Guys as friends

[+ friendofsheila]

I get the feeling that guys tend to want to be friends more when they are actually around a person. Women seem more willing to maintain contact from a long distance.

 

For instance, one guy I know always palled-around with me in the class we had together. He dropped the class abruptly but said, pretty enthusiastically, when we met later that he wanted to be friends still. Well it's been a few years and he's been darned spotty about staying in touch, other things like a new live-in girlfriend (now gone) and a new business (just starting) getting in the way. (There's other more personal details about his life that I think have contributed to his absence, but I won't name them in order to be discreet.) We're no longer in the same city, so that's different now, but it was just about the same before as far as contact.

 

Recently, he said he wants very much to be friends, to "have back the playfulness that we had when we were" in class together, but he just lets slide the effort of getting back to me or contacting me on his own.

 

Another guy was always happy to see me when he was a student assistant in a workshop. We were both much older than the students in there, so I was just as happy to have him to talk to. When it was over and I met him some months later, giving him my card to contact me, he never did so. When I saw him again and asked him about getting together, he looked very-much cornered and I let him off the hook. He did just break up with his girlfriend of 8 years, so I'm imagining that had some bearing on how he was dealing with people.

 

The women I've met seem to have the knack for staying in touch. I have a number of female friends who are now correspondents by email. Some aren't particularly regular after a while, but I've accept that since they were pretty consistent in the beginning.

 

I've been able to handle having a friend lose regular touch, but that's only after they've established some regular contact one way or another for a while. If the friendship has just started, I don't feel much befriended by someone who disappears and doesn't make an effort to contact me or return messages.

 

While I know there's exceptions, has anyone else had the same experience that many guys are this way, where they were so much better at being a friend when you were already in their work/school routine instead of having to communicate by distance?

 

***No hijacks, please.***

[Trixie]

I used to belong to a group of friends (and yes, being on many levels a "guy" myself, I am no longer in contact with any of them...

and admittedly the women of the group tried to keep the circle up longer than any of the men did.)... who would have discussions similar to this one. What we decided, without being judgemental, is that as a general rule men and women use the energy in their lives differently. The difference is perfectly illustrated in the function of the sex organs... men tend to culminate their energy quickly and "ejaculate" it... then they roll over and fall asleep.

Women, on the other hand, are receptacles. They take in energy, harbor it, nuture it... and then they always want to talk about it. Talk, talk, talk.

This is why gay men are so good at one night stands, and lesbians need 10 years of therapy to break up.

I hope this clarifies things for you, my duck.

 

La professora Trix

[Guest rohale]

You can never have enough friends over a lifetime, cherish every moment you can cause nothing lasts forever.

[Trixie]

Yes, except old friends keep showing up and wanting to have lunch, and I have neither the time nor money. What's a girl to do, except change her phone number every four years or so?

 

Trix

[Guest rohale]

I find it much easier to talk to women about personal problems as opposed to guys. I think women are much more objective and are very caring, at least that's how it's been in my life. With guys I'm likely to hang 10 with, it's about sex, rock n'roll, drugs, wine, women and song. By the same token sports as well. There are one two guys who are really close friends with whom I'm liable to talk about everyday problems and seek advice. We listen and sound off on eachother and I think it's very healthy to do that.

 

I'm quite comfortable with this approach. The only thing I never do is email friends. I like to hear familiar on the end of the telephone receiver. On the other hand with acquaintances, I tend to respond with emails, it's just works better that way. Or at least for me it does due to the fact that there is really not much of an emotional connection there. I guess to each his or her own.

 

Ro