I've been friends with boys for as far back as I can remember. Never one to sit with the girly girls or hole myself off for fear of cooties, what began as a nice, co-ed mix turned into mainly hanging out with dudes as I got older. This was partly because of a tom-boy streak, and partly because the young girls I was around were not the most logical beings on the planet. For someone with the social skills of Megatron, I wasn't exactly fitting in with the world of second-guessing motives, lip gloss and finely tuned social strategizing. The local boys, on the other hand, were mainly focusing on video games, sports, or whether or not they had beards. These were simple things. I understood them.
For the most part, I quite like having a lot of male friends. They invite you to cool stuff, like ultimate frisbee games and seeing The Dark Knight at midnight, and genuinely don't care whether you wear makeup or not. Cursing is fine, teasing is fine (the girls got offended or thought I was flirting which, as a heterosexual female, was not something I was really intending) and on no occasion did any of them require that I lie about whether their favorite outfit was attractive or not.
Don't get me wrong, there are downsides to hanging out mainly with the opposite sex. When I was in the 3rd grade, one of the guys I was friends with told me he had to tell me a secret on the playground. I'd had a crush on him all year, so I was excited and anxious, hoping he was going to tell me that he like-liked me, too. But when we met on top of the climbing arch, what he said instead was, "I told everyone that I don't like Colleen anymore, but I still do. Don't tell anyone, okay?" And I said okay. I didn't tell anyone for another 8 years, and even then I didn't use his name.
There's also the awkward moment - the genuinely awkward moment, not the lololol internet joke moment - where one of your guy friends gets a crush on you. Having hung out with them and thought of them as nothing more or less than 'bros,' the idea of doing anything sexy with them is a bit like doing sexy things with a chalkboard. Not only is it emphatically unsexy, you're not even sure how it'd logistically work out. But, as their friend, you don't want to hurt them.
In the near-perfect situation where no one wants to get intimate with anyone else's naughty bits, other people are constantly shipping you. Not just online - oh no. No matter what your sexual preference actually is, when around friends of the opposite gender everyone else is going to suspect you're thinking about doin' it. Even if you are not. Somehow, especially if you are not. This often means that any video I make with a male friend sparks sexual speculation - even when people know one or both of us is taken. Same thing if you and a guy friend hang out a lot; your mutual friends raise an eyebrow when they see you consistently meeting up to "watch TV and play Mario." This can even be a problem when you're just trying to make friends with a guy. Asking a guy to hang out, even if you're both in relationships, is somehow always seen as more than just hanging out. I don't know how to fix this, and welcome suggestions!
My best friend is a guy named Andrew that I met while eating Nutella peanut butter toast on my back porch - we sprung up a conversation about puppies, and it's been nothing but workouts and shooting the breeze late at night (PLATONICALLY) ever since. Thanks to a random question about whether he'd rather sleep with Adele or Lady Gaga, he named me Officially a Bro - a status of which I am very proud. Andrew's like the brother I never had. Our families mutually want to adopt each other, and neither of us has any interest in the other beyond friendship.
I have female friends as well, but it's always seemed to me that they're more acceptable to have in society. Being close with a male friend always gets people wondering about whether it's more than just friendship, or whether you're not actually attracted to men at all (my personal favorite logic jump.) I've never regretted befriending guys OR girls - for me, it's all about the person, not the gender. What do you guys think? Have you ever been in this kind of situation?
Music
Brick - Ben Folds Five
Erase Me - Ben Folds Five
Do It Anyway - Ben Folds Five
Hold That Thought - Ben Folds Five
Thank you for posting this. I knew I wasn't alone in having a guy best friend, but as a girl, it's comforting to know specifically of someone like me. :) My best friend "Max" had a crush on me for a while when we were first friends but, amazingly, he was able to talk to me about it and we moved past it. It actually made us closer. But the shipping from all of our other friends didn't help and was REALLY annoying.
