Growing up, I had an absent father who wasn’t around for me, and male role models who were supposed to care for me but weren’t able to do that. My mum raised me alone, and she was amazing, but it created a difficult environment for me to trust men in my childhood and teenage years – and it took me a long time to make male friends. It took me even longer to make friends I could really open up around and be vulnerable with. Friends like Dan.
Dan Shrigley and I met over a year ago, after I’d been on Love Is Blind: UK. He saw a clip of me on the show where I was asked about being raised by a single mum and how a lot of men were saying I have feminine qualities. My response was that I’m proud of my qualities that are seen as traditionally feminine, like having empathy and being emotionally intelligent. That was when Dan sent me a DM. He told me how much he resonated with what I’d said and how it takes a lot of bravery for a guy to say that, then suggested we meet for coffee.
We spent the whole afternoon talking about why men in the media are either showing their strength in a very negative way, like toxic masculinity influencers, or men demonstrating strength through aggression. We both felt we’re strong in a different way. It feels really hard to find other men who think the same thing, so we connected quickly. Over a year later, Dan and I have a really beautiful friendship. Dan is an evolved human being. He’s incredibly sensitive, deep and has a level of empathy I never had at that age. He refers to me as his older brother, and it makes me feel very emotional when he says that.
New research from UK suicide prevention charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm) and London brewery Beavertown has found that 62 per cent of men have never said “I love you” to their mates. This Valentine’s they’re launching a campaign to get British men to say “I love you” to a male friend. Dan and I said “I love you” to each other a couple of months ago, and it was the first time we said it. It felt really lovely. We were having a moment of looking back at all that we’ve achieved together and were like, “I f****** love you, man”. It was a really beautiful moment.
