Can women and men be friends?

This question is, at best, proverbial/philosophical, and at its worse, rhetorical.

We all know we can be friends with a chick. Aren’t we friends with the fat broad we work with? Aren’t we friends with mamma and sister ‘nem? We’re undoubtedly friends with the dimed-out Beyonce clone with the sexuality of a man who pays us those 2:00 A.M. visits on weekends and breaks off boudoir feats we thought only a porn vixen was capable of.

A lot of my friends befriend females in three categories: Those they sex. Those they hope to sex. Those they’d never sex, but the fact she wants sex from them makes for some luxe benefits.

 I know I personally feel like I already have all of the female friends I need, with 12 female cousins, three sisters, 9 aunts, and a “host” of dames who couldn’t even bring a blind man to erection. I don’t befriend new women often because the fact remains that women as friends can be burdensome; especially if they want you to be a member of their “YaYa Sisterhood”: chicks who exhaust their allotted and prepaid cellular minutes just to get each other to stop crying. Men don’t mind being the shoulder to cry on, but we generally expect some kind of reciprocation for the favor.

I’m not sexist. I’m a realist. Organically, I want to bed you, woman, and then get to be your friend. Investing weeks, months, and, (heaven forbid) years into a “friendship” with a woman can have the most unrewarding results. Many times she either finds a man who has a better act than you do or she learns so much about you that she wouldn’t be your woman if you were the last cat on earth. No, I don’t think that women are just pieces of meat. I think and feel women are the best friends to have, actually, being as loyal as they are. What is risky about the whole woman-friend thing is this: you might catch feelings.

It happens all the time, on both ends. That girl from the study group who you honestly only wanted to help you with that paper you had to write on Nietzsche fell up in your house in some sh** that makes Rihana look like a modestly dressed woman. You love what you see and instantly say to yourself: “Fu** Frederic Nietzsche and his mamma”. She puts your mind back on track, helps you, leaves your house, and abandons you with a real irritating cramp between your legs. Next time you see her, no matter what she has on, she still looks like Rihana to you. You wanna hit. She knows it. Teases you. You feel you have met the woman of your dreams, and then you meet the man of her dreams when he picks her up from school. Deep.

So why even waste time? Well, many people don’t want to be “shallow”. I used to be of that ilk, way back when I gave a damn what the non-shallow people thought of me. Another truth is this: having exclusively male or exclusively female friends makes for an uneven social life. Those who complain about having boring social lives will more often than not find that their rosters of chums are uneven. Besides, the opposite sex can be fun even when they’re clothed, can being the operative word.

There are roadblocks to being platonic friends with the opposite sex; and usually those roadblocks come in the form of their respective partners and spouses.  Another hurdle people usually find it hard to get over is the whole “identity” thing that plagues the insecure. “If I like being around her, but don’t wanna have sex with her, does that mean I’m gay/weird/lame”?  No, it doesn’t. It means that you are a healthy-thinking                      person who seeks a well-rounded and diverse circle of friends. Hats off to those who give it the good fight. Men and women can be strikingly different or strikingly similar, depending on the pair of shades with which u view the matter. It was my experience in college ( my “shallow” years ), that the main reason I had sex with all of my female friends was because I didn’t take the time to befriend any women who weren’t sexy to me. When I hung up all I thought I knew about women, I found myself amassing chick-pals by the score. And as I approach thirty, I’m finding I want, no need, more females as platonic friends as the years go by; today it’s not a question of can a woman be my friend, but will she.

Can men and women be friends? That question now seems rhetorical. Can men and women be friends without complicating the acquaintance is the better inquiry. Yes, men and women can be friends. It seems it takes a special recipe: maturity, patience, humility, and some other satisfying sexual outlet to accomplish that. Mix those together and you end up with a “just a friend” soufflé.

~Mr. Ty~