ReplyDeleteAs a kid, my family would always go over to our family friend's house, who like us, had a son and a daughter. I always preferred sitting with my brother and the other boy and watching them play video games. Somehow it was just more interesting to me.
ReplyDeleteI have always found the company of guys less stressful. It seems more like hanging out and they don't really gossip, which is an activity I dislike, but get roped into when with other girls.
I have never really had a close guy friend up until recently. There was that pressure that you mentioned of people thinking you were dating or one of us being interested in the other. I think these problems are caused both by society, but also by human nature. We like being attracted to people and someone you hang with a lot and someone you relate to well will probably be higher on the list of likability.
Personally, I just like being friends with people who like the same things I do. Boy or girl, it doesn't matter to me as long as we get along.
As a boy with a lot of friends which are girls, i understand exactly what you are saying. In fact, it is almost exactly the same experience you described, but the other way around.
ReplyDeleteBut, it has to be said, often (And i am ashamed of this) i used to only talk to girls if i liked them, but then that would go away and we would have become good friends.
I think that change comes with getting older, some of the most interesting people i talk to are girls, often because they aren't as silly as my usual friends.
Oh, you mean everyday of my life?
ReplyDeleteIt's maddening. My best friend and I have been friends since first grade. We go to different Universities 500 miles apart now so we text and IM all the time. When I talk about him, even to people who know me well, I get the "OHHHHHhhh! Him again, huh?" (I'm sure you know that Oh.) I have nearly ripped ocular muscles from the intensity of the eye rolls. I'm friends with his girlfriend, too, for crying out loud! My family FINALLY stopped teasing about it when we graduated. I don't know what finally convinced them. I wish I knew. I would bottle it up and give it to EVERYONE.
Of the two people I consider my absolute best friends, one is a guy. I've known him for about five years now and while we were almost a "thing" for a while several years ago, he's basically my brother. I've actually started referring to him as such in public because it's apparently acceptable to simply hang out with my brother, but not my male best friend. Likewise, he introduced me to his girlfriend as his little sister, because the one before her had a problem with us being such good friends.
ReplyDeleteBryarly - We're totally in the same boat. Most of my closest friends are guys. I mean, I have a lot of friends who are girls, but my best friends tend to be of the opposite gender. I feel like in high school this was more of an "eyebrow-raisy" kind of situation but in college that's more or less filtered out.
ReplyDeleteI have had the awkward moment or two when a guy friend wants to be more and it just seems totally weird and creepy because I think of them as brothers. Once I went to study abroad in Italy and one of my close guy friends was on the trip. We were basically attached at the hip during the whole thing and people were talking. (It was a small group. Everyone knew everyone's business during our time abroad)
Those who knew I had a boyfriend assured the others that nothing was happening, thankfully. Little did I know that he had effectively fallen in love with me. He even made like this really awkward "move"and kissed me on the cheek and it was totally weird and I was oblivious until that point.
So yeah, to sum up, I have been in similar situations. I know what you mean.
I know what you mean, but I've been in a slightly different situation. My brother and I are close, but he isn't the typical male. He prefered being around girls because boys were sometimes a bit to violent and too loud. I had my female friends and even a male friend in primary school, but when I got into highschool I got into an all girls class for two years.
ReplyDeleteAs my best friend from primary school moved away I didn't have any male around me that I really talked to.
In year 9, when my class got mixed up again, it was my turn to get to handle guys once more, which was hard for me. Luckily I met my best friend, which I had a crush since the first time I saw him. Still, when we got friends I didn't want him to know my feelings, I wanted to be his friend only.
My friends shipping us in that situation annoyed me, since they didn't know the truth, they were just speculating. Long story a bit shorter, he is gay, he knows about my past feelings and we are good. I'm so thankful to have him and the other boys, who became my friend since then, even though I still have far more female friends.
Without male friends I'd never get rid of my engery, as we have pillow fights every friday in youth group. Of course I lose everytime, but I wouldn't want to miss those fights.
