Let me start with a disclaimer. I love most of my male friends. Some have known me for years and have seen me at my best and my worst. Sorry to the male friend whose couch I threw up on. They keep me sane, spoil me with gifts and are great for straight talking whenever I’m about to drunken dial the latest unworthy suspect but, sometimes….they can get on my bloody nerves. And I’ll tell you for why (Bryn – Gavin and Stacey – voice)
The other day as I sat there wondering how it was that I was lumbered with the majority of the bill once again I came to two conclusions. 1) I have too many male friends. 2) Some have seemingly lost their friendship handbook and are starting to treat me like their step sister.
If you aren’t careful you can pick up useless parasites who are around for some free advice (buy a round once in a while dude, that’s all I ask!). Or worse boyfriend without sex but with all of the other stuff like, listening to their problems. Yes it must be hard that you are doing that many repetitions in the gym and yet….hold on, what? I don’t care that your gym routine isn’t giving you the abs you hoped for. You are men with the world at your feet. You don’t have problems, just situations. And I have no sympathy for those that like women who are either crazy or dramatic.
So straight male friends sometimes forget that we are women first and friends second. If they have resolved in their heads that they are not going to sleep with you then they start treating you like….well, one of the boys! I don’t need to see that sort of mess of an apartment. This is not a good look my precious because you still have to put up with listening to him bleating on about women who are clearly using emotional manipulation to get him to buy her things. Who knew the male mind is so complex as to try to work out whether he should go for the girl who clearly wasn’t that into him. That was 4 hours of my life I will never get back.
The VBS (verbal bitch slap)
At some point they just plain forget that you’re a woman or they start to get insensitive. I’m not sure which is worse. I was chatting to one and he showed me photos of a friend of his who was soooo hot. I swooned as you do and started waxing lyrical about the things I could do to him. He then said, ‘Yeah but his girlfriend is really beautiful, no like, REALLY beautiful.’ This would normally be my cue to inform him that men don’t F**k pretty. No, they F**k available and fun and whatever they can get their hands on but pretty is not the defining factor. But instead I realised that he was saying she was prettier than me. Why the bitch slap moment, dude? That guy was hot though…excuse me. I need a moment.
This is a breach of the friendship code as any real friend will tell you. The indication that anyone is more attractive than you their friend is blasphemy. I told another I was going on a blind date and he asked if I’d had my hair done. He’d seen me 2 days previously so clearly this was a suggestion as opposed to a genuine question. Or the time he told me that I looked great in an outfit but that his girlfriend may not like it. What am I meant to turn into a spinster Deputy Head to appease her now?
There was one who spat in my coffee and only told me about it after I finished the coffee. I was being punished. But, I can’t lie. I deserved that. I was being a PMS bitch that day so we can laugh about it now. But you have to sleep with one eye open cos you never know when they’ll get in a cheeky spiteful or spit move. But few of them are true blue friendships where you consider them to be part of the family. I’ve just counted and I only have 3.5 of these. Yeah one is on is way out he just doesn’t know it yet.
I don’t fancy you!
So if you spend a lot of time with them people assume that you fancy them. I don’t really care about that but it’s when they start believing their own hype that I’m pissed off. Here is a quick checklist of knowing that I like you
1) I drunken dial you singing karaoke songs from the 80s and 90s and then putting the phone down.
2) I drunken dial you and say these words “I just think you are such an amazing, man. I want you”
3) I sober dial you and tell you that I like you, let’s go out on a date
If I haven’t done any of these assume your penis is safe from my pink trimmed sheets ok? And stop ending exchanges with statements like. Thanks CB, you’re such a GOOD FRIEND. I know I’m good, it’s you I have doubts about.
And don’t believe your girlfriend who is convinced I like you either. She is projecting her insecurities onto our friendship. Love makes us all do stupid things but believing I want to get into your pants? Come on son, you know better.
Are we to blame?
Hmmm of course everything that is wrong with the world can somehow be blamed on a man from the absent father to the player to the waste man but I think there is even more of a problem when you are open about sex. They then think this is carte blanche for treating every topic as if you don’t care. As tom boy rock chick as I can be I’m not one to want to hear your views on my weight, looks, hair, latest crush etc.
I also don’t need to see you wanking on video call. You know who you are. That was the end of a beautiful friendship.
