Gonna start this new season or episode or whatever with a few random things I’ve been considering that are in no way related to each other:
- Let’s give a moment of silence for my ex boyfriend who majored in communications but that ended up being the very thing we were incapable of. The irony.
- If I WERE an object–which, while I won’t get into it right this second, the way marriage is an economic proposition for women and how we can legally enter a long term contractual agreement with an emphasis on sex and financial coercion under the pretense of “marriage”, but in the USA ACTUAL sex work (which is really just shorter term agreements with similar possibilities for complication) are still illegal– but anyways, if I WERE an object (a topic brought up from the Ali Wong Netflix special segment about trophy wives) I think I’d be an eerie cursed artifact.
Hear me out– terrifyingly all-powerful to some, worshipped at times, albeit somewhat fearfully. To others, a world-ending horror. It fits.
Maybe if the Cara Delevigne “Enchantress” villianess from Suicide Squad hadn’t been such crockshit, I would have identified more with her and less of Harley Quinn. (Probably not, though.)
- The new season of The Handmaid’s Tale from Hulu is here and it hits a little different when your neighbors are Amish and you see a group of 6 women walking in their garb across the field on your drive back from town. I am literally not making that up.
Also, I once told “Strider” that he reminded me of Nick from The Handmaid’s Tale and we’re not gonna dissect that any further but let’s just say the little monologue on stubbornness and stupidity is really fucking with me.
- Spring has sprung, the greenery is out, and my seasonal affective disorder has been released like a cape, safely tucked away for the summer. I just came back from Arizona after being fully vaccinated and hiked all around Phoenix and Scottsdale with one of my best friends. This woman is basically a mother fucking champ because she is essentially a single mom in a lot of ways and by herself because her partner travels a lot for work right now and is in a very sensitive career spot, so I got to hang out with her and her child, who is only 15 months old but essentially is a full toddler already (because what else would you expect when his dad is actually 7 feet tall). That baby is SO smart. We don’t give enough credit to methods of communication that differ from our norm in adulthood, and the intelligence of babies reflects this.
We took him hiking almost every day and talked a lot about anxiety, the state of the world, raising children in this social climate and time of uncertainty, naivety and innocence, and women in sports. Lots of fun rants coming at you soon.
Back on topic for the day– A theme near and dear to what I’m sure is almost every woman’s heart.
To those who may be unaware and live under a questionably larger rock than Patrick Star from Spongebob, the “friend zone” is a mythological creation by misogynistic men who think it is every woman’s obligation to inherently be drawn to fucking them. Apparently, humanity’s purpose towards collaboration and social or emotional support MUST benefit men sexually in some way, else they consider it “rude” and a “slight” if you can see value in them beyond, and excluding, their reproductive fitness.
Forgive me for not giving a shit.
The “fuck zone”, a response to this so called “friend zone”, first introduced to my by the “Fuck the Patriarchy” feminist splendor of an Instagram account run by several feisty women in India, is therefore the zone in which your friendship and value to another person has become useless, because they concentrate your appeal to them based solely on whether they’ll be able to sexually penetrate you or not. Therefore, they place you in the “fuck zone” if the only reason they seek out your companionship is for sexuality.
Go purchase a sex worker.
Oh wait, you can’t…. Because even though you’re from the USA and politicians and police access, utilize, and exploit sex work, it’s still “technically” illegal. Fucking corrupt political hell hole of a nation.
The “fuck zone” is a topic near and dear to my heart, because I lost my most recent “best” friend to this.
The Fellowship (4:16)
My former best friend and I always jokingly referenced each other as Sam and Frodo, just adventuring around the world together, figuring out this thing called “life”. Alas, it was not meant to be. Let me walk you through a timeline of our friendship.
We met in the Spring of 2017 during the end of my first year of graduate school through one of my best friends from graduate school (also while I still had a long term boyfriend). He had also gone to UF and had taken my friend on fraternity functions (just as pals) in the past, and she warned me that he has a tendency to romanticize friendships, but said he respected her boundaries and they still hung out after she had to turn him down, so I didn’t think anything of it. (To be honest, this is a pretty common theme as a conventionally attractive, intelligent woman anyways.)