Yay I'm not the only one. My family teases me about all of my boy friends, which doesn't bother me but when the guy's girlfriend gets jealous..thats something that bothers me lol. I don't like dealing with jealous girlfriends..makes me feel terrible for being good friends with the guy! Thankfully my best guy friend AND my best girlfriend are dating each other so it works perfectly for me..as long as they don't break up ;)
ReplyDeleteHaving mostly boy mates has gotten me into a lot of trouble over the year. Annoyingly lost a lot of friends because their gfs don't like them hanging around with girls. This is including My best friends gf, who hates me even though we are like brother and sister and nothing more. But then I am also an extremely jealous person so I can't really say anything.
ReplyDeleteThe people who should mind their own business however, are the people are mere spectators, because their views can really make or break the situation!
As a heterosexual man, I understand this, but I emphatically disagree with certain concepts entertained...
ReplyDeleteHere's some criteria I'd like to set up. Men and Women are so different, generally. The complexity of this difference isn't initially visible all the time, and not one side is right or wrong, but the difference is there. Also, I can only speak from personal experience, and the observation of other close friends experiences.
Here's where I stand.
So I too throughout my life had a lot of friends that were girls. Most of my closest friends (until recently) have been of the female variety. I had genuine friendships with these people, and deeply cared about each of them. Looking back though, I've noticed while I wasn't seeking out these people because I was sexually interested, I did in fact almost subconsciously pursue friendships with people that I found to be objectively attractive to me. In doing this, I've found that at one point or another I grew to have crushes on about %80 of the girls that I became the closest with. In some cases intense infatuation, and in even fewer, what I think is love... I haven't been able to maintain a long term friendship outside of a common activity (school, proximity, etc.) with a girl because of this.
Now I'm not sure if that's a personal thing, I'll probably never know for sure. But what I've seen of other men, and friends like me, is that this is a fairly common thing.
One issue with my argument is that I've had a total of one relationship that lasted for 2 weeks in highschool (I'm now 20). I might just be really bad at expressing my feelings to people and to combat this I try to become very good friends with the people I like in the hopes that they will reach out to me first.
This has not worked.
I think it hasn't worked because of the way girl brains work. I think that girls are good at compartmentalizing relationships, and labeling them, and organizing them into specific categories. Friends and sexy time buddies don't mix. I think it's much easier for girls to maintain legitimate friendships with guys. I also think that it's much easier for guys to lie about their feelings and fight to maintain the friendships with girls so they can remain close to someone that they know will never love them the same way.
And I think that because of this, girls in general have been deceived. I bet without a doubt that there are an enormous amount of platonic relationships that are based on this and the girl will never know. Ironically, I think that it's the relationship that the girl is SURE is completely platonic. They're not (with exceptions).
This is where this constant shipping comes from. I've had girls with boyfriends that were very close to me. I wouldn't think of trying to steal them from their boyfriends (most of the boyfriends were my friends as well). They were out of bounds while they were in the relationship. This didn't mean I didn't like them, that I wasn't waiting for my chance. It seems underhanded and wrong, but I can assure that all of these situations were based in deep care and love of that other person.
Anyway, that's what I think.
I think that early gender separation leads to compartmentalising roles: opposite sex are cast as romantic roles, same sex as platonic ones. It's a silly and imperfect system, but f all your platonic friends are female, when you first have a male platonic friend the roles can become confused, I think (for almost anyone involved, including observers). Ah, gender. Y U GOTTA MAKE THINGS COMPLICATED?
ReplyDeleteI realy like the idea of a guy and a girl being really close friends and having nothing more than just a strong friendship because it kills the idea of "a guy and a girl never can friends". A guy and a girl really can be close friends and have relationship wih other people etc. and I don't mean being sexually close by being "close". And that is cool. And they also help you about understanding and learning about males' interests, feelings and behaviours.
ReplyDeleteI always gravitated to guys because of the complicated social stuff that came along with girls, however now that I'm older and have some amazing strong women in my life (people like Becky and Fawn and Hatti) I have been able to move away from that. I still have a lot of great male friends, but there's a special closeness that comes with sisterhood. I think what the media has done in defining the relationships of girls and women as competitive, rather than supportive, has been very damaging, especially to very young impressionable girls.
