Portmanteaus are a lot like children. Sometimes you can have two great parents (say, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson) and yet there's no guarantee that they won't have a child so awful that the kid will undermine people's goodwill towards the parents (hi Chet Haze). Such is the case with bromance. Brother is a lovely word, full of familial love and fraternal familiarity. Romance is gorgeous, with connotations of poetry and sunsets and remembering to buy soy milk for your vegan lover's coffee. But bromance? Describing your friendship as a bromance is a way of enjoying the company of another man while verbally holding up a "NO HOMO" placard and aren't we past that yet? Straight guys can be friends with each other. Gay guys can be friends with each other. Straight guys can be friends with gay guys who can in turn be friends with bi guys who can in turn be friends with asexual guys who can in turn be friends with those straight guys from back at the start without anyone doing banging-stuff with anyone else. There can be hugging and mutual appreciation and even some watching Netflix and chilling (but for real) and no one will assume anything erotic is going on. Just say you're mates, guys. We'll believe you.