Throughout the years I have heard people say that men and women cannot just be friends. I have always argued against this, and actually, I am not so sure as to why.
This summer while I was in Israel this convo came up with some girlfriends. Once again I assumed the position, "Yes, men and women can have platonic relationships. They look at me. "Well, I have had good friends (my mind could only flash with one name at that moment) that I have just been friends with." One of them looks at me warily and says, "Well, what makes you think any of them have never thought of you in a sexual way?"
Um...Silence.
The other day I went to my lovely therapist for our weekly chat. I was telling her about a friendship of mine and she asks me, "What's your intention?" I really didn't want to answer that. It's much easier to remain ignorant rather than asking yourself the questions you may not want to answer. Because once you answer them, then you are forced into action. You must respond to Truth.
Instead of answering the question I give her one, "Do you think that men and women can have strictly platonic relationships?" She looks back and says, "Well... Maybe... but they are rare...You know, (BEAT) all my male friends dropped off the face of the earth once I got married. So..."
Not the first time I've heard that.
I leave and go to work, but I can't take this off my mind. I realize that I have never really thought about the dynamics between each and every close male friend I have had. I make a list from high school to now, with only the men who I can or could describe as close friends...
7 of them I was friends with and then at some point we became, more than. 4 of them confessed their (unrequited) love for me. 1 is my "little bro,” and he also holds the title of being my best friends ex. One is my ex's best friend. 3 are gay (2 of whom i have made out with anyways.) 2 I have loved, and this love was either unrequited or, well, I don’t know. They never told me otherwise.
When I actually counted it out, I realized that for someone who used to argue so wholeheartedly for the pro-platonic male/female relationships...I really haven't had too damn much of that experience. I think about how most of my friends when I was younger were men and now most are women, and in this frame it suddenly makes more sense considering that I no longer care to just make out with anyone of my friends. That I am looking for something else...
As I grow older, I have been seeking out to develop and nurture my relationships into stronger, more meaningful, more invested ones. And something that has really stood out with how much change I have put into place in my life this year, is that just about all of the men who are new to my life, who try to enter my life in any way beyond that which is purely acquaintance, aren't really looking for a friend. They don't want to be my friend. They want me. But this wanting is without knowing. It is within these casual "let's hang out and get drinks," it's with some quasi-logical explanation as to why we should date (as if that could ever makeup for lack of chemistry,) it's with lingering hugs and overtly sexual jokes and subtle tensions. Maybe I used to crave these general male statements and attention, but frankly, I 'm really kind of over it. It exhausts me now. Because I know where this all leads to, and it's just not in the direction I am headed on. And this friend thing, well, I 'm stuck on it. Because at the end of the day, all that I want is a best friend. A best friend to be in love with. Who is in love with me. Partners. I want an epic. fucking. love. story. That is as monumental as it is deep. These guys that try to get in, they see, something cute. Or sexy. Or they've had a crush for a long time and have projected some sort of fantasy onto me, of some false me. That I could never live up to. Maybe its the legs or maybe they like the feisty. You know, whatever it is, I know that they will never know me. Cuteness fades without an anchor. Feisty turns to judgement and heated anger when it is not rooted in a connected place of love. These guys don't want to be my friend. They want me in their bedroom.
When I was in high school, I remember hearing a girl telling another girl who had recently been broken up with, "It's just practice for the real thing." The other girl kind of looked at her and nodded in agreement - yes, for every relationship that we have must be building towards - "the real thing", and within this line of logic, all relationships will end until "the real one" comes along.
“I swear this one is going to last and all those other bastards were only practice…” – liz phair
But is this just something we tell ourselves because socially that is what we are supposed to do and because emotionally it seems appropriate or helpful to do? Do all the relationships we have been in, all the boyfriends and girlfriends, and lovers and dates and all the misc. that fall into the cracks, do any of them really help us to be ready for this "one?" What the hell does that even mean? All of our past relations aren't filler, just as you can keep dating the same person over and over and over again if the whole time you are just looking outward (oh - it's them) instead of in.
