And what have they all taught me?
That love means many things to many people, but that friendship means even more things.
You see, friendship between men and women can be tricky.
And, because I have so many married male friends, friendship with them is even trickier sometimes.
I often joke that there needs to be a book written about the types of things married men look for, and it isn’t always sex. But no one would believe me. So, instead, I will tell you a little story.
I have a friend “The Libra” and we’ve been friends for four years now. I met him before I met “The One” and that was always a sore point for “The One” and I. He always thought Libra and I had been sexually intimate, which has never been true.
What we have been is emotionally intimate, which I can totally see is often just as bad, if not worse. We have listened to each other when family members have died; when our spouses (when I was married) have told us how much they don’t (or didn’t) love us and so on until the end of time of sad things spouses sometimes do.
Libra has had a number of affairs and yes, he did ask me out because he was interested. Then we started spending time telling jokes and watching movies and going to bars and we became friends.
Sometimes, married people want friends.
Libra has done many things for me, including being one of the first people to check on me after my surgery over a year ago. I consider him to be a great friend, but that means I sometimes have to tolerate some things I don’t like. For instance, we were supposed to have drinks yesterday. But, when I didn’t hear from him on Sunday or Monday, I figured he would get busy. Instead, he texted on Wednesday to say he would see me at 5:00 PM that night. That would have been great if I hadn’t already made plans because I thought Thursday was his preference.
We got into a nice discussion about timing and he decided that this was a great time to explain all of the ‘responsibilities’ he has and the ‘hoops’ he has to go through to get a night out.
And while I ‘hear’ what he is saying…I think that I have finally grown weary of the men I know assuming my job or responsibilities are less important than theirs.
Yes, I don’t have small children, but I still have a child. And as far as I can see, I am not aware of anyone who is a doctor, cop of firefighter in my life, therefore most jobs are as important (or not) as mine.
Isn’t it interesting that as we age, we lose sight of certain things. Things like: How to communicate. Libra and I won’t speak for a few days or weeks because he has to be mad at someone and I’m easier to be mad at because I require the least. I get that. But what has developed is that I’m starting to remove everything that doesn’t work from life just to make things simpler.
So…go figure. I just realized why people have affairs in many cases: They treat their spouses like they treat strangers, sometimes. Actually, sometimes it’s worse.
