I was asked to blog about friendship, so here goes. I don’t need nearly as much sociability as other people. To me, the people one chats with from time to time are not friends, even though said chatting takes place every day.
Friendship, for me, is exactly the same as love but without the sexual and romantic component. If I call somebody my friend, it means I’m emotionally plugged into that person, irrespective of where they are and how much time we get to spend together, and care about everything that happens to them. I don’t have the time, the energy, the emotional resources, or the need to have this sort of a relationship with many people. I feel the happiest with one male and one female BFF. Until a vacancy goes open, I can’t take on any new BFFs.
At this point in life, I don’t have a female BFF. In adulthood, I’ve had three. (I don’t really count childhood friendships here, as cute as they might have been.) These friendships were intense and beautiful but they all fell apart. The first one disintegrated when the BFF decided to pursue the existence of a kept* woman. After she did that, everybody who made a different choice in life made her very angry. I put up with her aggression for a very long time (people who know me in RL will confirm that I was extremely patient with this person for longer than anybody could understand) but eventually it stopped making any sense at all to me to spend time with a person who seemed to feel nothing but anger towards me.
The second BFF became a housewife and we simply don’t have anything to talk about any longer.
The third BFF let me down at a very difficult time in my life. And then did it again. I let people disappoint me once, but after the second time I lose interest completely and everything that I felt for them is instantly erased. I don’t do this on purpose. It’s a psychological mechanism of self-protection that turns off the feelings I have for somebody who has a tendency to hurt me.
Right now, the position of my female BFF remains vacant. When I traveled to Germany in May, I really envied my sister for her BFF. I would not mind at all finding such a complex, well-read, feminist, strong and opinionated woman to be my BFF. This isn’t something that happens on demand, though. Finding a real friend is only a little easier than finding a good romantic partner.
The reason why I have friends at all is not because I feel lonely without them. There are so many things that need to be done that there is no time for loneliness. Having a friend is good because I enjoy the feelings I have for him or her. The feeling is what I miss now that I don’t have a female BFF.
What I find very annoying is when people confuse friendship with other types of relationships. “My best friend is my husband / sister / mother!” they gush without realizing that this only demonstrates that they have no idea how to be either a friend or a spouse / sibling / parent / child.
These, in short, are my feelings about friendship.
* The difference between a kept woman and a housewife is that the former does not even pretend to give a toss about the man who keeps her.
Clarissa's Blog 
I’ve never had so emotionally close friends, what I call “real” friends. You were lucky to experience it at all, let alone several times, even if they aren’t now.
I think many neurotipical people never have a friend like that. And, I suspect, sometimes all this talk about the importance of “making friends” & socializing covers the shallowness. Actually precisely because of the shallowness of those relationships such language is used.
//“My best friend is my husband / sister / mother!”
I want my life partner to be my best friend. Meaning mental closeness, which so far I’ve only had with blood relatives. Physical + emotional closeness. Unfortunately, it isn’t a given, once you look at mentally distant couples.
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“I want my life partner to be my best friend. Meaning mental closeness, which so far I’ve only had with blood relatives. Physical + emotional closeness. ”
– Why is there a need for this confusion? A life partner is one thing and a best friend is a different thing.
Of course, one needs a profound connection with one’s life partner. But this is a connection of a very different kind than the one you have even with the closest friend. You don’t have sex with your close friend (or it isn’t a friend), you cheer on the friend’s rich sex life unlike you do with your partner, you are not obligated to have any sort of a relationship with your friend’s family, you can share every detail of your past sex life with your friend, you don’t have children together with a friend, your finances are in no way linked, you don’t need their permission to empty your pension account, the friend will not be making any decisions about your health – the list is endless.
People who try to turn their spouses into their BFFs tend to end up without a spouse and without a friend.
N. is one of the 2 people I’m the closest to in the world. But he is not my friend. The idea is preposterous. How can he be my friend if I’d end our relationship immediately if he had sex with other people?
“Meaning mental closeness, which so far I’ve only had with blood relatives. ”
– These are all completely different kinds of closeness.
