Sitting round a campfire with friends one night when I was much younger (and less wise) than now, I watched the boy I liked whip out his guitar, point at me and announce, ‘This one’s for you.’ Then, fixing me with an intense stare, he gave a husky growl and began to serenade me with James Blunt’s simpering ballad, You’re Beautiful.

I couldn’t help but think of my former admirer last week when I saw Nato chief Mark Rutte address Donald Trump as ‘Daddy’ in a shudder-worthy discussion about the conflict between Iran and Israel at a summit in The Hague.

What has Rutte – one of the most powerful men in the world – got to do with my teenage beau? Dear reader, they are both complete and utter ‘simps’.

If you’re over a particular age you may not know what a simp is – although TikTok users almost certainly will, since more than 2.3million videos bear the simp hashtag.

The slang term usually refers to a man who goes out of his way to impress a woman in a way that seems desperate and pathetic. It’s derogatory – used to mock men whose pursuit of a woman’s affection makes them seem submissive – and has become popular through ‘men’s rights’ and ‘incel’ forums online where misogyny and toxic masculinity are king.

Now as social media users have observed, ‘simping’ is on the rise. Only it’s not in how men treat other women, but in how they treat each other.

Let’s be clear, this isn’t about male friendship or healthy affection (which should be wholeheartedly encouraged). It’s about men who are hungry for power frothing over other men with power.

Take Mark Rutte during that bizarre exchange with the US President last Wednesday. Trump – who the day before had used the F-word while blasting Iran and Israel’s short-lived truce – compared the warring countries to children in a ‘school yard’.

Instead of cutting off the patronising analogy, Rutte joined in by joking, ‘Then Daddy has to sometimes use strong language.’

US president Donald Trump and Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte at a Nato summit in June

It’s clear what the Nato chief was doing as he continued to lavish praise on Trump as a ‘man of strength’ and ‘peace’: he was stroking his ego. Letting the President of the United States – who, lest we forget, had previously threatened to leave the Nato alliance – revel in his image as leader of the free world.

The sycophantic Rutte was being, as people quickly commented online, a simp.

And he’s not the only one.

Scroll through the social media profile of any ‘alpha’ male and it’s awash with man-to-man exchanges showing enough appreciation, love and praise to make a Netflix rom-com look authentic.

There’s Elon Musk, simp-in-chief during his short-lived stint in the White House administration, with his fawning posts on his own social media platform X such as, ‘I love Donald Trump as much as a straight man can love another man.’

Their ‘bromance’ (and Musk’s role in the Department of Government Efficiency) may have exploded, but the simping has continued, at least, via his loyal followers’ comments.

‘Elon Musk is the GOAT [Greatest Of All Time]! Revolutionising tech, space and the future. Join me in celebrating the visionary @elonmusk,’ tweeted one breathless male recently, desperately ‘tagging’ Musk in the hope the billionaire would notice him and respond. (He did not.)

The controversial rapper and one-time presidential wannabe Kanye West is also met with a barrage of ‘goat’ emojis and comments such as, ‘you are the greatest to ever touch the mic,’ whenever he posts on social media. The majority of these sycophantic admirers? From a cursory glance at their profiles: Men.

Even our own Prime Minister isn’t immune from the simp curse, if the cringe-worthy pictures of him scrabbling on the floor to pick up some papers for Trump are anything to go by. For his part, Trump has returned the love, patronisingly lavishing praise on Sir Keir Starmer as ‘a special man’ with a ‘beautiful accent’.

Before their feud, Donald Trump and Tesla chief Elon Musk show affection during a campaign rally last year

Musk declares his love for Mr Trump on his social media platform X in February

And nowhere is this male-on-male pandering more obvious than in the bro-centric world of podcasting, where controversial hosts such as self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate and (to a lesser degree) Joe Rogan have gushed over their male guests, while in turn swallowing praise like it’s a protein powder shake.

Perhaps we should be celebrating this simpery. After all, surely it undermines the aggressively macho reputation so many of these ‘strongmen’ have tried to hone?

But, if you ask me, it does the opposite.

You see, it seems that many of these testosterone-fuelled men have backed themselves into a corner. They don’t see women as their equals – they are entertainment, trophies or prey. As a result, praise from a woman is worthless, so they value it only from a fellow man.

They then end up trading compliments in an egotistical echo chamber of praise, a practice that’s oddly homoerotic.

Women might tell a strong man how he needs to improve, give some needed constructive criticism or challenge him. But the right type of man will give him exactly what he wants: empty flattery with no accountability.

This is certainly not true of every man. It’s not even true of most men. But clearly it’s a growing number and, when even Trump is surrounding himself with such simps, I can’t see it stopping any time soon.