ReplyDeleteWhat you shared about "the world of second-guessing motives, lip gloss and finely tuned social strategizing" says a lot about what has been done to women as a social class. As for having male friends, the older you get, the less people care - but there are always a few immature people looking to point the finger and get all weird about it. Avoid them like the plague!
I go to an all girls school and, while some of the students there are like the kind of stereotypical girls you described, a lot of them aren't. I've made friends with some very logical, studious friends, some of which wear makeup and some of which don't and nobody seems to care about what clothes you wear. It's nice and I get on with all of them. I don't have much experience with being friends with boys but I do know a few (maybe 10ish?) and I don't enjoy their company as much - mostly because I can really notice the maturity difference between genders. The boys I know care less about school and tend to not bother about much...which is nice sometimes but can be incredibly frustating! Although, in all fairness, like I said, I don't know many.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I have experienced the whole 'friends with a boy but nobody else sees that' problem. I have three very close friends and we met a group of about four boys. My three friends started going out with three of the boys straight away and thought I might like to do the same. I had no such inclinations - I didn't fancy this boy and I barely knew him. If I'm honest, I think the only reason they formed relationships with the boys is because we were 16, none of us had ever had any boyfriends before and they were the first boys we'd met in about 2 and a half years. This suspicion is only proven correct by the fact that none of them remained together for more than 4 months. Anyway, they made some very unsubtle hints, often in his presence, which was very embarassing and painfully awkward since he must have thought I really fancied him or something. In the end, I got really annoyed and told them to stop it - they did, and haven't made the same assumption since.
But I have found that most people cannot fathom the thought of a boy and girl as friends - it's bizarre! Whenever anyone mentions visiting a friend of the opposite gender eyebrows are raised and conspirational smiles are exchanged. It's weird and presumtuous and I don't really understand it. Unfortunately, my experience says that these people are not entirely wrong. All three of my aforementioned friends have yet to make friends with a boy and not, at some point, have a romantic relationship with him, whether they regret it later or not. They start out at just friends but inevitably end up as something more, and it more often than not ruins that friendship. Maybe it's the fact that we go to an all girls school? I don't know. Again, I realise that it's only three people I'm basing this on but it has happened several times.
I'd just like to say how much I like reading your blogs. I always find them thought provoking and insightful and they give me the opportunity to think about my own views on subjects I haven't always considered. This is the third blog I've commented on (albeit as an anonymous reviewer) and I don't think I've said this before but...yeah, thanks very much for writing them! I hope you continue to do so :)
As a female, a majority of my friends are female and I would just like to say, not everyone is the stereotypical girl you have described. Perhaps I had an awesome childhood but my friends and I have homework parties where we discuss and stress out, we play video games and (more often than should be said) board games, some of us love Batman and are into Harry Potter and other various fandoms. We discuss each other's relationships with other beings whether it be platonic or romantic, and sometimes, yes even when the person is not around, but I should state, this is not out of hate or disgust or not wanting the other person to know.
ReplyDeleteBeing in a relationship with my boyfriend has yes, increased my knowledge of D&D, comic book characters, and other various "boy" things but I don't think it should really matter.
If a guy comes into one of our lives, yes, it is usually romantic but having girl friends who are interested in both sexes or the same, we can't really "ship" anyone in the way you have been throughout your life. However, we do joke a lot about new people who the person likes, but whether that is because we are females or because we see each other as family, seems to be unknown.
I know this situation too well! I think there is always a bridge to cross when the friendship is developing and then yes. Those friendships are the best.
ReplyDeleteI'm the same. I have way more guy friends than girl friends. To me, the biggest problem is when their girlfriends get jealous or don't like that I spend so much time with them. I always have to show them that I'm not interested in dating their boyfriend.
ReplyDeleteAbout people always assuming things, I really wish I had some advice, but I think the best you can do is just ignore it. People will eventually realize that you're really just friends.