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//How can he be my friend if I’d end our relationship immediately if he had sex with other people?
There are people in open relationships. 🙂
// These are all completely different kinds of closeness.
I am really confused. Probably because of never having neither a close friend nor a partner. May be we simply assign different meanings to some words. Hope I won’t do the following (despite not understanding what it means exactly, how do they turn them into friends?):
“People who try to turn their spouses into their BFFs tend to end up without a spouse and without a friend. ”
When I say “closeness” I thought it’s mutual platonic love – happiness to see each other every day + sexual attraction + trust he won’t leave me tomorrow.
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“There are people in open relationships.”
– I’m not one of them, though.
“When I say “closeness” I thought it’s mutual platonic love – happiness to see each other every day + sexual attraction + trust he won’t leave me tomorrow.”
– You do realize that none of these ingredients are present in relationships with friends, right? 🙂
There are completely different kinds of closeness that one has with a) partner b) friends c) relatives. They are all great but completely different.
N. is the best husband in the world for me. But I wouldn’t want him as a friend at all. I just imagined him as a friend and now I can;t stop laughing. 🙂 🙂
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//The first one disintegrated when the BFF decided to pursue the existence of a kept* woman. After she did that, everybody who made a different choice in life made her very angry.
If it made her *so* unhappy, why didn’t she leave the lifestyle? Haven’t you ever asked her? I would’ve asked before leaving.
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I didn’t say she was unhappy. 🙂 I said she was angry at people who lived differently. Mostly she felt that way because the man in question kept saying, “But why can;t you be more like your friend Clarissa. She works and seems to be very happy to do that.”
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“If it made her *so* unhappy, why didn’t she leave the lifestyle? Haven’t you ever asked her?”
– She hated working and only enjoyed shopping and doing nothing. There are people who don’t like to work and she was one of them.
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//There are people who don’t like to work
And they wouldn’t be unhappy as housewives f.e.? (Not she, but others).
And can be interesting, intelligent, etc.? I suppose she was since you were friends.
Now I see she was afraid of the competition. That he’ll leave her, may be not for you, but for a woman like you. So better let him not be reminded of other kind of women.
//does not even pretend to give a toss about the man who keeps her
What is there for a man, surely sex alone would cost less? Unless he is extremely patriarchial and feels proud to show her around as a posession. I bet this man left her since he admired career women.
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“What is there for a man, surely sex alone would cost less? Unless he is extremely patriarchial and feels proud to show her around as a posession. I bet this man left her since he admired career women.”
– He was (and I’m sure still is) a very attractive, educated, high-earning man. However, by the age of 35, he never had a single relationship. Not even one that would last for a week. The career women he admired did not like him because this lack of experience and his pretty lousy personality made him unattractive to them. Of course, the very first relationship in his life (with my BFF) was a big deal to him.
“And they wouldn’t be unhappy as housewives f.e.? (Not she, but others).”
– I’m sure she would have been happier if she worked. But she was from a family where women working was seen as a horrible disgrace, so you can imagine.
“And can be interesting, intelligent, etc.? I suppose she was since you were friends.”
– Of course, she was. But she had to stomp all that out of herself to adapt to her new role. The last time we talked, it was like she had reverted to age 7. She used to be such a brilliant woman, and now she was saying patently stupid things and not even realizing that!
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// The career women he admired did not like him because this lack of experience
Why would that be important? “pretty lousy personality”, I understand, but not wanting to date a (nearly) virgin? Why not, unless it’s buying into patriarchial social mores of man being more experiences? (Which always disgusted me, the double standard).
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“Why would that be important? “pretty lousy personality”, I understand, but not wanting to date a (nearly) virgin? Why not, unless it’s buying into patriarchial social mores of man being more experiences? (Which always disgusted me, the double standard).”
– This isn’t about sex, actually. I have no idea about his sex life. I said he had no relationships. At 35, that’s a handicap because you haven’t acquired any of the experiences that would help you build a relationship with a person. This means that the person would have to do all the work themselves. And why would one want to do that if not for money? Of course, if somebody fell passionately in love with this guy, then they would but he is so not the kind of person people fall in love with.
