My have I fallen behind. My plan was to crank one of these out posts every week of November and I have two left to complete and only two more days to go before December begins. Ah well, I said I would complete four blog posts in this series and four blog posts I shall complete.
Last time I talked about the significance of love and friendship between men so the next topic I want to address has to do with love and friendship between men and women apart from romance, twitterpation, dating, and marriage. In the same way that brotherly love and companionship among men is important, non romantic friendship is very significant and healthy between young people of different sexes. There is this stigma that seems to be prevalent among men (at least of my generation) that if you are going to be "friendzoned" then there is a any reason to develop a close friendship with girls.
That's stupid.
Regardless of whether or not their friendship becomes one of a romantic nature, there is a lot that young ladies and gents can learn and gain from each other just by being friends. It helps to reduce, if not eliminate, confusion over how the opposite gender thinks and communicates, it treats guys how to be respectful of women, and teaches women what it means for a guy to be a proper gent. In the cases where close male/female friendships do grow into a more romantically inclined ones, I think things are going to go significantly better and run far more smoothly if a strong "friendzone" based relationship was already in existence.
Again, I can't very easily talk from the standpoint of a girl, but I have experienced firsthand a lot of the benefits that come from getting to know a girl as a strong and close friend and companion without any romantic activity involved. This summer I have had a lot of opportunities to play big brother to a few very remarkable young ladies, and I have learned a lot from them through our conversations and interactions.
Talking these girls, getting to know them better, and building a sense of trust between us has helped me to understand a little bit better the thought processing and rational of the female gender, it has provided many more opportunities to operate as a respectful and supportive gentlemen (not that I always take advantage of those opportunities as much as I should), and has broadened my capacity for compassion, empathy, and sympathy. The more people that open up to me, the more sensitive I become of the feelings of individuals around me and the more understanding I become of everyone in all the different spheres of my life.
I can't claim to have gained infinite wisdom and constant compassion through this friendships, but they have helped, and I would like to think that they have helped me to be a more sage and sympathetic as a result of getting to know these girls.
On a more selfish level, developing this friendships and learning to love these girls has done marvels to boost my self esteem and confidence. I am single right now and was feeling pretty depressed and frustrated with that for quite a while, but the bigger role I begin to play in the lives of my various female friends' lives the less I am bothered by the fact that I don't have one particular girl for whom I can dedicate my time and interest. I am consoled by the fact that, for as long as I remain single and unclaimed, I have the opportunity to serve and support all of these girls like they are my sisters and that my friendship seems to mean a lot to them.
Too often guys complain about being friendzoned and criticize girls for "stringing them along" and acting like they were interested when all they really were interested in was being friends, but more and more I am seeing that girls (especially in their young teens) are really appreciative and desirous of having a guy that they can trust and depend upon without that friendship necessarily being tied to romance. In our selfishness, the masculine gender doesn't seem to take that seriously or understand that, but when I look around the teen and young adult women I know, I see them desperate for proof that there are guys that they can trust and count on for more than just being interested in them for sex and romance.
Women have great value that extends and greatly exceeds their body alone, and in a culture that seems intent on sexualizing and romanticizing all male/female friendships, that value is too easily disregarded and thrown out the window.
When the young teen several years my junior comes to talk to me about the emotional turmoil in heart over another guy, the exhaustion she struggles with from sleeplessness, and the frustration she has over the behavior of another close friends I am not going to turn her away simply because she has put me into the "friendzone" and I have not romantic benefit to gain from our friendship. The sad fact is that, for some people, that may sound like me bragging about how chivalrous I am, but honestly, every man should be willing to listen and respond to any female that comes to him for comfort and advice.
I argued in my last post that men need other men as close friends because there is support and comfort that guys can provide for each other that their female friends can't, but it is also true that there is a lot of support and comfort that can occur between male and female friends that is not going to come as smoothly in a friendship just between guys. Men and women are different (sorry feminists, but it is true), and male/male friendships are just as necessarily as male/female friendships, and they are both necessarily because the provide different things and meet different needs.
Then, of course, boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse relationships are on a completely different level that meets and entirely different set of needs.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I personally think that the friendzone is an integral part of growing up and has a lot to offer. Whether or not you agree with me won't change the fact that I am going to continue doing the best that I am able to learn and grow from the friendships I have been given with girls that I will never date and never marry, and God willing they will benefit from knowing me as much as I benefit from knowing them.
Pax
p. s. Happy Thanksgiving!
I know this is just asking for more teasing... but speaking from the perspective of the female: earlier this year, when I became interested in developing a romantic relationship with one of my friends, the first thing I did was work on developing our friendship, because that's part of the foundation of a good relationship. (It's working so far, by the way.)
ReplyDeleteAnd I know I've benefited greatly from the friendships I've had and still have with my “brotherly” friends, you included. :)
That's part of the reason I wanted to write this post before I go into one more about boyfriend/girlfriend/engaged/married relationships. They all start (or should start) with a strong foundation built upon a close friendship.
DeleteI think it was in my first post of this series that I talked about how love is built out of spending quality time with another person, and that kind of quality time comes from a close friendship. Any other feelings you may have for someone else may be infatuation, but I don't really think you can call it love.