We’d soon go on to just kinda “get” each other, and he’d frequently come into town from ~an hour away to go out to bars with me, come to my own graduate school functions, and just continue to live the semblance of a college lifestyle, even though he was managing his family’s businesses elsewhere.
Now, this guy comes from a lot of money. How much? IDK, because it turns out I am naive as fuck about the concept of money, coming from financial insecurity and having relatively no financial support from my parents who refuse to understand or even research what economic burdens millennials are encountering and they can’t seem to grasp how overwhelming cycles of debt are and why I keep postponing my next schooling over financial concerns.
However, because he came from an astronomically large amount of money, he had an apartment in town (literally just unused for when he visited), and did not like to wait in line the few times a month he’d come out with me, he’d always bribe the security with a couple hundred dollars at the door. Mind you, we usually drank for free (we knew the bartenders) at these dive college bars. The scenario, frankly, was great for me because I ALSO hate waiting in lines (but I am a broke ass bitch who will do it if I have to). We got more “fun” time together inside the venues, and I got to realize how “the 1% (or close to it) lives”.
He’d sleep over my house, usually on my couch or this giant cushion, after these nights and we never, I mean NEVER hooked up. This seemed natural to me, as he drove an hour to get there and we’d been drinking. Why would he not just crash there. Plus, I lived in a four bedroom apartment alone in graduate school because I worked for my apartment complex and had the least popular, yet most expensive and least spacious floor plan. I enjoyed having company at night, even if it was from a different room. It felt so much safer not just sleeping alone, and in September of 2017 I had the incidence with gun violence with the guy within my apartment complex, so the extra presence, especially a masculine presence, was welcome.
A few times, I went with him to Miami to meet some of his old UF buddies, and we did share a bed, but still nothing sexual. He is a big snorer and I just wasn’t attracted to him.
…Which will turn out to have been a great fucking thing by the end of this story.
Now, the first time I was in Miami with him, we went to see DJ Khaled at STORY, and apart from when I randomly got pulled in to get front row seats for a Lil Dicky concert courtesy of a promoter who saw me walking past, this was only my 2nd time in STORY and first time getting bottle service with a group I actually came there with. (AKA: Not a group of guys who pulled me in because I was hot.)
Now, normally, I like to just get a light buzz when I drink, but for some reason I got WASTED. Like, embarrassingly throwing-up-after-we-got-back-to-his-friend’s-apartment wasted. (Which, relative to how often he went out with me, he knew this was not the normal occurrence so I didn’t actually end up feeling that guilty.) I usually do not black out when I drink at ALL, as I typically have always thrown up WAY before I get anywhere near blacking out, so it’s rare for me to even be drunk beyond an arguably heavy buzz. But I have almost no memory of even being at the club. Granted, it’s a bit harder to track drinks when you have bottle service and unlimited refills before you’re even done. Or maybe it was not having watered-down-liquor at a college bar.
Ya win some, ya lose some. All DJ Khaled might do is win, but I undeniably lost this one.
Honestly though, thank goodness I was with him and his group of guy friends, because otherwise I would have no idea what would have happened to me. I barely remember the club at all, I blacked out before DJ Khaled even came on, and then there are just splattered memories of him waiting while I used the restroom and that’s all I remember before being back at his friend’s apartment and sleeping on the bathroom floor for a few hours until I could get my shit together, shower, and climb into bed. It makes me question whether I got drugged, honestly. I’ve never experienced that level of memory loss from alcohol.
A different night, I went to E11even with him, which is where he and his best friend introduced me to strippers. And OH MY GOD DO I LOVE STRIPPERS. My first lap dance ever was paid for by his best friend who got us a “dual” lap dance, because if there’s anything better than hot strippers in Miami, it’s hot women ENJOYING hot strippers in Miami (especially for the first time) ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY’RE JUST TAKING MONEY FROM MEN. E11even is truly a paradise. He’d hire a masseuse to just massage our neck and shoulders while we watched the women, and the extent of acrobatics, dance, and theatrics at a place like E11even is truly amazing–especially for a former gymnast to appreciate. It is the Cirque du Soleil of night clubs. He taught me how to make it rain by handing me a stack of cash (literally more than I paid for my rent). I was with a big group of his guy friends, and this was over New Years Eve when someone like Lil John or G Eazy and Halsey was performing or something.
