Before Christmas, Bryan Johnson put himself on the radar for something other than being a spookily pale, immortality-chasing billionaire.
Best known for being the weird science guy dedicating his substantial resources to “optimising” his lifespan as much as biologically possible, Johnson had always seemed a little, well, off. Much like hardcore crypto-bros and Jordan Peterson enthusiasts, he projected a somewhat incel-y air. Romance seemed the last thing on his mind. Surely Johnson was too busy imbibing his own teenage son’s plasma in a quest to conquer death to have time to do something as banal as date?
But that all changed in December when he posted a very public – and extremely long – social media thread declaring his undying love for his girlfriend, Kate Tolo. In a 20-slide Instagram post that opened with the words, “Guys… I have a girlfriend,” and went on to explain in detail the couple’s history and courtship, Johnson professed 30-year-old Tolo to be his previously missing “puzzle piece”. Peppered with photos of the loved-up pair, the post saw Johnson describe Tolo as “luminescent”. “It wasn’t how she looked but how her mind worked: original, eccentric, entirely her own,” he wrote. “She was art.”
Talk about a hard launch.
Unwittingly or not, it was the ultimate PR rehabilitation move. Women who had formerly considered Johnson somewhat freakish were left swooning at the vulnerability and romance of it all. Unlike so many men in modern dating, too wary of commitment to ever nail their colours to the mast – plausible deniability being a key component of the “situationship” – here Johnson was, unafraid to unapologetically shout his feelings from the proverbial rooftops by plastering them all over the internet. “Kate feels like land to me after being adrift and searching for 25 years,” he wrote, a line poetic enough to almost redeem Johnson’s more bizarre lifestyle choices (taking up to 100 supplements a day and going to bed at 8.30pm, for instance). It was intoxicating, even when experienced vicariously as a bystander.
Johnson is far from the only man in the public eye throwing off the shackles of nonchalance and jaded cynicism to give props to his better half. Travis Kelce has long been the poster boy for wearing his heart on his sleeve, having made his feelings for fiancée Taylor Swift perfectly clear over the past few years. Before they got together, he famously tried and failed to meet her at one of her shows, having planned to give her a friendship bracelet with his number on.
“If I had never gone to that show and been mesmerised and just been captivated, and then left with such a desire to want to meet you, I would have never gone on here and told everybody how butt hurt I was,” Kelce told Swift when she appeared on the podcast he co-hosts with brother Jason in August last year. He also described her work ethic as “remarkable” after famously turning up and participating in several of her shows during the Eras tour, saying, “I wanted to be at the concert, supporting her and being there for her, making sure she feels comfortable and supported in everything she’s doing in life.”
More recently, Timothée Chalamet made headlines at the Critics’ Choice Awards by, if not literally name-checking girlfriend Kylie Jenner, giving her a very deliberate shout-out in his acceptance speech for best actor. “Lastly, I’ll just say ‘thank you’ to my partner of three years,” he concluded. “Thank you for our foundation. I love you, I couldn’t do this without you. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.” Not to mention the viral rap he performed on British artist EsDeeKid’s track “4 Raws”, which featured the infamous line: “It’s Himothée Chalamet chillin’ / Tryna stack a hundred million, girl got a billion”, in reference to Jenner’s wildly successful entrepreneurial endeavours.
Smitten men are clearly having a moment. Call it the era of the “hype partner”, if you will. It feels like a natural counterpoint to last year’s viral British Vogue essay that claimed having a boyfriend was now uncool – women had gone from gushing about their “boyfs” and “hubbys” online to barely mentioning them. But as flaunting your relationship on the socials became the ultimate cringe-worthy behaviour for heterosexual women, so proclaiming your woman “queen of everything” seems to have become the ultimate status symbol for heterosexual men. It suggests that here sits a man secure enough in his own masculinity and accomplishments to promote his partner without shame – coupled with, perhaps, a desire to show off the high-calibre woman he’s managed to lock down.
Here sits a man secure enough in his own masculinity and accomplishments to promote his partner without shame
Just look at Diary of a CEO podcaster Steven Bartlett. He and the high-profile guests he interviews often seem to epitomise the kind of Alpha, gym-bro energy that historically would have eschewed public declarations of love and appreciation for a romantic partner. But on the latest episode, Bartlett opened up about his relationship with fiancée Melanie – and he didn’t hold back in expressing his admiration. “She’s like an angel that fell from the sky,” Bartlett said of his betrothed. “We’ve been together for almost seven years now, and she’s very much what I’m aspiring to be.”
Then there’s real estate supremo and Selling Sunset star Jason Oppenheim, who rhapsodised about his girlfriend, Jessica Vargas, in a no-holds-barred Instagram post this month: “Tonight makes 365 days since our first kiss and I fallen [sic] in love with you more every day since. You are the human incarnation of a ray of sunshine from the heavens breaking through the clouds.”
And it’s not just love’s young dream types either – even old-timers are getting in on the “hype partner” action. While presenting his wife of nearly 30 years, Sarah Jessica Parker, with the 2026 Carol Burnett Award at Golden Eve, actor Matthew Broderick waxed lyrical about her formidable talent. He reminisced about thinking, the first time he saw her, “Here comes a force to be reckoned with,” and described how she “blew [the audience] and me away every single night” when they acted together on Broadway in Plaza Suite.
“To make Sarah Jessica laugh, which she does easily and with abandon… is to see and hear one of the great delights of the world,” he continued. “She’s built an astonishing body of work, and I’m thrilled and proud as a husband, as one of her best customers, to celebrate her tonight.”
Yes, it might be tempting to give in to easy scepticism, roll one’s eyes and pretend to vomit at the earnest sentimentality of it all. Equally, in a world in which heterofatalism rules and heterosexual relationships seem blighted by apathy, avoidance and guys who can’t seem to write a message longer than “u up?”, there’s arguably a real joy and hopefulness in seeing men tripping over themselves to big up their partners. Of men being, to use a wonderfully evocative bit of British slang, “absolute melts”.
So bring on 2026, I say, and may it be the year of the UBB: Utterly Besotted Boyfriend.