I'm pretty blessed to have as friends a variety of the most amazing human beings who have ever walked the planet. In fact, at one point a couple of years ago, I even wondered, what did a loser like myself do to deserve friends like this? Turns out I wasn't such a loser after all. :-) Like attracts like, amazing attracts fantabulous, so I'm no longer in the dark about it. Ha ha!
But anyway. I've been looking at my relationships with these wonderful friends of mine, and distinguishing the dynamics that exist as regards my male buddies, as opposed to my female ones. Doing my personal version of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, so to speak. I shall do a whole entry on my gay friends (and they are many), but I may make reference to them as well as I go along (or not).
Women are Cheerleaders, Men are Naysayers. And it's no coincidence that my best guy friend's name is "Ney" (not just Ney but Ney!Ney!) My women friends egg me on, especially in relationships - some even see meaning and possibility where there is none. Not particularly helpful, especially in the realm of "experience" vs. "interpretation" - but I find it a uniquely female trait. Women will get kilig with you, and I've even had some female friends CREATE the experience of kilig FOR me: "Uuuuy why did he ask you this-and-that?" or "You're so bagay!" While all the time I'm going, duh? What happened? Sometimes I miss the ball that's coming straight at me - or even, the imaginary ball.
Men, on the other hand, will take on being devil's advocate, to the point of crushing every hope and dream and interpretation one harbors. I don't know if it's the challenge of it, but they will argue the other side of the coin, come hell or highwater. They will deconstruct everything that happened into just that - it doesn't mean anything until the guy in question actually declares it out loud and/or swears on a stack of Bibles. Not only that, even if he's done so, men will find something wrong about the other man in question, and ultimately say, as opposed to the women's "He's so great/perfect for you!!!," that "There's something wrong with him." For years, I've received a gamut of male comrade feedback that ranged from "He's not right/good enough for you," to "Bad idea," "He looks like so-and-so (insert negative caricature)," "I think he's gay,", "I don't like him." Take that simultaneously with women friends' rah-rah and you got a schizo in the making.
Women will laugh and cry with you, Men want to make it all better. The wonderful thing about girl friends is that they will listen, commiserate, be happy/pissed/sad with you, no questions asked.
Men will try to FIX whatever they think is going wrong, just so you don't shed another tear. The thing is, sometimes you just need a shoulder, not a handyman. I've given a few male friends lessons in saying "ah huh," "is that so," and "I'm sorry to hear about that" to the women in their life - but they've never quite managed to resist the urge. They just gotta be Mister Fix-It...and consequently have to bear the ire of whatever female is unburdening on them.
Women talk feelings and experience, Men talk shop. I've never been the kind of girl who goes into the restroom with a gaggle of other females and emerges an hour later. I go the bathroom to powder my nose or go pee, and I don't need an entourage or more than five minutes to accomplish that. I can talk to you about our dates or whatever else ails me, emotionally, much, much later. But if we're going out with our guys, I just wanna talk...with you and with them. Men don't feel the need to congregate in the confines of the little boys' room to dwell on whether their dates like them or not - I don't think they even dwell on that issue at all, in public. I've found myself, more than once, left with all the men - talking shop - while the women disappeared into the black hole of the loo; I've had to retrieve them more than a couple of times.
Women don't go out for a couple of beers, Men do. Most women, that is. Sometimes I just want to toss back a couple and have a heartfelt conversation over copious amounts of alcohol - but many of my women friends want coffee and cheesecake...neither of which are on my list of favorite things (caffeine and carbs, ugh!). Thank goodness my best female friend appreciates the soothing properties of alcohol, and indulges with me on many occasions. So does my best male friend - and a whole range of other guy friends who don't think anything of having several brewskies to end the night. I don't have too many girl friends who will do that with me, unfortunately.
Thus, the best evenings for me are with my two best friends - one male, one female - over a bottle of wine each, balancing each other's quirks out by imbibing sufficient amounts of booze, crying on each other's shoulders, and saying what's there without fear or favor. Sometimes the male tries to fix it and the females (myself included) are a little too accomodating, but everything all works out in the end.
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