Friendship: Oh, What a Tangled Web...

My best (and longest standing) friend and I were talking about the complications of the man-woman dynamic. As in, women are sensitive, and men, while they typically mean well, are usually missing something important in the sensitivity area, like a brain. Men and women, duh, are wired differently and therefore think differently; and she was marveling that men and women ever hook up at all. I too wonder from time to time how men ever get laid.

I’m sure you all agree men can be amazingly obtuse and singularly dense about things that should be so obvious. You can even tell them and draw them diagrams about the importance of the topic you’re ranting about, and like Frasier, men are of this thought: “There's an incredible piece of scientific equipment known as the Tunneling Electron Microscope. Now, this microscope is so powerful that by firing electrons you can actually see images of the atom, the infinitesimally minute building block of our universe. If I were using that microscope right now, I still wouldn't be able to locate my interest in your problem.”

This makes men seem very insensitive—you know, not caring about our problems—and it’s not that they don’t care, or even that they don’t understand. I believe they’re more than capable of both. It’s just their priorities are not our priorities; and they are not going to devote that much energy into worrying about something that is not going to matter in five years (when it so clearly barely matters now), when they can be using that brain power for good and happy outcomes, like how to get sex…and possibly a beer.

I can’t say men are wrong in this. I like beer. But as a woman and a best friend, I have to agree that men are insensitive…and empathy deficient much of the time.

However, as complicated as the man-woman dynamic is, there is no way on God’s earth I will ever be convinced that it is more complicated than the woman-woman dynamic. My best relationships are with women, and they are the most frustrating, rewarding, irritating, happiest, worst, best, and most fulfilling relationships I have. One would think having a uterus would at least put me on a level playing field with my friendships. And God knows we talk about everything, so it’s not like we’re not communicating. It’s just that…I spend a lot of my time pandering to a lot of the irrational.

As women we hate this, right? I mean, that excuse holds us back from higher positions and holding office—it’s a lame excuse. We can be very rational, thank you. But oh, my God, I do think we hold the corner on being completely irrational as well. “You’re not even angry at me. Why am I the one being yelled at?” “Because I can’t tell my mother-in-law she’s a blazing shrew, that’s why!” Oh-kay. It’s also amazing to me how something can be only my problem, my desire or whatever, is suddenly encroaching on their happiness in some way. And if I pursue it, I’m not a good friend…and I’m not being sensitive to the situation. (Women can do the guilt manipulation like no one’s business, can’t they?) It’s even gotten that I almost have the same empathy disorder my best friend accuses men of having. Technically she knows I’m not, but I’m certainly giving a good imitation of it.

And it’s when I’m being my most unempathetic that I actually feel men might have a point: this barely matters now. What are we getting so worked up about? Can’t you just be happy right this second without trying to predict the next five years of potential happiness to follow? After 33 years of being a female, I’m going to say: Nope. We can’t. Sorry. We’re just weird.

But the woman-woman dynamic is so important. I think it was my second day of kindergarten when I came to the stunning conclusion: Life sucks. Followed by the second conclusion: I better find a friend because that’s the only way I’m going to cope with the first conclusion. So that’s where I found my best friend. For a long time, I thought you could only have one real best friend. This is probably because of school. There’s a lot of back-stabbing and turncoating in school, so it’s little wonder that I basically had one friend who never did that so therefore I thought, you should only have one best friend. I’m not sure. I didn’t have a therapist then, but I imagine that was a lot of it.

Only my best friend knew something then that I didn’t learn until much, much later. College actually, because by then, I had been replaced in my friend’s life by a boyfriend. Talk about a rude awakening and adjustment phase. This is what I learned: No one person can be every single thing to you, and what an incredible burden to assume one person can be. You can have lots of best friends. For God’s sake, you wouldn’t want just one pair of shoes, would you? Which pair would you choose? Surely you’d need to consider the occasion.

This is a lot easier on certain aspects of the woman-woman dynamic. That means you can stop pestering your BFF to go to movies with you that she has no interest in, or asking to do “girl only” things with you, when you know she feels guilty leaving her husband alone on the couch. Don’t force your friends to be more than they are or give more than they can freely give. And for God’s sake, stop trying to make them more like you. It’s not going to happen; and it shouldn’t. That’s what being a friend is about. These are supposed to be people in which you feel free to be yourself around and they love you anyway. It’s about accepting people as they are, and if you can’t, then let them go. There is no point in continuing a friendship in which everyone is unhappy. Life sucks—and the point of friends is that they’re supposed to make life a little shinier.

But having all these best friends, all of which only see a certain Hellion, is this lying? Does this mean no one friend has ever seen Hellion in the altogether then? Which Hellion is the real Hellion then? Or are all the bits of Hellion true, even if when you put them all together they contradict themselves? (Women are nothing if not contradictory.) Is it possible to have a friendship with any one person in which all aspects of yourself can be shown and not fracture the friendship?

I don’t know.