Making friends with boys

I never really had guy friends as a kid. The only boys I remember from early primary school are:

1. The bully, Thomas.  All I remember is that his picking on me got so annoying that Mum helped me pick out a Book of Insults (probably from the local library or a discount bin). She and I went through the book, chuckling at the slanderous wit. We found the best one out of all of them. The next day, after Thomas said something snide, I told him proudly, with perfect fluency, "Your mouth is like a letter box; it opens day and night." He looked confused, but at least it shut him up.

2. Some guy called Josh who was vaguely cute. I might have spoken to him once.

3. Brendon. He would play Dungeons with our group, a game that primarily involved three of us girls standing around as he continually picked Hayley, the pretty one, and took her over to the dungeon (a nearby tree) and back again.

The later school years didn't improve much on the guy front. Pretty much the only time I'd pay attention to the boys was to assess their cuteness or to ask them to pass the stapler. I don’t know if having guy friends is like learning a language—learn it while you’re young and it’s easy, learn it when you’re older and it’s hard work. All I know is that I'm finding it bloody difficult now. I finally understand what Seinfeld was talking about when they mentioned games. Man, bloody games. Some of the boys I've talked to seemed to have a train of thought like this: “don’t look in her eyes but stay fairly close, look like you’re having the funniest conversation with some people. A casual nod at her later. Impress her with some agile spinning kick thing, then go over and talk, but not too much”. Well, maybe they weren’t thinking about it that hard, but those were the vibes I was getting.

Can't we go back to Simon Says?

One of the most annoying things I discovered was that if you were as friendly to a guy as you were to your girl friends, you were automatically hot for them, which mostly made them look at you dubiously and walk away. Sigh.

Or, even if I do manage to make friends with a guy, as soon as he gets a girlfriend he disappears, as if being my friend would mean they were cheating or not 100% satisfied by their relationship with their girlfriend.

Meet Harry and Sally

My friend Paige showed me When Harry Met Sally. This is a hilarious movie. I loved it so much that I watched it again and again, but then I started to worry if there were any truth to what Harry always said, that guys and girls can’t be friends. I ran it past my real life friends. Laya, who is older than me and has been with her current partner for something like 15 years, said that she used to have heaps of guy friends but they all fell away when she started going out with her now-partner. The implication here is that the guy friends were only interested in being friends if they had a chance of dating her. After a bit more fretting, I asked the kindest soul you’ll ever meet, Melissa, and she was confused by my question about the possibility of opposite sex friends. “I’ve never thought of it like that before. I always pick friends for personality. I don’t think about their gender; that’s not important to me.”

Random fact: Picture books often use animal characters as they are gender and race neutral

Meanwhile, I had begun to get to know some of the older guys at karate (30-60ish). It was refreshing how easy it was to talk and joke with them. I never felt the need to be stand-offish, and they would never take it the wrong way when I was happy to see them and talk to them.

Still concerned, I mentioned the movie-inspired dilemma to Gabbie, my ever-practical sister. She shook her head and said, “Movies will like to tell you stuff like that, but it’s not true”. It was a bit of a der-brain moment (16-18)--I only had to look at her circle of friends to know that. At 23, she is still close to a few of her high school friends—Bec, Keiren, and Lachlan. Gabbie seems to have no trouble being affectionate to her guy friends.  She will cheerfully say “love you” to them as a farewell, as she did at the end of a phone conversation with Keiren one time. Our cousin, who was in the room, said, “Who was that?!”

“He knows how I mean it,” she said to me later. She even gives him a big long hug. Though I think the fact that he’s in a steady relationship with Bec kills any possible awkwardness. Although, it’s never been weird with Lachlan, and he wasn’t always dating someone. But he’s so lovable in a brotherly way, plus he’s easy-going and social with everyone; he’s not hard to like.

A bit later, I wrote a list of what I want in a boyfriend. It was something like this:

• silly
• funny
• kind
• a bit quiet, but not too shy to say hello
• intelligent
• down-to-earth

... plus a few more embarrassing things (like ‘soft lips’. Honestly, anyone could pass that—just buy a lip balm! I even decided on the exact colour and length his hair should be. This was probably during my 10 Things and Pirates obsessions)

Uni’s pretty great for meeting people. It’s a delicious stew of people who all have similar interests to you. So it wasn’t hard making friends with people—regardless of gender, as Melissa would happily note. This year in particular, I got to know someone who ticked all the “boyfriend boxes”. But it’s such fun being friends with him, I don’t want to stuff it up by having all those games come into it (ergh, no, not the games). I can’t completely be myself around him yet. I’m still putting on my best behaviour and being the teeny-tiniest bit flirty. And I think I would be jealous if he turned out to have a girlfriend. But it’s weird because I don’t really feel that way about him. I guess it's hard not to feel attracted to someone who is, like, the one decent guy my age who actually gives me the time of day and is fun to be around. But I don't think it's truly a romantic thing between us. My brain is probably just hardwired to think that I will only pay attention to guys who I'm crushing on.

I'm slowly re-configuring that setting, though, now that I'm friends with a wider range of guys. I’ll talk to the game-players occassionally... if I can be bothered or if they’re feeling friendlier than usual. Otherwise, I mainly I hang out with guys who are older than I am. I adore spending time with the older men at karate. I like talking to my sister’s friend, Lachlan, and a few Uni guys in their early twenties. I find it’s more carefree, less effort. But there are a few guys my own age who I can stand to be around. So screw you, Harry...

ergh, not literally

The way I figure, it’s less about gender and more about maturity. Not that I'm so mature all the time (clearly). Actually, now that I think about it, the younger boys at karate are also fun to muck around with--they are just as enjoyable as hanging with the older guys, but in a different way. So maturity aside, it seems like whatever is not dating age equals non-awkwardness. That's pretty depressing how important age seems to be. Maybe someday I'll learn to be as easy-going and simple-minded as Melissa seems to be about it. Personality good=friend. Personality bad=walk away.

RE: game-players, whenever I’m wondering whether to be my usual, friendly self or to play along with their mind games, I think back on this quote I found: 

“If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway.”

 Mother Teresa said it right. From my experience, keep being kind and the right sorts of people will drift towards you. You can also make lists of what you want. Just don’t show anyone in case you end up laughing about some of the stuff you say.