Through him, I also got to experience what getting a table at a nightclub is like. And again, since I am a broke ass bitch with student loans, I don’t do this on my own. The fact that he’d always get us a table, so I could people watch and dance by myself happily with my own space and air, was awesome. This is literally the only way I enjoy nightclubs now, and I simply will not go to any without it. As someone who has been sexually assaulted before, it is a HUGE win to not be in confined quarters with random strangers who will use the opportunity to cop a feel.
On several other occasions, I met his brother, his extended family, his friends from his hometown, you name it. I went out to bars with his cousins or family friends, our lives were just intertwined (we ran in the same social groups). He came to most game day celebrations with me, my second year of school, as well as my “Woodser”, which in Floridian terms is an excuse to get fraternities, sororities, or any other group (in this case, it was the graduate school’s associated with healthcare) on buses, trek everyone out to a random farm in the middle of the woods, and have a band, mechanical bull, dance floor, and campfires for everyone to drink and collaborate around.
We did all of this as friends because friends are allowed to be a part of each other’s lives.
One time we went for a weekend in Miami, just the two of us (I had thought his friends were also coming but nope–not how it worked out) and went to E11even alone. I got better at making it rain and was actually confident enough to wave off the girls I wasn’t interested in. It’s a special flick of the wrist motion, not everyone has a knack for it, okay.
Over graduation he met and partied with my siblings, well aware of the tumultuous relationship. His own family was incredibly close, though with difficult standards for “success”, so he never really judged me for needing the boundaries that I needed with mine (or so I thought) and would let me update him (or he’d ask about my relationship with them periodically). He also met my parents (as did most of my friends that weekend).
We had an awesome time, always. No matter what we were doing. We were honestly just wonderful friends who (I thought) really got along and appreciated each other’s presence in our lives. He was one of several men in my group of friends from there, so we all basically had the same mutual friends anyways and I hung out with them just as often, if not more, than I hung out with him.
I’ve grown up playing on male and co-ed sports teams and I graduated in a male dominated field from my undergrad, so I don’t really think twice about male versus female friendships. (Unfortunately, general society places a huge pressure on such because of the patriarchy and heteronormative assumptions.) Emotional support is normal, humans are social creatures (when they find their niche). Quality friendship is awesome and something I truly value above all, in part because my friendships were able to show me unconditional love when my family didn’t really teach me it. My friendships understood who I was and didn’t need me to tailor my personality for their comfort.
I moved back to Maryland for a brief period after graduation, then in August of 2018, I got into a car accident and had terrible PTSD. Still, I ended up trying to pick up my life like nothing had happened so I could pretend like I hadn’t just accepted I was going to die and totaled my car in a freak accident. Since I was physically fine after a few days of being relatively immobile from the muscular fatigue and adrenaline surges, less than a week later I packed up my mom’s second car (perks of having a truck on the farm), moved to North Carolina to live with a friend (at her suggestion) who needed help with an ice cream store I had managed in undergrad, and restarted sessions with my therapist from the area.
Him and I remained friends, best friends even, and facetimed and talked constantly despite him remaining in Florida.
He helped take the anxiety of buying a new car off from me by telling me to find whatever model I wanted and then he contacted dealerships, haggled pricing, and all I really had to do was show up, confirm and test drive the car, and sign the papers. For someone who had been having absolutely unreal anxiety, recurrent nightmares, and flashbacks around buying a new car–every new web page or model just caused me to relive the events of the accident, this was huge. I also don’t know SHIT about cars, so to me, I just needed something reliable that would last me through the next ten years and my last degree (hopefully), that was as cheap as I could get it. I thought it was funny that he told them I was his girlfriend and the dealership literally was not allowed to discuss pricing with me or “we’d walk” (financial insecurity, remember), and we openly joked about it when he was the first call I made from my new Subaru.
He also helped my sister buy her car similarly–the guy is a great business man and offered, why would she not take him up on that.
By our third year of friendship, he had met my parents and my siblings (because of graduation), along with several friends who visited me, we had extensively overlapping friendship circles and I thought we were just two humans perfectly compatible for friendship.