You are the same. You haven't changed. You haven't brought anything new to the table. So what does all your experience even add up to? This person was great at this and that person was really wonderful at... and this goes on and on. Comparisons, valuations, judgement. It's like this type of thinking allows for us to be passive, to not take responsibility for our choices and to continue on in the same detached modern manner, until, well, as long as you like.
True relationships bear fruit through time. The years we put in, the rich involvement we make in another persons world. The work makes space for the joy. You reach levels of personal intimacy and soul growth with the people who you really dedicate yourself to. You learn who you are and through this, you evolve to a new level of self growth.
I use much more discretion now with whom I let into my life.
I feel like I am at some Great Divide, this realm of existence between - man as lover - and - man as best friend - waiting for someone brave enough to cross that bridge...
8 comments:
Hi doll!!!!! I really loved your blog. I think its important to remember that most men are not just friends with you because they like your beautiful mind and deep conversations although it does sound dreamy. Men are far simpler then women and driven by desire!!! Deep desire to fuck! Excuse the french! While we want to connect on the emotional level they want to connect on the physical. If they don't get the physical they just drop from the face of the earth! Its all about instant gratification! As we talked about it this summer, every guy friend I ever had only stuck around cause he had that slight hope that he would get some of this hot piece of bootay! I also have not had a single guy friend that I didn't end up having "fun" with because somehow I never have ugly friends, the attraction is there, and there always comes a point where you just want to go for a ride. The time just seems right! After all we have become such good friends, its meant to be...only to wake up a few days, weeks, months later and go...ummm you are not the person I thought you were. As the circle closes and you realize, yep there goes "another guy friend, platonic guy friend" whatever that means.
How do you even know that? You don't know what a man is thinking when he walks behind you...And don't call yourself a hag. Ever.
"As the circle closes and you realize, yep there goes "another guy friend, platonic guy friend" whatever that means." -
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sigh. Sigh.
Okay. Seriously. Last year I decided I wanted a meaningful relationship and it took a couple false starts before I was ready for a loving LTR. When my boyfriend said he loved me for the first time I was absolutely giddy but not at all surprised because all of the moments leading up to that were so full of love. What did surprise me was when he called me his best friend for the first time. I'm so glad you've explored that here. It does take a lot of bravery to enter a relationship openly, but once you do it gets easier. Doesn't it?
So, are men really just driven by some deep desire to fuck? At what point does this change, and in our society does it, to be in a focused positive direction? Doesn't ones sexuality drive both sexes, albeit in different ways generally speaking?
Our Western culture is so saturated in instant gratification, that it's not just men who are affected by it. We learn by widepsread example to throw away people like disposable garbage meanwhile filling up the landfills in our hearts. Dramatic maybe? I've been up and at it since 5am...
PG - I'm not so sure it gets "easier" in the general use of that word. Most people find it easier (less threatening, less open to ones vulnerability, less rooted in some crazy concept of control...) to not be so open. I mean, all these books that are so popular, the rules and men not being into you, etc..they are all about selective restriction in order to "capture" (ugh) your mate.
We really don't praise bravery much in these parts, and it does take a person of integrity, a person who is indeed brave, to step up to the level of that relationship commitment. How many people do I know who are pushing up there in age and still trying to rebel against and defy any notion of monogamy? I used to believe the same thing, until experience and observation literally forced me to recognize the vital self-growth involved in committing and involving yourself in someones life.
That is beautiful that your man is your best friend as well. I can haz jealous? jk...maybe...
As a guy who's had majority female friends since college, I'd say it's plenty possible to be platonic. Like everything else in life though, it's not black and white, it's not permanent and it's not constant.
I've had friends I've wanted to be more with, and other's where it's never crossed my mind. I've found friends attractive sexually and STILL not had any desire to pursue them. I've had friendships that started as crushes and friendships that started from total dislike and annoyance.
I think part of this comes from our desire to put things in absolutes. We think that if we have a platonic friendship that becomes sexual that it completely negates the friendship that came before it, or calls into questions the motivations or intentions of the other person, something we can never know and even the person them self might never have been sure of.
