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.

Poem of the Day: Ballad of the Men I Have Vamped in Vain

I saw this once a LONG time ago, printed it, lost it, and couldn't find it again. Fortunately someone put it on the web again, so here it is, for the rest of you. Truly fitting. And I'm sure some (or all) of you can relate like me:



OF virtue in woman and honor in man
Has many a bard sung the praise;
And if I now mention the subject again
It's distinctly a negative phase,
For while virtue and honor are well in their ways
One wearies at length of their clutch,
Especially when it inspires the phrase
"Yes, dear, but I love you too much."

These modern young men who write books about sex
All say, "To be chaste is a sin!
Live life to the full without hindrance or checks!
None too young or too old to begin."
But for the deplorable plight that I'm in-
(And you'll surely admit it is such)-
They have no reply but an asinine grin
And a "Really, I like you too much."

There are brave men a plenty, the newspapers say,
Who rape and seduce all the time-
But none of them happen to come 'round my way.
My friends don't seem given to crime.
For bridge or theatres or parties they're prime
And they don't seem to shrink at my touch.
But their failing (which goaded me into this rhyme)
Is that all of them like me too much.

It's not that I go in for Passion myself-
I find it a terrible bore-
But a virgin can have no respect for herself
In this day of the glorified whore.
So I call at young hopefuls' apartments galore,
But, when safe in a masculine clutch,
I imply my intentions, they show me the door,
And assure me they like me too much.

Are they cowards, or heroes, these diffident males?
Do they brave every feminine shell?
Or is it my personal presence that fails
To intrigue them? I never can tell;
For experts have said I make love very well
Still I must lack the magical touch-
For they praise and admire and love me-but Hell!
They-all of them-like me too much.

ENVOI:

You, prince, who have hardily ventured to learn
Of the men I have vainly ensnared,
I've done as you bid me, and ask in return
Whether you, in their place, would have dared.
And this I implore you, don't ever get scared,
And when virgins entreat your fond touch-
Do whatever you feel that the Fates have prepared-
But don't tell them you like them too much.

Anonymous, US, C. 1920

Ode to Men

Men, thou art handsome savages,
With rakish grins to make me swoon;
Even the shyest of you are prone to ravages
And seductions under the light of the moon.

“Fancy a fuck?” or other such words,
Will command your attention like cannon fire blast.
If it weren’t so funny, it’d be for the birds—
Anything, I suppose, to get us to mount your mast.

Like dogs on collars, chained to a tree,
You forget and run to the end of the tether.
Hope springs eternal for a sex orgy spree,
Complete with whipped creams, cuffs, and a feather….

Oh, men, how I adore thee, thy simplistic motivation,
For why shouldn’t we screw instead of most anything?
Let’s then do as thy will—and call for a cessation,
And instead explore all the pleasures that sex can bring.

Jack, Ranger & Harry: My Men

Fictional men are the bomb. They're never moody; they're always sexy; and they're not nearly the pain in the rump that the real things are. So here are Odes to all my favorite fictional men. (I probably should get one made up for Darcy--God, I love that man. Though he was a bit moody.)

Ode to Jack

Ode to the pirate called Jack
The rogue with a tongue so clever—
Norrington’s fine; and Orlie’s sublime,
But Jack’s my true love forever!

57 days (May 25 release date) until witty Jack is saved. Approximately 8 weeks. And yes, Jack, I would have come to save you just because I missed you! (Of course, I wouldn’t have handcuffed you to the ship and let you die—you really need to stop kissing the wrong women. Seriously.)


Ode to Ranger

Ode to the hunter called Ranger,
The man with the gun and the bod—
To sleep with him ruins you forever,
But that happens when you sleep with a god.

82 days (June 19 release date) until a Ranger fix—and being he’s ruined me, he needs to fix it. (I don’t know where Sin got 73 days left, but if she’s getting a copier EARLIER, she needs to hook me up with her supplier…)


Ode to Harry

Ode to the wizard boy called Harry
Who faces dastardly Voldemort!
If he dies, I’ll do nothing but cry and cry—
Sobbing tears by the bushel and quart.

114 days (July 21st release date) until Harry kills Voldie. (We know he’s gonna kill Voldie—but let’s hope he doesn’t have to die along with him.) They have the book covers out now for our rabid (okay MY rabid) fascination. I’m once again excited. (That two week moping ‘Eh, who cares about Harry?’ period has obviously passed.)


Who is your favorite fictional man? And what would his ode be if you had to write one?

Fantasy Men

I’m pretty sure I was a couple geek points away from being a D&D girl in high school and college. I have geek points in other areas—total book geek, attend ren faires, and totally freaking lose my mind when I see a man in a kilt (or nearly any costume—Star Trek might be stretching it, but I might play).

My friend Tiff is constantly on some sort of banter about Taboo topics and what gets you hot and yadda, yadda, yadda. And where I’m definitely more run of the mill vanilla with perhaps a strawberry stripe (you know, sweet, but tart) rippling throughout my kink-factor love life (I’m speaking very optimistically by calling it a “life” here), Tiff’s runs along the variety of Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk—it’s dark and it has everything you can imagine and perhaps even more—and definitely goes down better in small doses. The closest thing I come to anything remotely kinky is if we’re playing dress up. I do a lot better at just about anything if I think I’m playing a part. (See: Pisces.) I’m not someone you’d hire, but if I dress the part, I can generally interview my way into at least getting offered the job.

When we go out to bars, I put on my badass Hellion outfits (or at least I used to—now I’m more the comfort seeking variety) and strut in with my heels on and my eyeliner in place. Totally playing a part. It’s one of my many versions of myself. (I sound totally skitzo, don’t I?) What was this topic again? Oh, yes, fantasy men.

Duh. I was discussing with Sin about what would probably happen if I met a guy in a kilt. “He doesn’t even have to have a good accent. He’s got a kilt on—just say hello—and I’m spider-monkeying up him, planting kisses all over him.” *sucking on a piece of chocolate* “Men should be very afraid.” They are, they are. So it got me to thinking, big philosopher that I am, exactly what kind of fantasy men I go for. I thought I’d make a list, as a word of warning to all men, that if you meet one of the following, be prepared to be molested and left with a smile on your face.

1) The Highlander: typically a guy in a kilt, but occasionally, my friend Mac had a death wish and would roll his r’s in my ear and affect this lovely, horribly fake Scottish accent purely for my benefit, because he seemed to enjoy my big grin and suddenly petting nature. So kilt or accent or both—if both, just watch where my lipstick goes….
2) The Pirate/Highwayman: something about a guy with a sword telling me I have to take off my clothes. I do prefer pirates with all their teeth—but it IS my fantasy.
3) The Ranger: he’s a new acquisition to the list. He wears all black, drives the best cars, smells like Heaven, and ruins you for all other men in bed. Hell, yeah.
4) The Rake: smooth-talker, witty banter, and moves every conversation to the bedroom. Lead the way, Mayne, and I will follow.
5) The Cop: Handcuffs. (Hey, Tiff, maybe I do have an untapped kink factor.) “I’m sorry, officer, was I speeding again?”

Hmmm. I need at least two more days so I can rotate this through out the week. I’ll think of something and post later.

Any fantasy men who you’d spider monkey for? Firemen? Professors? Architects? Cowboys?