In Praise of Guy Friends

I got off the phone with a friend, who happens to be a guy, this afternoon and realized, once again in my life, I have guy friends.

There was a long period of time when I didn't have guy friends. I felt I either wasn't allowed or wasn't supposed to or that it was inappropriate or it was one of those "men and women can't be friends" kind of things (which I never believed in anyway--my life isn't right without guy friends.)

Some of that was the result of my marriage--where many of my guy friends fell away due to the changes in our lives. We all, I think, were having a tough time adjusting to what adulthood, and adult friendships were supposed to be.

For me, this has always been a struggle. My parents never had friends--I never saw them make friends or do anything social other than with family members. My mother would sometimes fight with her sisters--esp. after my grandmother's death--and some she reconciled with while others, like her one brother, she never reconciled with (not really, anyway. She did go to see him in the hospital when he was dying...)

So, I always think that it's hard to plot the trajectory of what adulthood's going to be like if you don't see adulthood as a kid. There are lots of things that seem really foreign to me--lots of things I'm just learning to negotiate....

But I think, too, as things fall away with Steady Eddie (yes, no more delusions that we might move in together or settle down--we simply have too many incompatabilities)
I am seeing guy friends in my life again.

It's rather comforting, actually. They're very nice. Like big brothers and younger brothers....

The really nice thing is that, since my hormones are (more than likely) slowing down, there's no attraction.

Then again, maybe the hormones are still there, but my emotions are more engaged,or my boundaries are better, and I'm not seeking to find that special One in the next AnyGuy who comes my way...

Guy friends are one thing. Guys I date are another. Guys I date might become guy friends. But I think this particular group of guy friends aren't going to be guys I end up dating. Just doesn't feel that way.

They're just...well...guys I know and like hanging out with when I get to hang out with them. Like partying buddies....

...but not boyfriends.


I'm spending time looking in the local papers, finding things to do on the weekends. Without Steady Eddie, I can plan to do things on my own, not worry about whether or not he wants to go with me. There's a psychic fair on saturday, a Japanese movie in Amherst on Sunday, followed by a Trivia night on sunday evening....a talk on wild birds of the wetlands on tuesday, and then the symphony on saturday.

Yes, it's nowhere near as exciting as the clubbing I did when I was younger, and none of it has that super-charge I still get when I go dancing (and that hasn't been in quite a while) but it all constitutes Getting Out of the House, and has nothing to do with going somewhere where I'll be drinking or trying to fit in with people old enough to be my kids.

Maybe this is a step towards being something of an adult. I don't know.

What is nice, though, is having guy friends again--something that I didn't have for many years for many dysfunctional reasons. And for many years life felt out of balance because they weren't there. I've always learned from my guyfriends, and there seemed to be some lacking in life experience without them. Now, things are a bit better, more balanced, more normal feeling.

I hope I don't have to give them up again.