How We Said, "I Love You."

 When I was at about the same age of these guys in this story,  I was talking with a buddy about how strange it was that among our circle of close friends how we were constantly insulting, tackling and punching each other, often not gently at all. He said something I've never forgotten. -

 "You know" he said "how girls always hold hands and walk arm-in-arm with their friends? Well, trading insults and punches is what we do. It's how we say we love one another."

 That was the word he used, "Love". It had no sexual connotation; it was simply a statement of an emotional fact. If I may paraphrase, "You never again have friends like you do when you're twelve."

Anonymous