Even if those close friendships never grow or flourish into anything more than just being close friendships, there isn't anything wrong with that and I'm glad that you have benefited from your friendships with guys in the same way that I have benefited from friendships with gals, you included.
So, an anonymous individual attempted to write a comment for this post but when I got the email notification letting me know this, I accidentally hit the "Delete" button instead of the "Publish" button... In order to counteract this mistake on my part, I have posted said comment below, and want to apologize to anonymous.
ReplyDelete"I appreciate what you say about the value of friendships between the sexes. As a gal, I have generally preferred being friends with guys than gals. However, I do not think it should be done with any frequency to have heart-sharing, even though it is natural for a gal to consult a guy over another guy since we expect guys to understand guys best, and sometimes all gals want is sympathetic ear wherever they can find it. But, we have to be VERY CAREFUL not to switch zones. Sharing emotional topics can quickly cause strong emotions to form, first sympathy, which leads to a desire to remove the source of pain, which moves into a general need-to-protect (from the guy's view) or a need-to-nuture (from the girl's view, if she is the one listening) which can quickly feel like romantic love, if it is not actually romantic love. Plus, the more time you spend with someone, the more likely you are to love them in general, and then find them physically attractive, which can confuse a poor person's brain even more. We can get stuck feeling like we need either to be romantic or break off contact in general in order to keep emotionally safe.
I find group settings is the only safer way. I can tell you from experience I have upset multiple guys when they wanted to move out of the friendzone and I didn't want to. These weren't even guys I was emailing, phoning, or seeing alone, only guys I saw in group settings with a very few exceptions when I had private contact on isolated occasions for specific reasons. Yet, even though it was a group setting, they still got interested! How many more of these situations would I have if I had more private contact with guys?
I think in general this prudence is wise for practicing later for marriage when the spouse should be the main confident. Otherwise, heart-sharing should be to parents or same-sex friends, perhaps significantly (10 years) older other-sex friends.
I commend you for your controversial stand, your sympathetic and altruist heart, and hope the best for you in your platonic relationships. However, as someone who has unintentionally hurt men, I warn you away from them. You may never find out because you are the guy and so the girls hopefully won't ask you out, but they may be pining away into their pillow, and if the other guy is rejecting them, they may rebound off him and after you and you won't even necessarily know it. "
So Anonymous, in order to respond to your accidentally deleted post...
DeleteI briefly mentioned this already in my response to the comment before your own, but I don't think you can really switch from "friendzone" to "boyfriend/girlfriendzone" until you have already been in the friendzone. You should really know someone quite well already before you decide to start pursuing an active, romantic relationship with them, and you accomplish that by getting to become, not only their friend, but their close and intimate friend. What you say about it being easily for the lines between friends and more-than-friends to blur, I think that there are a lot of things that aren't necessarily easy, but are important and good for us. Our brains may be easily confused, yes, but it is our responsibility to be masters of our own feelings and minds and not seek more from a friendship than the other party is willing to give. In those situations where you end up getting to the point where it feelings like a broken friendship or a relationship are the only options, I would be inclined to suggest that one or both parties in that relationship were investing themselves more into the friendship than was really appropriate.
I understand that there is a fine line, but the best choices always lie in the middle of the road and that line is still one that we can walk and walk to great benefit for ourselves and the friends around us.
Another thing I should probably acknowledge and address in light of your comment is that some people are going to find it easier to invest more in a friendship without blurring their lines than others. Someone people share their thoughts and feelings far more easily than others and close friendships with members of the opposite sex are likely to be easier for them than for those that tend to keep their thoughts pretty close to their chest. What I say in this posts is highly generalized and based on my own experiences and personality so you have to always take it with a grain of salt.
What you say about group settings both makes a lot of sense to me an confuses me greatly at the same time. I do agree that group settings are a very good way for people of different genders to become friends and learn from each other while minimizing the risk of unsought and unprecedented romantic feelings being stirred. However, I do have two points/questions that I would like to draw from what you say.
1. I think that group settings have a lot to offer, but I don't think it is always going to be necessary to say that we have to limit our interactions with people of the opposite sex to when we are all in a group. Especially with the aid of modern technology in the form of the computer and phones, I will still argue that there is benefit that can come from close male/female friendships without risk of scandal (again, this is going to vary somewhat from person to person).
2. As you pointed out, even the group stetting solution is not infallible. Ultimately the struggle lies, not in the nature of the friendship or the environment that it exists in, but in the attitudes and personality of the people involved and how the govern their own thoughts/feelings and approach the relationship as a whole.
I appreciate your thoughtful response, and I'm glad that you seem to have enjoyed my post. I don't agree with everything you have said, but I do see a lot of wisdom in your words and am glad that you took the time to respond.
Again, I am sorry that I accidentally deleted your comment originally...
You are probably right about the group thing. I find knowing that I am hurting men to be very burdensome, and I am just frustrated with it. I think being friends first is ideal, but I have also had non-friends-first relationships (because the men met me and acted rather quickly) and they worked out pretty smoothly nonetheless though we did end our relationship. I guess it is a personal decision, even with each case (it may be safe to be platonic with this person, but not another) but I wish there was some infallible way to know who knows how to stay in the friendzone and who doesn't!
ReplyDelete