Candy Girl

Platonic male - female friendships. Do they exist. Does one person always catch feelings for the other? Is the guy only friends with the girl because he wants to sleep with her? I have always had a ton of male friends. Granted I have crushed on some and some have crushed on me. I've slept with some and made out with others. With some it's been purely platonic. With others, once we got that other stuff out of the way it became purely platonic. Brooklyn's friends were some of the best platonic friends I've ever had. I felt as safe with them as I did with him and knew that no matter how drunk we were, they'd never try anything on me; if I was so drunk I was extra affectionate with them, they'd ignore it. It's the whole respect thing. I don't know if any of them ever thought about me in that way or always saw me as sexless like a sister. Of course I had my share of impure thoughts about all of them and had other moments where I felt like I had more in common with them then him and might have had a smoother ride with them than I did with Brooklyn but the bottom line was that Brooklyn had the je ne sais quoi and I fell in love with him before I even knew how great his friends were so it was always too late and always safe to wonder because nothing could have ever happened.

The guys I grew up with took time. They were our first crushes and our first kisses. It took a lot of getting drunk and flirting and flinging before our friendships became real friendships. I could tell a million stories about being 16 and getting drunk and being mauled by them and us girls really having to watch our backs and take care of each other. Now there is none of that with them. We are legitimate friends. They respect us. They think we're smart. They think we're funny. They love us as people and when we get together, none of that boy girl stuff exists. When we are together we are so young it's like before we had 'those' types of urges or feelings. We could probably change in front of each other and can sleep in the same bed without anything ever happening. The friendships are real and priceless. But we don't talk about everything. When any of us girls brings up sex or anything of that ilk, even something about a relationship or a fling our Roosevelt Island boys get all weird. It's all too much information for them. It's like they refuse to see us as sexual beings.

Meanwhile, they were the first boys we kissed and the first boys we flirted with and the first boys we had crushes on. Our first dates were with them too. They liked us back. We slow-danced with them and rated their looks and personality and they rated us according to body parts. So it isn't like they never saw us as sexual beings. Why the refusal to do so now? Why couldn't our friendships mature in that way too?

I miss having male friends I can talk to about that stuff. I had it with the OC. It was hysterical to hear his jaded, warped male perspective and to realize how much men and women actually have in common but poor communication and baggage gets in the way. Since him I've been lacking in that. 31 and I never talked about such things. RC and I only did the night he saved me, scooping me up out of the wreckage of my life two Novembers ago. He asked if I wanted to talk and I just unloaded on him, crying, talking, crying, explaining. He listened and eventually he got in there with me. That was cool. But it never happened again. I had that friendship with Brooklyn before we became a couple. But as soon as we were exclusive I could no longer say that someone was good looking. I couldn't talk about anyone I dated in the past; he suddenly became super-sensitive and suspicious. I had that comfortability with L.A. but he moved. Anyway, I don't know if our friendship counts as platonic because he is gay. There wouldn't ever be a risk of him falling for me. And I would know better than to fall for him.

Lately I reconnected or connected with someone I've known my whole life and never been friends with, Maguire. We are enjoying that kind of a friendship. It's so nice to be able to let myself out. I told him about my New Year's Eve sex injury. He sent me the closure email he never got to say in person to his ex-girlfriend. He revealed his six degrees of separation with my younger brother and sister. I confessed, after a lot of pressure, my six degrees of separation with him -- he went to school with the OC. It's refreshing. It's nice to be seen as a whole person by a guy and not either a sexual being only or a cerebral being only. Why are these male female friendships so rare? Or must you be slightly open to the possibility of something more to talk about certain things? A friend of D theorized that when a guy and a girl are talking about sex they are really talking about them having sex. It is foreplay; they are flirting without flirting. Is that true? I don't know. I know that I might not want to talk about sex or my sex life or my dating foibles with someone I found repugnant and would never consider fooling around with. I'd want to keep myself as sexless as possible to ensure that I am sending out no 'the water's warm' type signals. The converse is that if I had my eye on someone I wouldn't be so unedited. I'd probably not have revealed my bathroom sex New Year's Eve story. I like not feeling shut out or judged but related to and responded to. I like being able to be me, all of me to the same person. So I don't want to keep myself sexless with this one. I am enjoying revealing all of my colors to him. And I am enjoying seeing all of his. I don't feel like he is salivating after me. He doesn't seem to care whether all of our contact takes place on the phone or email, if he wanted more he'd make actual effort to see me in person. Wouldn't he? Yet whenever we do see each other he is very complimentary and affectionate and flirty. And I like it. He is a nice new addition to my life. I don't know if we are truly platonic or not. And I don't know yet what I want. It's too new to tell and it's too nice to rush. I'll keep you posted as the picture develops.