I'm not going to say that Shakespeare "invented the bromance" as some people claim (clearly examples go waaaaay back, like Achilles and Patroclus). However, in Hamlet, he does a pretty good job with it in my opinion.
First of all, he pretty much says that Hamlet and Horatio were BFFs back at Wittenberg. Next, Horatio is one of the only people that Hamlet can actually trust (he's suspicious of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Polonius, and his mom, and he most certainly wouldn't trust Claudius, for obvious reasons).
Hamlet also says to Horatio in Act III,
"And blessed are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commeddled
That they are not a pipe for Fortune’s finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him
In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of hearts
As I do thee."
The men in Shakespeare's plays are clearly more open with their feelings than most men in novels nowadays!
I'm sure there are more examples (if you want to see some more you can look here: https://thanksbro.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/shakespeare-invented-the-bromance/ but I think it has some spoilers).
In my opinion, the bromance between Hamlet and Horatio seems to have way more substance than the kind-of-romance-I-think thing between Hamlet and Ophelia. So who knows what Shakespeare really intended.
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