It’s just a fact that — as a man — you feel great after a night out with your best friends. Crushing brews, chit-chatting about hooking up with chicks, high-fiving over corny “you mom” jokes — Just Bros being Bros, doing the usual ball-busting and shenanigans that guys are notorious for when they get together in packs. It’s a unique, special part of the male experience.
Leave it to science to verify what most guys already know, eh? Using chimps to measure stress hormones, Germany’s University of Gottingen discovered that males suffer from less “stress-related illnesses” when they get together and Bro the fuck down with their buddies. But when they were with their partner — like, say, a date night with your girl — “levels of male stress hormone soared.”
Dammit, ladies, why do you have to make everything so stressful?
Here’s the breakdown, via the Telegraph:
Scientists from Germany’s University of Gottingen studied groups of Barbary macaques, a type of ape which exhibits remarkably human-like social behaviour.
Levels of male stress hormone soared when male macaques were with their partner or other family members. But when they were in a group of other males, they were more much more relaxed. The researchers even discovered stress-related illnesses only seemed to occur among females or couples.
Even in the chimp world, chicks seem to stress everyone out. But when it’s just bros-bonding-with-bros, the chimps just straight up chilled, picking fleas off each others fur. In other words, the male chimps literally have each others’ back, like when your boy Todd grabs you a cold beer from the fridge without you ever asking.
Thanks, Todd.
Males also look after each other, the study for the journal PNAS noted. While men may do this by watching each other’s backs, for monkeys this means picking insects and fleas out of each other’s fur.
Christopher Young of the university’s Primate Social Evolution Group said: “”If male primates live in multimale groups they usually fight fiercely over access to females, but males can develop friendly relationships with a few group mates.
“Male macaques form social bonds similar to human friendships that buffer them against day-to-day stressors.”
This is the perfect excuse the next time your girl whines about why you always spend more time with your friends than on date nights at Olive Garden. Guy time is now a legitimate part of a healthy, happy life, according to SCIENCE. If your girl really cares, she’ll understand that a happy, healthy you is a good thing.
And even better? Your overly-whipped friend who always tries to back-out because of his girl now OFFICIALLY has no excuses.