Where were you five years ago, seriously?? Because here's what I was doing:
ReplyDeleteI had been friends with this nerdy, funny guy Matthew for about two years when he told me that he couldn't be just friends anymore -- it was all or nothing for him. He wanted a relationship or he wanted to never speak to me again. So being the stupidly naive 16 year-old I was, I dated him. I don't mean to blame media here, but at the time my only knowledge of relationships literally came from the media*. And in the media there are movies that I love, like "When Harry Met Sally", and "Just Friends" that basically revolve around the idea that men and women can't be friends.
Something that I didn't know about Matthew, and that you can never really know about a person until you actually date them, is that he was a very jealous person. One of my best good friends in high school was another guy Zachary. Zachary is a very... theatrical and expressive person who enjoys musicals and dance and cheerleading. He's gay, is what I'm saying. Even though Zach hadn't actually explicitly told anyone he was gay, it was just kind of assumed that he was. Anyway, Matthew hated it whenever I hung out with Zach at school because people started calling me the "fag hag", and said things like, "Where's your girlfriend, Matthew? Oh I know, why don't you find Zach's dick and then you'll find her". So then two weeks into the relationship, Matthew gave me another ultimatum: either I stop being friends with Zachary, or my relationship with Matthew was over.
Did I mention I was naive and stupid?
So yeah, that happened**. And it only got worse. When I went to university in a different city, if I added any guy on facebook, the next conversation with Matthew would be a game of 20 questions: "Who's Mike? How do you know him? Does he want to have sex with you? Do you want to have sex with him? You want to have sex with him, don't you??" I think after about 6 months of being in university I had endured enough and I finally ended it.
You alluded to your frustration at constant "sexual speculation" from others. I think what's to be learned from my experience is that, as hard as it is, you can't let others' opinions get to you. As long as you, your guy friend and your significant other see your friendship as strictly platonic and nothing more, then that's all you need. No offense to other people, but they can be a bit ignorant and immature at times. They will never understand your friendship the way you do, perhaps because they themselves are not friends with someone of the opposite sex (or same sex and orientation, or whatever). I'm sure you've realized by now there's no sense in trying to explain yourself to every "shipper" on the internet, and you shouldn't have to constantly explain yourself to mutual friends either. My advice to you is to prove them wrong -- pave the way for male-female platonic friendship, and show others it is possible! Basically, agree to disagree and in the meantime, prove your point through your actions.
I applaud you for your ability to be friends with another guy and see it as a bromance and nothing more. Also, your ability to not let your platonic friendships interfere with your romantic relationship is a testament to the amount of trust in your romantic relationship (something I never quite had with Matthew). What you're doing is very mature of you, and in time, others will follow.
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Delete*My parents have been divorced since I was 2, so growing up, I never really had a relationship to look up to. I don't mean for that to sound like an invitation to a pity party or anything, I'm fine with it. I just wanted to highlight my lack of knowledge regarding relationships when I was 16.
**To Matthew's credit, after highschool he apologized to Zach for being jealous and possessive. Of course, this apology did not occur until after Zachary came out, but still... improvement!
My girl best friend is going out with my guy best friend's guy best friend. She is desperate for me and my best friend to get together because then "we would be a cute foursome". I am not attracted to my best friend like that at all and it does my NUT in because when we do stuff together she insists that it is a double date. It isn't and it's also not funny to call it that, as in my mind it just draws attention to the fact that I have no one to go on actual dates with. She doesn't believe me that I don't like-like him and every time I see her she goes on about it. He is like my stupid brother who I struggle to keep alive. It is incredibly frustrating so I appreciate this blogpost. Thanks man.
ReplyDeleteOne of my best friends in the world is a bloke called Alex - we've known each other since we were, what, six? - and whilst we've only become very, very close these last few years, people are forever commenting on how cute we are as 'a couple'. I find this incredibly weird, and not just because I view him as a brother, but because of the weird past our families have with each other (thirty years ago - more! - his mum and my dad were married. They've since divorced, obviously).
