Men and Women

When I first began this blog, I said that I wouldn't hold things back.

I said that I would just let things roll and expose my thoughts and feelings to the world. And I meant what I said. So I'm going to be completely honest here and it's not so much that I want to berate or bash women... I'm a big fan of women and think that they are probably the best thing that God has ever created in the world. So before I launch into a tirade discussing what I believe-- please note: I don't do this to try to hurt anyone's feelings or offend anyone. I simply write this so that I may better understand something...

Oscar Wilde wrote: "Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship."

So why is it that I continue to try to be friends with women?

I don't think that it's possible for me to be friends with women. Although my life has certainly proven in different instances that it is possible. Certain female friends that have helped me to learn how to be better friends towards women-- but these female friends are few and far between and I believe are as rare as four leaf clovers.

I've tried being friends with women from the time that I was really young. I remember in Kindergarten having more friends that were girls than were guys-- at that time I only had one real friend that was a guy.

As I've gotten older and matured a little more while I've had friends that have been women-- I've either grown distant with my friends that have been women or these friendships were invariably doomed from the beginning.

I'm not even sure if women understand this.

Throughout college, I have made friends with women. I use italics because while they have everything pointing towards friendship more likely than not they are only in my life for a short period of time before distance appears or the friendship fails.
It is my belief that a true friendship has a firm and unwavering base of friendship that allows that friendship to exist in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Or rather in the early stages of friendship when two people meet and begin to get to know someone as a person, after two people have met when they are getting to know each other more for who they are with consideration of all of their faults and fears, and then even later when the friendship is tested with fire. I feel that most women don't stick around long enough for this to happen with a guy.

Last year, I spent quite a bit of time getting to know two really fantastic girls-- two girls that are smart, beautiful, talented, courageous, and passionate. We grew in friendship and got to know each other better. This year has been different than last year in the way that except for a few small interactions at group events, these two women have been absent in my life. I don't really hold this against them because they had their own things that they had to achieve throughout the year but essentially because of our time commitments and failure to connect distance has grown between us (or at the very least, I feel that distance has grown between us). This is a more small and more reparable example: We just have to find more time to hang out and talk with one another.

But then there are the more irreparable examples as well: Unrequited love. Billy Crystal, once said in When Harry Met Sally...: "What I'm saying is - and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form - is that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way." And while I don't walk around with an erection or imagining ways that I could have sex with my friends that are women, I believe at its essence Billy was right. Men and women can't be friends because essentially one falls for the other and then the friendship is ruined.

I can think of two ways in my life that this has essentially wrecked my friendship with women.

1) Rosa: Rosa and I were friends during my second semester in Redding. We hung out we got to know each other and then later she told me that she had a crush on me. We dated a little. Then we broke up. Then I had a crush on her. We dated again. And again we broke up. Then we had sex. After that we tried to be friends but she wanted to get back together with me. I didn't want to get back together with her-- so I was as straight forward as I could be with her. She held onto a false hope that we would get back together. Even after two years she had this false hope that we would get back together. So I sent her a message telling her that we would never get back together, that I didn't care about her in the same way, and that she needed to move on with her life. And then I dropped all communication with her.

I want to talk about the second one but I feel that for my own purposes, I should keep it anonymous. Regardless, let's just say that things were almost the opposite of the first with me getting a crush on a girl and it never being reciprocated. In fact, when I asked this girl out (a number of times) all she could say was: "Maybe someday..." I did everything that I could think of for this girl. But things were never reciprocated. Last year we had to go through hell with our friendship because in Harry's words, "the sex part got in the way." I feel as though things will never completely heal between us and in fourteen days, I'm going to her wedding. Hopefully, I'll be able to sit through the ceremony and attend at least part of the reception before I let her go from my life completely.

So why do I write this now?

It is because tonight I was reminded of my recent feelings that I cannot successfully be friends with women.

This year, I let my guard down for only one girl and already it has been a torrid friendship. Perhaps it is my fault for beginning it wrong-- I admit that I was attracted to this girl but that things fizzled because I never chose not to act upon them. I thought that things were over and done with and tried to move towards just being friends. Then she brought it up and we had to have a couple conversations in which we dropped our pretenses and admitted that initially there was a little attraction on both sides. We then went through some more stuff and more tension. So now, just as I think that we have buried the hatchet and have left things in the past she tells me that we can no longer hang out alone because it potentially ruins the possibility of her meeting Mr. Right?