We're pretty accepting of the idea that someone we dislike can become a friend, and we can joke about how we used to hate each other. But apply that same concept to sex, and there's nothing but disbelief that there could have been anything other than sexual intentions on one or both sides.
Also, there's the whole lot of other factors. Like your therapist said, all her male friends disappeared when she got married. The assumed conclusion is, because she was no longer romantically available, they lost all interest in her as a friend. Maybe time commitments to her new partner just caused her to drift from her friends? Maybe due to a bad past experience they didn't feel comfortable spending time with a married woman. Maybe they were uncomfortable with societies assumptions of platonic friendship and what it means to be a guy who's friends with a married woman. Maybe they met her husband and got a horrible vibe of jealousy or something and no longer felt comfortable, or didn't want to risk ruining their friend's new relationship.
And maybe some left because they were attracted to her. Or perhaps it was simply a change of friends, in the same way I'm not as close to my friends from high school or I don't even know my friends form elementary school anymore.
Like everything else in life, there are countless factors that can't be boiled down to "no fuck, no friends," even if that's the stereotype for how a man's mind works.
Our perception creates our reality. If you believe that all your male friends left because they're only driven by their fuck-desire, then that's what you will experience, that becomes your reality.
Matt, may I first off just suggest, that you are perhaps a very special and unique man. A man with many female friends and certain enlightened sensitivities.
Now, whether or not you have desired something with a friend, not desired anything, or just not had a desire to PURSUE something, doesn't mean that there is no basic sexual tension inherent in your relationships, right? What I am asking is, isn't our sexuality inherent in all of our relationships? (To whatever degree of a sexual being we ourselves are...)But more so, When you touch a male friend, isn't it always different than touching a female friend? Isn't the charge different? Would you think about it differently? If a girl friend of yours were to just casually start rubbing your shoulders, ain't that a natural cause for the mind or loins to travel elsewhere, if even for a minute? Just as you would think or be aware of how a woman would interpret it, if, let's say, you were to start rubbing her shoulders?
There is something there that is just not the same. An awareness. And I am not placing judgement on it as much as I may just be observing it.
I don't think any of this negates friendships. I just think it changes the nature of them. The dna is dissimilar.
It's interesting you bring up the becoming friends with someone you disliked thing. It makes perfect sense, because when we dislike someone, it's just a reflection of our own shit. And if we choose to investigate that, to really question that, that is when we can see ourselves in that person. That is when we are open to loving them.
I don't think we can set any expectations ever on what someone may or may not have as their intention. Because, I am guessing that most of us haven't thought out a little thesis with a mission statement for most of our friendships.. Or maybe we just wouldn't like to name them. But with naming something, it causes it to change...
There could be a million reasons why my therapists male friends left her life. A number of them, however, straight up said that they were always crushin' on her.
Jewish girls who become religious (orthodox) later on in life become what they call "shomer negia." This means that they do not touch members of the opposite sex except for family, and then, on their wedding night their husband is finally allowed to touch them. A lot of these girls I have met have all said that their male friends stopped being their friend once they made this decision. Think about it, when you are "cuddling" with a "friend" what does it mean? Seriously, where is that leading to? It's a confusing mess. What are these girls supposed to think when the men all go away suddenly? That they are just uncomfortable with religious people? Or does it do deeper?
As far as societies assumptions go in regards to what it means to be close friends with someone who is married - A lot of people, not out of jealousy, but from a basic acknowledgement of an exclusive relationship, wouldn't want their bf/gf to have an intimate relationship with the opposite gender where they talk about everything and are soul friends on that level. I think the jealousy is misplaced fear of that.
Our perceptions do create our reality. I haven't personally lost any male friends because of anyone's fuck desires (well, maybe my own). We bring in to our worlds that which we are on the same level as. I just feel like I am stuck between a shift as I progress on my path. You IM giggle at me for bouncing around from -platonic friends - to - epic. love. story - but that's where my head is as I write this S.O.C. Maybe I can have platonic friendships once I change to making that a reality...Who knows??? Whatever. I just do want both. The friend and the lover. As one. Like, for real. Wouldn't that be nice? That's the reality I intend to manifest...
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