Hindsight Bias is 20/20 (15:01)
Now, if you ask me whether there were a few indicators of his feelings for me, I would say “yes”, but I also am gonna point out that as a relatively conventionally attractive woman with intelligence, a LOT of people would hit on me???
And need I remind everyone that women are not obligated to be sexually attracted to anyone at any given time just because that person may serve another purpose in their life???
I was always very clear about my boundaries. I literally hooked up with one of his friends. I started hooking up with my German love affair when he approached me from across the bar, only to hesitate seeing my best friend chilling between my legs (as I was sitting on the bar looking out at the crowd and he was also facing outward, just positioned with his back between my legs), and I waved my German love affair forward to let him know that I was not “with” him.
Occasionally, he’d reference passing flings or people his parents wanted him to date but there were a lot of cultural considerations and he just didn’t seem that interested in any of them.
There were, however, a few moments now, that do make me sit back and be like “oh…maybe I am just an idiot.”
EXHIBIT A (16:12)
The second time we went to E11even, just the two of us (despite me being under the impression that we were meeting up with people, his friends all had to work the next morning supposedly). He’d gotten a hotel for the weekend, and planned to share the bed. Again, we’d shared a bed before, I thought nothing of this weekend being any different from the other ones.
This time at E11even, he bought us a dual lap dance (again, normal). And I’m not sure what he told the girls, if he said anything, but those ones literally untied the top of my dress and I don’t know if this is normal protocol or what, but if I had wanted him to see my tits I would have shown him them myself. I very quickly re-tied my dress and enjoyed the rest of the dance. Maybe they did this on their own and were just feeling me, I don’t know.
After we came back from E11even, again…one of the places I’ve felt most “free” and happy, back at the hotel he walks into the room, looks at me and was like “do you want to fuck I am SO horny.”
Man, do some men have a way with romance???
First off, literally the biggest turn off ever. Not “you are an amazing beautiful princess and I adore the ground you walk on everything you do just amazes me oh wonderful goddess who allows me to be in her presence, PLEASE let me worship every inch of your body and soul in the way my heart yearns to.”
Just an “I’m so horny” BECAUSE OF OTHER PEOPLE?!?!?!
Not even because of MYSELF?
Do you EVEN know me?!
Second, You are my best friend and you imply that you want to be sexually intimate for the first time, let alone with someone who has been raped in her sleep by an ex boyfriend, sexually coerced and assaulted multiple times, and YOU’RE AWARE OF THIS SEXUAL HISTORY, yet you imply you only want to fuck her because she’s physically there and OTHER PEOPLE from the club we were just at got you “so turned on”.
What the fuck, dude.
I went into the bathroom, locked the doors, and made myself a bubble bath and cried for like 45 minutes at least.
Honestly, it pretty much ruined the night.
I felt like an object.
We didn’t talk for like a month after that trip and then one day he just kinda picked back up the conversation as normal.
EXHIBIT B (18:30)
Remember in Friends when Ross, Rachel, Phoebe, and Joey are going on about having a “back up” in case they aren’t married by the time they’re 40?
Well, any friend who, at 25 years old, makes only a FIVE YEAR marriage contract “back up plan” that you respond to with “only 5 years? LOL of COURSE I’ll still be single in five years”–it’s not their “back up” plan. You’re their actual plan. They just don’t think you’re mentally “there” yet, but are convinced that you will be.
EXHIBIT C (19:00)
Imagine this “hypothetical” scenario.
Your friend has told you about this gal he’s hooked up with, VERY consistently since October. It is now May of the following year and he is still with her, but they’re not “actually dating” (though they have been exclusively hooking up).
When you stay with that friend for a few days on your way to work on coronavirus in Florida, he ends up texting you about how “nothing happening” between the two of you AS IF YOU SHOULD HAVE WANTED????? SOMETHING TO HAPPEN WHILE HE IS SEEING SOME OTHER WOMAN EXCLUSIVELY AND SEXUALLY INTIMATE WITH HER?
PLEASE tell me in what fucking world I look like an “option” for you to “choose” to be available to you? LOL NO.