ReplyDeleteI mean, we've had *that* conversation. The, if-I-liked-you-or-you-liked-me-would-it-be-weird conversation, and we just laughed it off because the idea was so ludicrous. Still, my mother is convinced we're secretly in love with each other, as are some of my friends. But neither of us have ever thought about the other in that way.
So I totally get where you're coming from - it's very hard to maintain a close relationship with a member of the opposite sex when it's someone you feel no attraction or romantic affection towards, because that sort of assumption happens. I've certainly not figured out a way to stop it!
That happened to me a ton as a little kid. The playground can be a vicious place for it, when all I wanted to do was to run around and play dinosaurs with two of my guy friends, all the other boys started shipping us way before it was called shipping. Of course, it didn't help when one of those guy friends gave me a plastic ring, which I kept hidden under my bed for many years.
ReplyDeleteAnd then in middle and high school I played the trombone in band class, so I was in the back section where I was the sole girl and I was in on all the dirty jokes the guys would tell each other out of earshot from the director. I was insanely proud of the fact that I was at least a little bit trusted by them, because I fully trusted them (and had many crushes over the years, none of which actually amounted to anything).
I think if a girl was going to be friends with a guy it was more socially acceptable to be friends with a group, and not with one individually. Mixing of the genders was okay, just as long as you weren't off alone with each other or else there would be plenty of eyebrow-raising.
The funny thing is that although for most of my life I have not had this problem, I do know exactly what you mean. Up until quite recently my friends have almost exclusively been girls (I am a girl), at least since puberty really kicked in, and I think it's because I kind ofnstarted to become afraid of boys - even if I didn't like-like them, I felt like there would always be that lingering question, and if I ever approached a boy, even in a just-friends way, I would be rejected for them *thinking* that I liked them like that. Although many girls say that they feel more comfortable around guys because girls are catty, girls are judgmental, girls mean competition, girls are complicated, etc., I always found the opposite to be true - my female friends were more mature, more intelligent, less exhausting and easier to understand when I hung out with them.
ReplyDeleteRecently I have become very close (platonically) with a guy, and our thingis that we chat on Facebook and text a lot because he lives kind of far away, and my family notices the amount of time I spend talking to him and about him, and they chastise me for spending so much time on someone who already has a girlfriend, who is in fact a mutual friend of mine and his. But I reallly really really reallly don't see him that way, and he isbawesome but dorky and just not attractive to me, and I wish they would understand that I just think he's an awesome person and I enjoy talking to him. Maybe the fact that we initiated our friendship online has something to do with my unusual closeness to him - eliminating the physical factor for the foundation of our relationship - but we have obviously hung out IRL several times and there's still no confusion. I really value this friendship, but I'm learning that it is more difficult to get really close to a guy without people raising eyebrows.
Anyway, Bryarly, thanks for another thought-provoking post. :)
I have friends who are guys, as do most of my friends that are girls. One of my best friends who I've known since I was two is a guy. I know he used to like me, but currently we're just friends. Maybe we'll date someday, maybe we won't. When I do hang out with guys though, I tend to prefer to hang out with a mixed group of girls and guys rather than just with guys because I find things almost the opposite of what you described. The girls I hang out with are much more logical and into the things I'm into, and we can be social but still lacking social skills at the same time. Boys are just too loud and rowdy to be around often, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen lacigreens youtube video "Men & Women can't be friends?"?
ReplyDeleteOtherwise you should.
She's one of those ppl that makes you smile the biggest smiles beacuse what she got to say is so clever and just right. That's makes you put your trust in humanity again, cause there is some amazing ppl out there.
As someone who has always had more close guy friends than girls, it is super hard to maintain it in a "girly" social group - I've found that if you're as nice to guys as you are to girls you are branded a flirt, and when the aforementioned awkward moment come sup, everyone says you brought it on yourself.
