Male -Female Friendships
Sex,
or the mere desire of it, will doom every male-female (hetero)
friendship. That’s what conventional wisdom states, but it’s bullshit.
I’ve had more female than male friends in my adult life, some nearing the two-decade mark.
I
attribute that success to my tumultuous friendship with Susan. That
relationship would die under the weight of poor decisions, but the
experience taught me two valuable lessons — ones which every male-female
friendship must follow to survive.
Susan
and I became friends after the first of many awkward moments. She had
organized a movie outing with a bunch of other twenty-something
neighbors. Six of us planned to go, but only Susan and I showed up. We
had never hung out socially before, and now we were together at a movie
like it was a date.
Circumstances warranted a graceful exit, but I had no idea how to phrase it. That’s when Susan bailed me out.
“Come on,” she said. “Don’t make me watch this alone.”
Within
a month, we were meeting up for lunches and movies as though they were
standing appointments. We traded dating advice and coached each other on
how to attract the opposite sex. She soon moved downtown, but our time
spent together multiplied.
Then, the inevitable happened
Maybe
it was all those evenings at that cheap Italian restaurant where we’d
eat, drink and chat for an hour. We had just watched the Friends episode where they argued over marriage pacts. We agreed to our own — we’d get married if we were both still single at 35.
It
was late, so she crashed at my apartment. It wasn’t the first time she
slipped into bed with me. But we were just friends, and we prided
ourselves on being able to do this stuff without sex getting in the way.
But
that night, we kissed. Yes, it was a real kiss with all the trimmings.
She fell asleep five minutes later. I darted to the bathroom after an
hour for a sleeping pill.
I
had somehow fallen for her but withheld my feelings out of fear it
would destroy our friendship, so I gritted my teeth behind fake smiles
while she gushed about a guy she liked.
A new level of awkwardness
A
few weeks passed, and the shock came. The guy she liked was my
roommate, Carson. She had never told me, but when I saw them cozy up at a
party, I knew.
“I’m gonna crash at your place,” she said. I must have given her an uncertain look because she followed up with, “Is that okay?”
We had long since stopped asking permission to stay at each other’s place. And now she felt the need to clear it with me first.
The
three of us squeezed into the back of a cab. Nobody said a word on that
ride home. I knew what they were going to do when we got back.
Carson
and I lived in a small two-bedroom with paper-thin walls. The sounds of
my two best friends going at it would linger like a childhood
nightmare. Remember those wanna get away Snickers commercials?
We
exited the cab. Carson glanced at me and shook his head. He rushed into
his bedroom as soon as we got back. “Not worth risking our friendship,”
he told me the next morning.
Susan
and I got into bed. We pretended it was business as usual, but there
was little chatter, other than uttering the occasional, can’t sleep.
We’d
still socialize when we joined other friends at a bar, but as far as
hanging out alone, it seemed one awkward encounter too many.
Our friendship should have ended
With
our friendship in a lull, she calls and tells me about a job offer. We
meet for lunch, and I realize the attraction has died.
We
finally talk about all the craziness of the last two years. We start
with the ill-advised kiss. We argue about who had initiated it and
settle on mutual curiosity.
Then we laugh about our habit of sleeping in the same bed. And the awkward night about her and my roommate?
“So, tell me about that night with Carson?”
“Poor judgment. Remember that guy I liked?”
“Wasn’t it, Carson?” I asked.
“No, it was Aaron. He blew me off. I couldn’t tell you. Carson was just…”
“I get it.”
By
the end of that conversation, our friendship had regained momentum.
Susan had become a friend who happened to be female rather than a female
friend. We hung out regularly, frequenting our favorite cheap Italian
restaurant and meeting up for movies and street fairs. We never slept at
each other’s apartment again.
But it was not to last
She
began dating someone new. He wasn’t keen on me taking center stage in
her life, and I couldn’t blame him. And then I started dating someone
and moved out to Colorado. We lost touch, and social media hadn’t
existed yet.
We
ran into each other a few years later when I moved back to New York
City. We chatted for a few minutes and then said goodbye for the last
time. We didn’t know it would be our final encounter, but that’s how it
worked out.
How to make male-female friendships work
I’ve
had plenty of female friends where attraction never threatened the
relationship. The ones with one-sided desire often fell apart. Other
times, a mutual attraction sent us on unexpected paths. The first one
ended in heartache, while the second led to marriage.
The three C’s of male-female friendships
You need the right dynamic to exist for these friendships to survive. It requires a mix of chemistry, compatibility, and candor.
Susan
and I had chemistry and compatibility, but we lacked candor when it
mattered most. We made questionable decisions that strained our
relations and then pretended those events never happened.
Set boundaries
We
were lucky. Feelings of attraction and resentment subsided, and we were
able to put the past behind us. In its wake, we gained a tension-free
relationship where we loved each other like we were family.
But we experienced endless drama during our run-up to a healthy friendship — most of it unnecessary.
We
should never have kissed or slept in each other’s bed. We probably
should have pegged each other’s roommate as off-limits. Perhaps that’s
the essential factor in making these friendships work. Set healthy
boundaries and live by them.
P.S. I Love You
Relationships now
Thanks to Evelyn Martinez.
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