Platonic Friends

For as long as I can remember I've always been better at keeping friendship with females more then males. For some reason I feel more comfortable talking to women. We guys don't do that long heart-to-heart conversation, too uncomfortable. With my guys friends a deep conversation turns into a male bitch fest about how women are evil, manipulative, and expensive, all the things that you don't want after you've had a fight with your wife or girlfriend. All of those reasons turn into a night on the town, maybe some drinking, or a club, either way you're still finding yourself dancing, kissing, or worse with someone that is not the one your care about. On the flip side, your female friend may tend to take your girlfriends side more than yours, but at least she won't fuel the fire.

The bond that you build with a friend of the opposite sex is tighter than the one you build with those of the same sex-in my opinion. It's also a relationship that can become blurred, or destroyed with the desire to bring it further. that's easy to give into because here you have a person that shares all the interests you have, gets your jokes, only wants you to be happy, tells you everything, and trusts you as much as you trust them. How can you not love this? You can't! You do love your friend, if you didn't then you wouldn't wake up at 3am to laugh at their drunken "Are you asleep!? you can't be sleeping! Why aren't you here?! I love you. OMG J just fell out the cab, bwaahahaha!"

The next day you'll call your friend to see how the hang over is, and get filled in on what they remember. You'll laugh when she tells you that J tried to kiss her, and then poke fun at him when you see him. Next time, you'll be there, the four of you will go out and have a blast, meeting new people, or spending time with old friends, but eventually the day will come when you have that odd feeling in your gut, when you look at her and say I can see me with her. That will be the turning point. From then on you're never going to be able to look at her the same again until the question is answered.

There is no doubt that an attraction is there, if not you would never have spoken to them in the first place, but for women, a man seems to only be "Boyfriend material" for a certain time. To reinforce the differences between men and women, for us guys, it's the opposite. If we meet someone and the situation dictates that this person is purely a friend we drift into the wanting to hook up stage. If when she and I met, she was introduced and the friend of cousin, I'm not going to initially look at her as someone I'd like to get to know more intimately. I'll talk to her like she's one of the guys, we'll see each other in passing, exchange numbers and start the friendship. From here we can start looking at each other as a hook, but most of us guys are too dense to do that. We're more interested in the fact that she likes Play Station, boxing, MMA, or ducking out on the beer tab. For what ever reason we don't make that move, it could also be that we already have our eye on some one else or, already have some one else, needless to say we miss out!

She may start really getting into you; she might say, wow I really like this guy, he's not hiding anything and he's not trying to get into my pants. Let me see if he wants to go out for lunch. Lunch is perfect, it's not too obvious, but if he's into me like I'm into him then he'll make a move. For her that's deciding moment, you make your move in the middle of the day, that shows you're not afraid to take a risk, and you're not afraid to show people you're together. For her it's the right time, but what do we do? We go to lunch and talk about something completely off, and won't even compliment her on what she's wearing. You'll treat her like your boy, and blow it. It's at that point that she says; "He's never going to be more then a friend." It's not a malicious way of saying it, just that she feels you don't look at her as anything more than a friend.

As time goes by the conversations get deeper, the jokes are more understood, we doofy guys start to look at her the same way she looked at us months ago. As if J didn't teach you, you don't kiss your friend, or try to because then you get shot down and everyone knows about it. No, you don't learn, you're alone with her one night, and the conversations start, she looks at you, and for some reason she's not the same person you've known for the last year, you move in for the kiss, and, the ever so famous, "I can't, your my friend, it just doesn't feel right." comes out. This is where the true friendship starts or the false one ends. It took a year to get here, but it's here now, and you have passed the point of no return, how do you react? If the friendship is one that's going to last, you laugh it off. You won't apologize because you know it's something that was unavoidable, and then the two of you go on as if nothing happened.

At a time, if the timing was right, you could have been more then friends, but at the end of the day, that's all you were meant to be. It's a hard thing to understand until the lines have been drawn. You know that she's not into you like that, and your pride is not hurt. She knows that you're aware of how she looks at you, now it's time to really learn about each other. You'll notice that the two of you talk more about people you're interested in, not because it's a false way of showing that you're no longer into her, or trying to make her jealous, but now her opinion of females means a lot.

Maybe it's because you feel like she's going to pick someone like her that gets you, or you know that whoever you're with is going to need to get along with her because she's too important to not have around. Either way you expose more of your true self to her, she becomes a part of your family, the love you have for her is complete understood. Now the other issue is how to tell the new girlfriend that your best friend is not a guy; that's a whole new can of worms.

So you can have a friend that you're not having sex with, but you have to first confront you're attraction. After then it's cake, well, mostly. If you see her in a bikini you're going to check her out, just like I'm sure she's going to check you out, but it's going to be too different, you're not going to want to jump in the sack with each other. Chances are it's going to be nothing more then a quick look and a teasing comment, but, that's your family now; anything more then that is uncomfortable. Women please let me know how on or off I was with my insights. I'm sure they're going to be interesting.

Pres