Cohen. Last year the two went to the The Grateful Dead’s Dead 50 Fare Thee Well shows in Santa Clara a few weeks after gay marriage was federally legalized by the Supreme Court. This was also over Pride Weekend, so Andy took Mayer to the bar and he turned into the ultimate wingman. As he wrote last year in EW…

Once we arrived in the Bay Area, I took the dude who can make all the ladies’ panties drop to the Powerhouse (gay bars, FYI, always have v butch names). The vibe was jubilation mixed with intense body heat and plenty of disco (I explained Diana Ross to John). Did I mention a dude in a jockstrap assumed the role of our bodyguard? Anyway, John was the ultimate wingman, asking me who was tickling my fancy. As the night went on, we wound up on the dance floor and—from what I remember—it was nothing short of euphoric.

The next day, we moved from disco to the Dead. It had been 20 years since the group performed as the Dead (and 23 since I’d seen them), and I wondered: Would the crowd be all old yuppies? Am I an old yuppie? Would I still be able to dance like a free bird?

The whole experience turned into a seminal moment for the two. For Cohen, he got to see Mayer work his magic and the 2015 incarnation of his favorite band, The Grateful Dead. For Mayer, his weekend of wingmaning for Andy was the beginning of a long, strange career career journey, joining all the members except Phil Lesh to play the Jerry Garcia role in Dead and Company.

And that network’s most recognizable representative, Andy Cohen, who is gay, rarely misses an opportunity to toast his close kinship with the guitar hero and ultimate ladies man John Mayer.

Mr. Cohen mentions Mr. Mayer no fewer than 14 times in his best-selling book “The Andy Cohen Diaries.” He also wrote an article for Entertainment Weekly last year chronicling their bromosexual exploits. In one outing, during gay pride weekend, they attended a concert by an incarnation of a band both men love, the Grateful Dead.

Mr. Cohen wrote that a friend had texted him: “if I’d celebrated gay pride in any more of a straight way, I’d have had sex with a girl at the Super Bowl.” Another night, Mr. Cohen and Mr. Mayer went to a gay bar, where Mr. Cohen found that his heterosexual pal was the “ultimate wing man.”

The takeaway here is John Mayer’s overall sense of chill and bro-ness. Good looking out by Mayer to wingman for his buddy. That’s always the right card to play.

If you follow Mayer on Snapchat, you know the dude is one of the most lovable famous musicians on planet earth right now. Very little ego, a whole lot of self depreciation and sense of chill. He’s also damn good at working his way around his axe, playing guitar with a ferocity and passion that’s unrivaled by almost anyone else in his class these days. I mean, just watch him in this video from Friday night at Brooklyn Bowl:

I was lucky enough to witness that craftwork first hand during my birthday show. I’ve caught him four times before with Dead & Co, but an arena or stadium gig will never be quite as special as when you’re 10 feet from the stage. Mayer walked down the stairs of Brooklyn Bowl around midnight to catch Joe Russo’s Almost Dead finish their first set. Then, at the beginning of the second set, he came out, pulled his Fender out of a gig bag, and jammed Dead tunes for 90 minutes straight.

Unless Mayer starts a concert series with BroBible, I’ll probably never have a moment as special. For yuppie millennial schmucks/scum like me who grew up making out to Mayer hits like “Why Georgia” or “Neon” or “Your Body Is A Wonderland” before doubling down on music like Phish and the Dead, watching him melt faces while shredding beloved, timeless jams from The Dead’s songbook is like a damn arrow to the heart.

So thanks for crashin’ Pete Shapiro’s JRAD party on Friday, John. It made my birthday pretty special this year. It’s another reason why you’re The Ultimate Bro.

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Brandon Wenerd is BroBible's publisher, writing on this site since 2009. He writes about sports, music, men's fashion, outdoor gear, traveling, skiing, and epic adventures. Based in Los Angeles, he also enjoys interviewing athletes and entertainers. Proud Penn State alum, former New Yorker. Email: brandon@brobible.com