This post is taken from my weekly Newsletter (#50). You can read the full version of the newsletter (which includes lots of other pieces) here.
I have male friends that I am very close to. As in, we chat at least once a week, sometimes twice, and the conversations are deep. I was friends with all of them before I met my current boyfriend, and they have stayed on in my life during this new relationship. I appreciate them greatly.
I am very comfortable with having male friends while also having a boyfriend, because I know myself, and I know my friends, and I know there’s literally zero chance, while I am in this relationship, that any of these friendships would turn into something more than just platonic. (Also, these friends are either married, in relationships or dating). It’s not even that “we know the rules”. There are no rules, because there are no issues. My friends might as well be gay. I’ve never cheated on a partner, or suddenly left a partner for someone else, and I am pretty sure that record is not going to change.
I can’t say G is thrilled that these men are in my life, but he’s also accepting and understanding of it. But that does not apply to my female friends. My female friends are all in mild shock that I have close male friends while I am in a relationship. I don’t understand this, and I defend myself strongly. Am I supposed to dump my male friends, some of whom I have known for 30 years, just because I have a boyfriend? What if I am ever single again? Do I grovel back to my friends then? To me, this whole thing is nonsensical. My female friends stand firm, though. Most of them are in awe that G and I can make this work.
As part of their argument, they come at me with the inevitable “What if G had female friends he hung out with regularly? You’d hate that”. And my response is one of surprise. I would not hate that. I would strongly encourage it. I want G to have female friends. Why not? But no!! This is where my female friends draw the line. Apparently, G having female friends is completely, utterly, 100% unacceptable.
I defend G strongly. I trust him to be respectful of our relationship, which is all that’s required. My female friends just laugh. And laugh. Because, apparently, it’s not G who is the problem. It’s his potential female friends who are. Apparently, as I have now been told, women can be vile. They will stick their claws into a man without him even realising it’s happening, will use and abuse him, and move on. They will destroy relationships without blinking twice.
I balk at this. I am a woman, I do not do this. My friends are women, they do not do this. Surely, G is smart enough to make grown up choices and understand their consequence? But when I ask my female friends this, their stories come out. My one female friend, (in her past, now abandoned life), did have an affair, with a married man while married herself. She says she was not “young and stupid”. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she knew exactly how to do it. And, she says, the ease with which she made it happen caused her great insecurities in her current (and very happy) relationship. She knows what “those” women can do, because she was one of them in a past life. Another friend tells me she confronted face to face a woman her husband worked with, because the husband was oblivious to this woman’s intentions, but my friend was not. (The other woman didn’t deny it!). And so the stories go on and on. Everyone has one. And there is a common theme, and every woman has said this to me: men are stupid and clueless when it comes to this stuff.
This surprises me. I consider men to be the seducers. Also, I am one of those female friends that men have, and I am certainly not out seducing them. Apparently, I am the exception to the rule. At the end of the day, my female friends who are in relationships do not have friends of the opposite sex, and neither do their partners. No exceptions.
I take this a bit further, though. My attitude to relationships has always been that I cannot stand in the way of someone being with their true person. So if G met someone who was more his real person than I am, as much pain as that would give me, I would also be happy for him (eventually). My female friends hit me over the head at this point. This isn’t about real persons, they say. This is about flings. And flings are cruel and destructive, and pointless. And all temptation, according to my friends, should be removed.
I don’t know. None of this makes me happy. I think the price we pay (either way) is massive. But it also explains why I have such as visceral reaction to Danielle and her open marriage (see above). She and her husband move outside their marriage to have “flings”, relationships even, and it vexes me. I want people to be stronger than that. To be more committed. But as the philosophers and psychologists say: our anger at others is a reflection of our own fears.
All this makes me sad.
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Thanks for reading,