ReplyDeleteHello Bryarly! It's strange even just to write that because most of my life I have referred to people as "Miss" or "Mister" If you want me to just write next time in the comments Miss.Bishop then that's fine by me. Well Yes, I do also Hang with mainly boys (I'm twelve) So I get that but they are the type of boys that don't do anything sportsy just sit, talk, anything that comes up is a fine subject really! Well I wanted you to know that it would mean the world to me if you were to check out MY blog!
ReplyDeleteawesomemimi.blogspot.com
P.S. A few close friends are worth more than alot of "just friends"
just thought I would share that...
On my 19th birthday 8 of my closest boy friends prepared a surprise birthday party for me.Which of course only consists of them and me. Something that they always do ever since we met.We are classmates in a "boyish" course called Mechanical Engineering. I have never really thought that someday I will be one of the boys and they liked me that much that they will actually take an effort to surprise me. Everybody knows I adore birthdays. They always call me their sister or their princess or their queen. And a lot of people especially some girls do not really understand that fact. They always consider me flirty or whatever mean adjectives they can give. But I did not really do anything. Once I tried to avoid them, but they just went out looking for me. I guess, my point is there are really some girls like us, who are considered by boys as one of them. And it doesn't really matter what others say, because for a fact , boys are better friends than girls some times. :)
ReplyDeleteI don't have a lot of friends. In fact, I just have two, and they're both male. I live with one of them, and literally everyone thinks we should be a couple. Because, and this is something I've read here as well, we're so cute together! Why don't we just fall in love already? 'Cause that's something we control, right?
ReplyDeleteI used to avoid men due to bad experiences, but it turned out most of my girl friends were dicks. I know this isn't always the case, I see a lot of wonderful girls/young women in these comments for example, but man- they broke my heart so many times! Lying, pretending to keep a secret, kissing the boys I liked in front of my nose, laughing at my problems- it makes no sense to me.
Guys indeed are generally easier, I guess. They don't see the point in hiding things, they fart, burp, do what they want. I've been so scared of everything all my life that I like being around their behaviour. It feels safe, rubs off on me and I can sit back and relax.
The conclusion people draw when I explain it like this unfortunately is; she must be a lesbian. Ok, I am bisexual, but in no relationship with a girl have I been as hurt as in friendships.
Ha, here I was thinking 'I'll just write a short, quick comment.' I fail again.
Don't you think this whole "and they won't talk to you about favorite outfits" or "and they are actually interested in exciting things like Dark Knight" etc is a bit sexist? Paraphrased quotes, I know, but aren't you just giving into the stereotypes that somehow you are unlike all other women because you have a personality?
ReplyDeleteI've always been friends with girls more than guys, but not girly girls, kinda girls like you. They give me perspective on things that I otherwise wouldn't have thought of. I hate "girly" girls (to overgeneralize, I think you know what I mean), and have always hated gossipy girls, etc. But I always like the different perspective of girls. I have close guy friends too, man-crushes, if you will, and I would do anything for them, but man-relationships are more fleeting and impersonal for the most part. I think a good balance is best. It does get tricky when girls think I'm trying to hit on them or flirt with them, and/or end with a girl wanting to go out with me. Like I said I think a good mix is best. I commend your efforts, because, as a male, I can genuinely say that we, as men, crave to have female relationships that don't necessarily imply sexual feelings, or at least, I do.
ReplyDeleteBeing a young female, still in school, I know exactly where you are coming from! In school I have only a few close friends, most of which are girls, but about a month ago one of my best guy friends asked me out... Obviously I was stuck for words and didn't really know what to say or how I felt about it. I ended up saying yes and we were going or for a month... We broke up a few days ago because we realized we were better off as friends. I think this experience has definitely made us closer and I know that things won't get awkward between us :)
ReplyDeleteI can also relate on another level as I talk to many guys online (facebook mainly). Whenever I mention a certain guys name (he's in a relationship by the way!) all of my friends give me a look as if to say 'you like him'... At one point this was true and I did start to like him a little bit... However, he is now happy with his girlfriend and I am not one to ruin a relationship :)