The Love of A Friend

I don't get it when people say that a straight man and a straight woman can't have a completely platonic relationship.   I've had many and they've lasted longer than all my relationships, most of them I met when I was in uni.  Yes, during the dangerous years when everything in pants is attractive...lol, but it's worked out well, and I love these dudes.  Love ok.  Not IN love.  Besides, nobody with any sense would sleep with EVERY guy they know.  I think about them sometimes, chat with them online and call too, and I know all the nasty dirt.  They know my nasty dirt as well, and it won't take much prompting for them to spill it. 

I've got Josh who I can gossip with about anything and everything.  Nally who usually knows more than I do, but will only tell me after I push and nudge him till he breaks.  Reza, who was a master player and flirted with everything in a skirt.  It's a relief for me that he's cleaned up his act.  I was worried it would never happen at one point.  Unlike everyone else though, Nally is prone to public displays of affection.  He hugs us girls whenever he feels like it, and nearly gave my cleaning lady a heart attack at one time. The thing is, they've taken to my exes pretty well, with the exception of Josh who HATED my ex fiancee because the idiot was stupid enough to not allow me to contact Josh.  I let it go, but it was stewing inside me for years!

Hahaha... but with all of the other guys, the friendship can't get as sickening (to the public) as my friendship with Angah.  All the declarations of loving and missing each other.  Hugging in the middle of the street.  Boob fondling.  It could make anyone spew blood if only he was straight.  Yet, nobody can know but me.  He was more a boyfriend to me than any of my previous boyfriends.  He'd pick me up from home.  Take me for long drives.  Hold my hand and keep me away from oncoming traffic when we crossed the street.  Hug me when I was crying.  Make silly jokes when I was depressed and most of all, I think we share a sick dark sense of humour.  We laugh about everything, to the point of making a joke about dancing over each other's graves and having a party instead of a funeral should one of us die. 

Through this, I think most of us make a common mistake when we do get into a relationship.  We stop getting to know each other.  We stop becoming friends.  Sometimes, we just become strangers who share the same bed. Then something exciting comes along, and you look at what you have, then you decide to go for the new thing.  Meanwhile, there's someone out there who wishes they had the one you have.  Attraction does die with time, but I think being friends keeps the relationship going.  You might be from completely different worlds, but if you continue communicating, after a while you understand each other's worlds.  For instance, a psychologist and a mechanic.  It's not impossible.  If you keep talking to each other, you'd know the other's thing and be able to ask informed questions about it. 

Sex does that too, but if you sleep with someone, you THINK you know them because you have that physical thing going and well, to be blatantly direct, you've been joined in a way that's extremely intimate.  Sometimes, it's just that fear of getting to know someone better after the intimacy.  Humans are strange.  They want intimacy, but when it gets too intimate, they tend to pull away.  No matter how old you are, there's always that fear.  If you let it, it can kill a friendship, but in the end, it's how you go about it.  The thing to consider is if you'd let sex be the end of a great friendship or a part of the journey to getting to know someone else. 

I'm one to talk.  I love a lot of people.  I've found it relatively easy to tell my friends that I love them, and sometimes gone to the point of having cutesy nicnames for my friends, but I've always found it excruciatingly difficult to tell my partners how much I love them or call them lovey-dovey nicnames.  I think this is a problem I really have to work on, this extreme lack of affection.  If I was a Desperate Housewife, I'd probably be Bree! Maybe I've been doing it all wrong.  I've acted on extreme attraction and when I think about it, if any of my exes had not been my boyfriends, they wouldn't even be my friends.  Infatuation is good, but I think, this whole new thing of not dating and hanging out instead is a good way to go since it will give me a chance to get to really know a guy in a completely relaxed way before jumping into anything I might regret. 

At 27, I've finally decided that the butterflies and thumping heartbeats can go.  I have to work on friendships more than romance, because when romances end, the friendship is what goes the distance.  Sometimes, there are friends you get attracted to, and you might act on the attraction, but I think, I should work on getting to know someone and not getting too caught up in the physical attraction.  Not saying that I should just completely stop acting on the physical attraction... what's done is done.  If it's good, you do it again, but that's not a reason I should stop getting to know the guy.  He is a person after all, not just a body, but getting to know each other takes two and I can only do that if he's in on it as well.