...include Clive Owen and Anthony Bourdain. There-- I've said it and I'm proud!

I'm reminded of a "Seinfeld" episode where Elaine and a baseball player were dating, and Jerry couldn't decide which one he was more jealous over.

You go, girl!

"Can we please retire the idea that men don't also have their selfhood constantly called into question,"

Well sure, except that women aren't typically in danger of being called queer for the sin of infatuation with someone of the same gender...

Not that there's anything wrong with that....

One of the big differences I think relates to competition vs collaboration. Women can be happy for each other, enjoy someone else as co-impressive (or even more impressive) and have the girl crush you speak about. For men, other then the one exception of being enamored over sports stars in some cases (though I would posit that the sports star crush relates more to projection then anything else) that feeling really doesn't exist.

That relates to an inflated sense of self in most cases, I would assert. Men, by and large, look at other men doing great things and instead of saying "wow thats awesome, I wish I could be like them" think to themselves, man if I had ____ I could do that, hell I could do better. Somehow many guys think that if they had taken different classes or studied harder they could be that biologist, but better; they think that if they had only taken HGH to be a few inches taller they would be dunking on Kobe or starting in the NFL. Many guys look at performances in all manner of areas and don't think I want to be like X, but rather, X had such and such advantage, man if I had that advantage I would be WAY better. Why do you think almost every male of both political parties in any position of prominence always seem to be preening for a presidential run? They all look at presidents and think "I could do that, only better".

I am not saying of course that women never aspire to prominence and never overestimate themselves, its more a difference of degree of overestimation and the general lack of male acceptance of others accomplishments. The world has two types of men, those who excelled, and those who would have excelled if damned luck hadn't shorted them on time/money/luck/height/genes/dad's love and/or hadn't saddled them with elaborate conspiracies created by evil men obsessed with watching them fail.

She's never watched Chris Matthews, I take it.

Here's an article called "The Many Man Crushes of Chris Matthews".

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070409/alterman

He's not the only one, but he's sort of the funniest and most blatant who's that visible.

NYC boys aren't the only ones who have man-crushes...Remember Chris Matthews and GW Bush's aircraft carrier landing and his codpiece?...or Chris Matthews and Fred Thompson's "smell" of Aqua Velva and cigars? Well, pretty much Chris Matthews and any winger alpha male.

You lapped me! Damn...

"They don't appear to be constantly testing their identities against another man's example, calling into question, at the drop of a hat, their clothing style or hair or general sense of being in the world." Well, for one thing men don't base so much of their self worth on their physical appearance so they are likely to admire other things in a man (fame, wealth, intelligence, athletic ability). But the real reason you don't hear about it so much, is homophobia. Whenever I've heard the word "man crush" or "bromance" it has been on TV, usually in a comedy and with a definite implication of a latent sexual desire. Men do not talk seriously about such feelings for fear of being labeled as homosexual.

"I've had plenty of straight male friends (and co-workers) announce their "man crushes" on friends, celebrities and, especially, office mates"

Ok, I'm sorry, but this never happens.

If it does they're not straight. I say that as a straight guy who has various male role models in various areas of life.

They are NOT "man crushes" ya big lesbo!!!

At least I think they're not.

I led off with my man crushes, fully expecting others to do the same-- and so far, I'm the only one to have done so. I feel like the only guy at the party not in costume.

This isn't to say that my self hood hasn't been called into question or that it couldn't in the future but, really, not all that often.

I have a man crush, though just the one: Paul Robeson. My name is linked to his Wiki.

Leave the romantic overtones out of it, and you'll find plenty of examples of hero worship, emulation and on a more intellectual level, sincere respect.

Competition isn't a factor here, because the admired is out of the admirer's league in some way. In fact, this feature is probably a prerequisite. Nobody I know seriously thinks they can throw a football as good as Brett Favre, no matter what they might say after they've had a few.

To Jerry's man-crush on Keith Hernandez and "not that there's anything wrong with that!" I would add George's man-crush on Elaine's "mimbo" boyfriend Tommy, whom he describes as "such a [i]cool guy[/i]!".

Yes, I think the man-crush is an established cultural phenomenon. The article's argument to the contrary reveals some people's tendency to try to couch all contradictory or slightly adverse aspects of life in race or gender. We have more in common than you think, and insecurity, low self-esteem, and feeling uncomfortable in your own skin are among those things.

That said, there is a sort of idea that men's desires are more straightforward and you want something or want to be something, you're supposed to just go for it and get it. And we're supposed to be hyper-competitive, so if we see some qualities in another man that we would wish to emulate, we'd rather die trying to become better than him at those qualities than admit his superiority. So I suppose it's possible that the sort of men that buy into this typical idea of manhood would be less willing to admit something like this. That doesn't mean they don't have them though. My most meathead, typical-guy friend turned into an adoring schoolgirl when we met the singer from Children of Bodom after a concert one night, and gushed for the whole ride back about what an awesome guy he was, though if you called it a man-crush he'd surely protest "I'm not gay!"

As for my personal man-crushes, I'll go with Viggo Mortensen, the bartender with the British accent at Crif Dogs in the East Village, and a whole slew of historical/literary figures.