On relationships

In response to a post on rialeilani.com, on whether men and women can be friends.

Growing up, I was of the opinion, that yes, of course girls and boys could socialise exclusively, have close personal friendships with each other without romantic feelings boiling up or any implications between the two.

Then, I went off to college and got a sweetheart who had trust issues, and then it wasn’t so true for me.

I’m going to have to expound on that one.

That girls and boys could be friends still held true between the two parties involved in the actual friendship. Most of my friends my first year of uni were all boys. I got along better with them. At that point in my life, I had way more commonalities with the nerdy, geeky, comic book and animé fanboys than I did with any of the frilly girly girls around campus. Boys didn’t judge me for liking the things I did, and it gave me a sense of identity to cleave to this group of people who accepted me and validated me because we all shared the same hobbies, which most of the girls on campus had absolutely no interest in. There were no problems between me and the guys I grew close to.

The problem lay singularly with my new sweetheart. He grew up in the shadow of his best friend, and that fragile, stupid ego became the proverbial thorn in my side, the pebble in the shoe of every pairing of guy friends I had. That asshole would feel threatened by any boy I grew close to, because he felt his hold on me, or his significance in my life slipping cruelly away with each agonising minute I spent with any male who wasn’t him. I couldn’t have friendships with boys because the boy who I was sleeping with, and who I was in love with couldn’t be in love with himself.

His lack of self-confidence manifested itself in distrust, jealousy and possessiveness.

I must have sensed it early on. I fucked up. I cheated on him, which furthered the issues between u s. I kissed someone else, someone who had that confidence and joie de vivre I was missing. It lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough to splinter whatever had grown in my boyfriend.

Over the course of the next two years, he would often resort to spying, going through my emails, my cell phone history. He would write me love letters, and then later revoke them, pick fights with me about all the guys I would hang out with.

Now see here, you can’t pick on me… I definitely earned a measure of distrust when I cheated on him. However, I made efforts of huge proportions to include him on my friendships. I would bring him to meals with my friends, I intro’d him to all my friends, and made sure they knew each other well. I would often call him in the middle of my conversations to let him know where I was and who I was with, which was a severe disservice to my pals–a rude move which I would never do now. When that didn’t work, I eventually had to prove to him that I loved him by dumping all my guy friends. That should have been the first and only red herring that he wasn’t right for me…. but some immature desire to marry the first guy I had sex with overwhelmed whatever fledgling sense of logic I might have had at the time.

Because of him, I felt that friendships with someone of the opposite sex weren’t possible.

And in those cases, no. When there is a third party involved, a third party that has a serious lack of self-awareness, confidence and true love, men and women cannot be friends. And in those cases where the third party is such a person, why is the girl or boy dating them in the first place?

I come from a world of believing that in order to truly love others without avarice, dishonesty and disrust, one must love himself completely, and whole-heartedly.

If one cannot do that, it will ruin other people’s lives.

And I don’t think couples should be joined at the hip and do everything together. Men and women who complete each others sentences, spend every waking minute together, dress like each other and have no interests outside the other person have no identity. They define themselves by their significant other, effectively having absorbed their S.O.’s personality into themselves, losing whatever unique qualities they had prior to their relationship.

It is as imperative for any person’s well-being to have good, close friendships of the opposite sex (or the same sex if the couple is not hetero) as it is to have friends of the same sex outside of the relationship. These people balance you out and can provide a perspective not clouded by judgement, a more objective, fresh opinion that can shed light on convolutions and conflicts that couldn’t otherwise be seen. Harmony and balance comes from diversity, not from similarity. When you have too much of the same thing, the scales tip too far in one direction.

I think it is important to the honour and stability of the relationship, however, to always include your significant other in on your friendship. It is disrespectful to your love to wholly exclude them from any friendships that occur outside your unit of 2. Even if your S.O. is completely trusting, and secure in themselves, keeping your friendships to yourself is selfish and invites discord. This is where communication is key.

I got lucky in a few ways*. I found out my ex was a fucktard, and I broke up with him. I also learned that self-esteem is an extremely sharp double edged sword, and if both of you aren’t confident and loving of yourselves, then both of you get gutted.

I’d say, 50/50 times, men and women can be friends without any of that romantic smantic crap bubbling up between the two. Other times, however, one of the parties involved sometimes develops an interest in the other, because he or she happens to kick ass. If both are single, cha-ching, fucking go for it. But if not, it is the responsibility of those two people to do the respectful thing to their girlfriends and boyfriends and kick the relationship down a notch or two. Hey, it’s not your fault you fucking rock, but if you’re really a good, loving friend to the other person, you back the fuck off. Because, believe it or not, your friendship with someone actually means you get 2 for the price of 1, even if you only wanted 1. Sorry, that’s how it goes. The significant other is always involved, whether in person or not.

*Thank God I went through that horrible relationship. It taught me a fuckload about what good relationships must be like, and now I have one.