So you see my precious male friends aren’t always a good thing. You would be best spent hanging out with your girls who at least don’t cock block you from talking to the other men in the room. Yes let’s not forget that they are possessive. I have one friend who everyone is convinced I’m seeing despite him having a girlfriend. Turns out that’s because he eye growls at anyone who looks at me across the room. Talk about a major dating recession buzz killer. I had to tell him, I don’t have time to be blocked. Mama Black wants some grandkids!
Yes, as I write this I realise that I’m going to have to cull the number of male friends who don’t actually earn the title of friend. Put simply, with all these cock around how is my FuBo (Future Boyfriend) ever going to find room in my henhouse? Like the cluttered spare room I’ve been threatening to free from the wilderness for 4 years it is time to declutter the male friends list. Hmmm, this might take a while and if you don’t hear from me in 2012, Dude, it’s been emotional. Stay strong, stay black but please, don’t come back!
© Chelsea Black
Harry thank you.
Generally agree. But as we tweeted there are a few things when you have to remember that we are women right? Actually male friends talk to us more freely than they do their boys which is a positive thing but I don’t need to be the emotional dumping ground for the selfish
CB
Hilariously enough, every example you gave of abhorrent behaviour left me thinking ‘Actually that seems totally fair enough’; right up until the spitting in the coffee – which you seemed to accept as ‘deserved’!? Eww. Not sure what PMS behaviour could deserve spit in coffee.
So, in defence of the male friend:
Regarding the bill: I am a bit lost – are you upset about picking up the bill at all (jeez I hope not, nor do I think that’s the case) or about paying all the time? As a FRIEND, you are totally within your rights to say that out loud. It’s totally acceptable, and a very guy thing to do: “This one is totally on you!”
Ditto for listening to people bitch about women: If you want real male friends, behave with them like a male friend. If they moan about some girl, give it to them straight: “Mate, this is pointless, she’s a heinous wench and you’re pathetic and this conversation is boring me.”
Ditto for all of it actually. It seems you are expecting your male friends to treat you like your female friends do, and they are treating you like a male friend and expecting you to be cool with that.
For example – guys won’t (typically) tell one another something that is patently untrue just because they think you want to hear it. This is the case with the ‘VBS’ you talk of. Giving me a reality check is exactly what I love my male friends for. If someone isn’t willing to set me straight I will take that as a sign that either: They don’t like me that much yet; that they are pathetic; or that they think I am too pathetic to hear it. It is a girly behaviour to sit around saying “Oh my god you are like the hottest person ever” – the point of having a male friend, I would have thought, is exactly to avoid that. So if I lust after a girl in a photo, a mate is well within his bounds to say “Nah mate, she’s got a boyfriend who’s loaded, flies her to islands for holidays and he has a huge wang”
And the comment that ‘My girlfriend won’t like that’ – that IS a GENUINE compliment.
Yeah it sucks that our girlfriends don’t like our female friends, in fact I haven’t yet found a girl to be properly into me that is cool with me having close female friends. Sometimes it is projecting insecurity – but more often it is projecting their emotions: They will see their man as amazing and funny, attractive and eligible – so they won’t comprehend that could could NOT want some ‘o that. The only reason they wouldn’t hate you was if you were socially inept or really ugly. Take it as a compliment!
And the being protective: Well, that’s a whole quagmire. Some of them will like to pretend you are their girlfriend (to themselves, and to others – I even once met a guy and girl, and when she left I said “She’s gorgeous, is she your girlfriend?” and he quite clearly told me she was. When she returned and the conversation progressed she publicly shamed him with “You haven’t been telling people we’re ‘going out’ again, have you?” – Ouch); some of these protective males will think “I know what he’s after” and think they’re doing you a service (sometimes they may be right), and other times it’s just a primal “She mine.” thing.
Yes, if you want to find a guy, don’t go out with guys. I’d have missed that one if I hadn’t been so bold to push the point, and have probably walked right past perfectly available women simply because they’re flanked by an intimidating group of growly wankers. Shitty stuff, I know.
But yeah, if they are being crass about weight and image and insensitive to you, then perhaps speak up for yourself – and if they don’t listen, ditch them… Particularly if they’re getting in the way of you finding worthwhile male lovers.