So many people say that is not possible for guys and girls to be friends without it somehow getting weird. Is this true? I’m not really sure…
I go through examples in my head of my own experience and I assure myself that yes it is possible for men and women to be simply friends, once we’re all mature enough that is. When someone is in what seems like a stable relationship with someone else or there is absolutely no chance they will begin to like you as anything more, then of COURSE it is.
Then, I began to find ways to disprove that. Even if someone is committed to another person, it can become awkward if you can’t interpret their signals correctly. Was trying to feed me that ritz cracker just a friendly gesture, or some kind of flirting? I get weirded out by things like that. I have a hard time letting them go, letting them roll off my back, and moving on.
In my opinion a guy is either a friend or a potential relationship and in my experience, once they enter that friend category it is hard for them to cross over and vice versa. So basically, if you’re my friend and a guy… even playful flirting creeps me out. You will come dangerously close to wigging me out and turning me away from you for a very long time. For example, a guy friend from high school asked me to a dance one year and I absolutely and completely flipped out. WHAT THE HECK DOES THIS MEAN? It was so incredibly awkward and uncomfortable that I couldn’t even stand to look in his direction without cringing for 4 years. I mean I know that isn’t the normal example, so maybe it is possible for normal people to have healthy friendships with people of the opposite gender.
So then, what is wrong with ME? I have serious problems apparently. Let me give an example from the opposite end of the spectrum. A year or two ago, this guy told me how pretty I was. Therefore I classified him as a potential relationship. It is actually a lot more complicated than this, but I will not get into that until I have an entire blog to devote to it. Eventually I began to get the vibe that he was just looking for a hook-up, so I didn’t act on it when he would touch my leg or whatever. However, he was still in the “potential relationship” category… I couldn’t mentally transfer him into the friend category.
I mean ideally, I would find a friend that I could gradually learn to like as more. For now I’m just going to hope that the people I classify as friends are just the ones that I am simply not attracted to and therefore I am unable to move them. And for the sake of humanity I will hope that it is in some way possible for at least normal people to be friends with the opposite sex.
-Adi
