I would say that I have more guy friends than girl friends. As cliché as it is of a girl to say that, it’s true. I love my girl friends, but we often clash as we have similar complaints and needs. So, I think it’s better this way. Whenever my parents ask where I’m going, and I mention a male friend, my dad always, always asks if it’s a person of interest. “Do you like this guy?” He’d say, in an attempt to learn more about my love life. In response I make the same twisted face I always do, and reply, “God no, we’re just friends!” He then lectures me briefly about the idea that men and women can never be just friends, which is a whole other issue in itself. Not to mention he’s very old-fashioned and set in his ways. His reasoning behind this is that if you spend enough time together, things could change, and best friends usually spend a lot of time together.
Personally, I choose to avoid this reasoning. I’m happy to be so close to guys. I can get diverse opinions on things, and cut down on the gossip and drama; all that good stuff. They’re a lot of fun to hang out with, and a lot of times, it’s less awkward. It’s just, this underlying lecture of my dad’s has always been stuck in the back of my mind, just in case he ever turned out to be right. And as I grow older, I’ve come to learn that in some way,
he was right.
Boys that I thought were my friends gradually stopped replying to my texts, and even hanging out with me once I started dating someone else. I didn’t know what the big deal was, considering we were just friends, but when I think back to what my dad said, it kind of makes sense. I thought it wasn’t a problem, but clearly they thought otherwise. At first I thought they were jealous that I was spending more time with my boyfriend than my friends, but when they stopped talking to me all together, I realized they could’ve been jealous for other reasons. Maybe they had other plans for our future as friends, but now those plans are ruined due to this new relationship that they weren’t apart of.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some exceptions. I do have a group of guy friends who I love dearly and who I know consider me important to them. I know they wouldn’t stop talking to me just because I’m with someone else. They’re typically flirty with lots of girls, so I don’t see it as them coming onto me. This just means that they’re my real friends and wouldn’t ditch me for such a dumb reason as getting a boyfriend.
By now, I don’t think I can even name the amount of times that I have lost guy friends over having a boyfriend. They assume I won’t notice because I’m so involved in a new relationship, but of course I notice. I always do. And I always thought they’d stick with me through thick and thin, or that they’d be happy for me no matter what. Clearly, this is not the case. That doesn’t even happen in movies. In fact, in most romantic movies, there’s a hometown childhood best friend that’s always hoping to reconnect, more often than not as more than friends.
And that’s just it. It’s the f*cked up reality of losing important people over getting into a new relationship. They will no longer like your Instagram posts, or cute flipagrams with hundreds of pictures of your new boyfriend. They don’t care to know about your love life, or if you guys are happy together. You thought they’d be excited you’ve found someone who makes you happy, and that they’d always be there for you. Well, you know what? They were never genuinely there for you in the first place, and you’re so much better off.
Featured image via Dương Nhân on Pexels
Kalle,
I was just about reply exactly like this. Even if your guy friends had feelings it’s hard to Ben around someone you like and know they don’t like you that way. Sometimes the best thing is to allow the space to enter the relationship so you don’t have to feel rejected every single day.
“You can’t get ‘friend zoned’ if you value woman as friends” and you can’t value women as friends if you don’t see them as unique, interesting, valuable individuals with their own autonomy and agency- serapate or combined with being a sexual being rather than an object of desire and pursuit alone. They are willfully ignoring your friendliness as a chance with you- and disregarding the intentions that seem clearly stated as a day by you. They disregard your agency and personhood. They do this because of years of media and gender reenforcement that tells them this is what masculinity is. Gender roles are just as oppressive for everyone- and feminism is for everyone- because they lose out on human connection in the form if friendship with 50% of the population and so do you.
You thought they’d be excited you’ve found someone who makes you happy…
Yeah and they thought they could be the one who makes you happy. Sucks for both of you. Unrequited love hurts immensely.
But how egoistical do you have to be in order to expect your friend – someone you pretended to care about – to be continously confronted and reminded of that gut-wrenching pain? Just so you can have it all, a boyfriend and guy friends, while they have nothing but a stab in the heart every time they see you?
The fact that you have not even once actually reflected on the pain you might have caused them (unintentionally or carelessly) shows how you treated those guys in the first place: Not as equals, not as friends, but as service providers.
“But how egoistical do you have to be in order to expect your friend – someone you pretended to care about – to be continously confronted and reminded of that gut-wrenching pain? Just so you can have it all, a boyfriend and guy friends, while they have nothing but a stab in the heart every time they see you?”
If they are your FRIENDS they shouldn’t feel hurt if you have a relationship to begin with?? These absurd statements of yours apply to females as well. If I get a boyfriend I am the bad guy for leading my guy friend on even though we are FRIENDS but if a guy friend gets a girlfriend that’s alright. Wow, talking about double standards.
“The fact that you have not even once actually reflected on the pain you might have caused them (unintentionally or carelessly) shows how you treated those guys in the first place: Not as equals, not as friends, but as service providers.”
But they shouldn’t feel pain when one of us finds a significant other if we were friends, right? How can I reflect on the supposed pain I caused them if all that time I’ve seen them as a friend and thought they did the same? If they’d seen me as more than just a friend that is not my fault, is on them. This comment is bs
This story is so far from true. Biology and science dictates that men and women are friends because of sexual attraction. They weren’t your friend, they were more than your friends. I doubt you ever had sex with those men who you considered “friends”. Now you’ve hook up with a men you spent far less time with, how do you think that makes him feel?
If my friend gave a stranger a $100 but refused to help me, then I know they weren’t my friend. And that’s what you are doing to you to your “friends”. You can talk to them and say “hey I didn’t know”, he might say “when you are single again we can hang out”. The point is he was always your friend, but you were only using him for emotional support.
If article makes you feel defensive maybe you should reflect on why that is man. I personally can’t relate.
my guy best friend started to ignore me and everybody else and block everybody out after his girlfriend started talking to one of her old friends who she thought she was never going to see again and now he almost completely ignores me unless we are talking in person i used to email him at the most random times of day and night and he would almost always respond within a day. Now he never does i wish it would go back to normal, i would tell him everything. but i moved on but i still want to be friends but i am not going to force him to be my friend.
Experienced this with so many of my male friends over the years. They just stopped giving a shit as soon as they realized I was no longer a potential romantic conquest for them. It’s an especially shitty thing to face after years of friendship with someone. As I’ve gotten older this has gotten less frequent thankfully. Losing the sex appeal has been liberating in unexpected ways.