Brothers and sisters form a weird relationship. Women who grow up alongside men inherit distinct traits and personality quirks that can only come from years of flipped toilet seats and stepping on Hot Wheels.
While there will always be that special relationship between sister and sister, the one of brother and sister is just as exclusive and binding in its own distinct ways.
With a boy around all the time, it’s years of car fights, action movies and punches to the gut. It’s a sibling rivalry of girl vs. boy and who can do it better.
Because no pair of siblings (not even sister and sister) has ever gone through life without at least one moment when they legitimately plotted the other’s death.
No sibling ever has ever gone through life without feeling that extreme hate for someone that shares the same blood, that looks just like him or her.
Siblings were our first real competition, our first enemies. They taught us how to fight and take a hit. We didn’t scream at each other; we fought. We didn’t take each other’s clothes, we took each other’s Nintendo controls.
For a long time, you both might even go your separate ways. He absorbs into his world and you into yours. So isn’t it weird when you wake up one day and the one guy you wanted to kill is theonly man whose opinion matters?
Why is that? Why, now, does his opinion matter so much? Why is he such an important judge of the man you will one day bring home?
Because he is an extension of yourself. If your brother thinks he’s a douchebag, then don’t you begin to think that a little too? If our brothers see the guy for the man he really is, doesn’t that opinion matter almost as much as your blinded one? Our brothers are the male counterparts in us, the ones who also have to approve and like him.
Because if we were men, we’d probably be a lot like our brothers. If we were men, we would want to be friends with them.
We were raised by the same parents, cut from the same cloth, bred from the same womb and belong to the same gene pool. And if our brother doesn’t like him, then he’s just not cool.
Your brother won’t fall for the “parent act” (charm)
Unluckily, for whomever you’re bringing home, the sweet-and-charming act he put on for your parents doesn’t work on your brother. He sees him for who he is the moment they shake hands.
He knows him on that level that all guys just distinctly know each other — and he immediately knows what kind of guy he is. He knows if they’d be friends, bros or if he’s just a douchebag.
Thus, your parents’ approval is only good for how well he can charm his way through life. Your brother’s approval tells you what kind of guy he really is.
Because they should want to hang out
If he can’t hang with your brother then, in a way, he can’t really hang out with you. This is the guy you hung out with your whole life, who molded you, watched TV with you on Saturday mornings, spent vacations together, forced to find each other fun for a week.
Your brother is the ultimate hang out — and you’re going to be hanging out with him the rest of your life — so if your man can’t hang out, why are you even trying to add him to the club?
He will be able to evaluate him on things you can’t see or understand
While you see him for the boyfriend he is, your brother will see him for the man he is. He is able to judge what’s real and what’s f*cking bullsh*t.
He will know if he’s capable of raising a family or if he’ll stay by your side. Your brother will know him on the levels you’re blinded to by love or attraction.
He sees him as a person, not a love interest. He sees him as a man, not your man. He sees him as the stranger trying to enter into the family home and his opinion is like having to form your own all over again.
Because you love your brother
After so many years of fighting and plotting each other’s deaths, you forget that you do actually love him. You only have the utmost respect and adoration for a man who used to be your sworn enemy.
His opinion is sacred because his opinion matters because he matters. His opinion is realer than your parents’, your friends’ and your own, because he’s the one guy who knows you better than this guy ever really will.
Photo Courtesy: We Heart It
