But You Say He's Just a Friend...

this post has had me thinking today about the age old topic of whether or not men and woman can be platonic friends.

here are my thoughts.

i hate it when i hear girls/women say things like, "i just get along better with men" or "i prefer being friends with men...women are jealous and catty." you know why that is, girl who doesn't like other girls? it's because you are probably skanky and untrustworthy. one of those women who enters a party and makes a beeline for where the guys are. one of those women who meets another woman and then pretends she doesn't know who she is the next several times they meet. a woman who for some reason cannot relate to or establish relationships with her own kind is a big fat red skank flag. there's a reason other women don't want to be friends with you.

i also hate it when girls/women say (regarding a male friend), "oh he's a brother to me." uh, no. unless he's your brother, than he's not a brother to you. i guess maybe you can say things like that if you are an only child and therefore lack an understanding of sibling dynamics. i know that there can be a level of comfort you can have around certain males you've come to be close with and have known for years and years, but unless he emerged from the same uterus as you did, he's not your brother. a brother is someone you were raised with. daily. you share parents. you share 50 percent of your genetic material.

i think that people in romantic relationships can have platonic friendships with people of the opposite gender under the right circumstances. such as:

• your friend's boyfriend/husband
• a friend of the opposite sex that you made prior to becoming involved in your current relationship*
• co-workers
• friends of the opposite sex that you made through your significant other (his best friend, his brother, etc.)

*as long as there is complete transparency about the origins and nature of said friendship with your significant other

while i really love women (i have a really cool mom, three really cool sisters-no brothers, and a handful of really cool lifelong girlfriends), i also value the friendships i have with men. i have a quality handful of cool guys in my life. since hooking up with t five years ago, i haven't acquired any new close male friends other than the ones that i've come to know and adore through t- his good friends and bandmates. since we've been together i've also dropped or distanced myself from several mediocre guy friends i had. i don't really think it's necessary or appropriate to be hanging out with a bunch of random periphery male friends, fielding late night texts to come meet up at a bar or party somewhere.

back to my male friends. mine, meaning the several that are my friends. not my girlfriend's husband, not my coworker, but the friends that i've connected with on my own accord and grown to love....

one is a long time friend i've known since middle school. we don't spend much physical time together, especially now, but he comes to visit whenever he's back in the area for a holiday, we meet up for concerts when i'm in his neck of the woods and we engage in a nice google chat every once in a while. i introduced tony to him shortly after we started dating. they like each other too. that's a nice bonus, though generally i don't really think the friendships i have with people i see so infrequently should be any of tony's business. but it's nice that the three of us can spend time together.

one is one of the dearest friendships i've ever had, man or woman. i met him through my older sister when i was a teenager in high school. he was in his early twenties. as i got older we developed a friendship on our own, and my sister drifted out of this picture. i share more interests with him than i do with any of my female friends, with the exception of maybe one. he was my going out partner, always down to hit up a bar on a whim or drive three hours to see a show somewhere. he got me hooked on wilco. he's responsible for all the late night breakfast slams i've ever consumed. he could always talk me into "just one more drink" or to stay out "just 10 more minutes" every time we went out. he cleaned my vomit out of his mom's car once. he carried me out of poor reds when i was poisoned by golden cadillacs. he just happened to strike up a friendship with a cute guitar playing electrician he would go on to introduce me to many summers ago. he, tony and i were three peas in a pod for a long time. then he shacked up with a lovely girl of his own and became a father himself a couple months ago. funny how things work out. we couldn't have planned it like that if we'd tried. we'll get to raise our sons together.

another one of them is one that i see and hear from pretty infrequently. i actually met him through the friend mentioned above. i thoroughly enjoy this friend. i really like his brain. i really value his perspective. he's an insane talent. we go months and months with minimal contact and will meet up for a 6 hour lunch where we talk our faces off. and i love his wife. i love love love her. writing about these two makes me bummed that i don't see them more often. they are both brilliant people...and so fun.

my fourth and last real male friend is someone i met through t but developed a friendship with outside of tony. we just really clicked. he's one of the smartest most interesting people i know. t and i hang out with him all the time. he and t spend time together one on one, and often he and i spend time together without t. while i have a lot of love for so many of the people i've gotten to know through tony, i can say for certain that had i met this friend on my own we would definitely be friends. he is the type of character that i naturally gravitate towards. like i said, i love the boys i met through t but i don't think my paths would have crossed with any of them had there been no tony to connect us.

i should close this by saying that i used to have another really close guy friend. i had 100 percent platonic friend feelings for him for almost the entire duration of our friendship. we went to concerts together. we drank beers in his backyard with other friends. he invited me over one night to watch a new show called the office, which we would go on to view together every thursday night during my senior year of college. while i had a feeling that his interest in me was a bit more romantic than my interest in him, we maintained a really lovely thing. he never crossed any lines and things never really got awkward. until i found out he started dating a girl in secret and i flipped my shit. he saw the charm in my tantrum and things worked out in my favor.

here's proof:

tony and sweet van

Catcalling Douchebags

in browsing www.hellogiggles.com this morning i came across this article on street harassment. it perfectly illustrates why cat calling (street harassment) is the most gross, obnoxious and inappropriate thing ever. it discusses the different ways in which these harassers operate and talks about the slippery slope of street harassment- how hissing and whistling can turn to stalking or even rape.

street harassment is one of those experiences that seems to unite women in disgust. it doesn't matter what you're wearing, what you're doing or even how old you are...there will always be trashball guys that get off on making women feel threatened and uncomfortable.

while i was reading i recalled a scene at the beginning of six feet under years and years ago. if you aren't familiar with the show, each episode is introduced with a death. one of the deaths that always stayed with me was of a young woman who was struck and killed by a vehicle while running from a group of men who were whistling and propositioning her while as she left a party. a split second before she is hit by the car, she turns around to notice that the men harassing her were actually her friends thinking they were being funny. that scene is so poignant because it calls such attention to the disconnect between the men's actions and the woman's perceptions of those actions.  what men sometimes see as playful or funny (why, i'll never know. because they are jackasses, i guess), women perceive as a safety threat. i know when i hear a man yelling at me and making inappropriate comments on my appearance, my heart begins to race. i'm not looking to decipher who the man is or what his intentions are. he could very well be a "harmless" college aged guy looking to impress his douchebag friends, but my conditioned mind fears some psycho serial rapist.

anyways, read the article. and props to the writer, and all the women like her, who aren't afraid to look like stick in the mud "feminazis" to a bunch of ignorant and insensitive men and speak out against shit like this for the sake of women and girls everywhere. high five!

*p.s. march 18-24th is anti-street harassment week.