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Funny, this is a topic I have thought about much myself recently. I believe that to be friends with someone you need to trust them, want to grow as a person with them, they need to have an influence on you just as you do on them. Anyone else, is just an acquaintance really, no matter how well you get along with them. If you don’t miss a person for themselves when you don’t have contact for a while, they’re not your friend. There’s a difference between missing the good time you have with a great acquaintance and missing a friend for themselves.
I believe that friendship however is the basis of a romantic relationship. But it also adds so much more. I need to agree with the life-style choice (e.g. handling of finances) of a partner so much more (though not necessarily with all of his opinions on everything). I encourage friends to be happy, if that means encouraging their sex-life, that’s great. With a partner, I expect their values of happiness to align with my own, that means no cheating. If some or all of these values don’t align, they might still be a friend but they can’t be a partner.
Unfortunately, my last romantic relationship fell apart because we didn’t seem to have a real friendship while all the extras where there.
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“I believe that friendship however is the basis of a romantic relationship.”
– No, that would be sex. 🙂
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True. For a long term relationship, both are necessary.
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My potential BFF in Victoria is a strong, well-read, intelligent, feminist man. He and I wander through bookstores critiquing the cover art, eat at restaurants while discussing science fiction’s feminist potential, and watch cartoons together. The only reason I say “potential” is because I haven’t asked him yet if he’s as fond of me as I am of him, but I get the feeling I don’t even need to ask. 🙂
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That’s so cool. I miss that. . .
My male BFF is far far away geographically. 😦 😦
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This is a moving and sincere post. I also have very few BFF for reasons similars than yours.
By the way, you would be surprised to see how different my male BFF is from me. It is very strange.
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Here are my friends of the last year of primary school. You can see we weren’t particularly schooled in the arts of femininity.
http://unsanesafe.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/primary-school-friends.html
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I wish my mother had known how to teach femininity to me. But that didn’t happen. 😦 😦
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oh.
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What do you mean by “teach femininity”? Make-up or something more?
If you have a daughter, how will you teach femininity to her?
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“If you have a daughter, how will you teach femininity to her?”
– It’s a way of being that you show by personal example. A delight in one’s female body and everything that has to do with being a woman.
Some women walk down the street and everybody drops dead in admiration. It’s a great good fortune to grow up by such a woman’s side.
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We never learned it. We didn’t for instance, compete for men, which involves gossiping and backstabbing. We didn’t learn to posture or to be coy. Perhaps on the negative side — we weren’t poised.
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“We didn’t for instance, compete for men, which involves gossiping and backstabbing. We didn’t learn to posture or to be coy.”
– Is this a definition of femininity??
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The precise definition, certainly, in Western culture.
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My husband and I started as friends. We were attracted to each other, but in relationships with others. We’re still friends, but now we’re lovers too. And monagamous for at least about another year, at which time we can talk about opening it up if we want (one of the things we talked about in premarital counseling).
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What a beautiful post! I feel very similarly.
I have also lost my best friend since childhood when she became a housewife and mother. She claims to be happier than ever. And she does not want to meet me anymore. I find this phenomenon really scary…. maybe she is also angry and jealous about my freedom on some level. Certainly gives me the feeling that her choice was not the right one for her, which makes me really sad.
One thing I don’t understand, though, is how it is possible to have a male ‘BFF’. How does that work? I used to think it is possible too, but in each case in the end it turned out that he had been attracted to me… and similarly, I have also pretended to be friends with a guy that I was actually in love with. If I observe friendships between men and women around me, I always suspect that one of them is attracted to the other, although the object of attraction usually seems totally oblivious about it. 🙂
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I’m an old person 🙂 who is very in tune with my sexuality. I wouldn’t hide from my desires and pretend that sexual attraction is friendship. And having a male BFF is in no way different from having a female BFF, In a real friendship, genitals do not come into place. 🙂
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