I am THE choice. Not “a” choice.
And I DAMN sure don’t give a flying FUCK about hooking up with anyone and screwing over some other woman who thinks you are exclusive. Fuck you.
I do not care about the dating “norms” these days–it’s why I do not get physically intimate with people I don’t intimately know emotionally already. I do not trust men, rightfully so. You EARN trust. You are not “granted” it. Surprisingly, this is a strange concept, which, I get it, because (ESPECIALLY white) men are just “granted” this baseline of respect where if they learn to speak with conviction, most of the time they will not be publicly doubted or questioned and are immediately granted authority and respect because of the historical figures and representation throughout every culture’s history ever. That’s fine, but I don’t buy it.
My friends have gotten STDs (sometimes lifelong ones with no cure), both from random hook ups and boyfriends who were scared they’d “lose” them. I myself got one in undergrad from an idiotic ex boyfriend who reassured me he was “Clean” (he had literally never been tested but that should show you the state of sexual education in this country). Thankfully, one pill and one week later, boom all cleared. That was nothing, as an earlier boyfriend had tried to get me pregnant so I wouldn’t be able to go to college.
Men in their 20’s are largely emotionally incompetent because of the patriarchy telling them to bury their emotions into everything except for sports or machines so they can’t healthily process them and most haven’t started going to therapy yet, and relationships are frankly, dependent on emotional competency. If you can’t emotionally support me, you’re literally just a walking, adjustable dildo. I’d rather just deal with one who wasn’t also going to try to control me and wasn’t attached to a brain that will try to take advantage of me or screw me over.
Physical touch is my love language. Because I’ve been abused, physically, emotionally and sexually, I withhold physical touch until I am typically VERY comfortable with anyone now. Even with friends, I’m not great on it–I struggle with hugs and simple gestures of touch. I don’t like dancing in crowds and would literally go to the “townie” bar in Chapel Hill called “The Library” which was notoriously “ghetto” (read: literally just the black students or locals liked to go there) during my gap year because I knew the DJ and bartenders and could dance and nobody would TRY to dance with me.
White men, and especially white college men, in bars LOVE to just appear, like the fucking reverse Houdini, behind women dancing without introducing themselves, without asking if they WANTED to gyrate on them, they just jump in and assume they’re welcome.
Every single time I would dance at The Library, not a SINGLE person just “tried” to dance with me. They’d always come up and ask in some respectable way and just FULLY UNDERSTAND AND RESPECT ME WHEN I SAID NO. I loved it. I hadn’t realized how fucking annoyed I was at the former scenario until I experienced actual respect of my personal boundaries.
So fuck you for having the absolute AUDACITY to even imply that I WOULD have hooked up with you if you actually were capable of making a move (which, again, you weren’t, because even when you sat with me on the couch to watch Tiger King, I was on an opposite end and covered by a blanket with no overlap.) Nor would I have let you??? Which is why I think you knew not to??
One is the Loneliest Number… (23:15)
We literally have not talked since this conversation for the most part. It also coincides with around the time I started my blog, and despite supposedly being my “Best” friend (which should mean growing with me and allowing me to change my mind on things like life goals without being disrespectful or judgmental), he was very adamantly anti-blog. Said it contradicted with my life goals, which is clearly how he didn’t know me growing up because everyone who has actually gone to school with my entire life has almost been COMPLETELY UNsurprised by my recent trajectory and plan.
It also made me appreciate Strider that much more, because he would ask me to cover certain topics or entertain my train of thought and was attracted to it.
Yet, in one day, I lost my best friend, the person I talked to almost every day, about everything including how I was struggling with my PTSD. Which, it turns out, is cPTSD and the “recovery” from that has just TRULY been a delight. (Insert eye roll here).
What they don’t tell you about mental health, is that it takes a whole lot of fucking courage to admit what has happened to you.
Even just to yourself.
Even without stigma.
Even with a support group.
Even with love and progress and new surroundings.
It hurts like hell to recognize the lack of emotional support and love you received as a child. It hurts to recognize how your pattern of dysfunctional relationships, which, granted, got less and less dysfunctional as the years passed, were the result of being taught “unconditional love” meant “forgiving people who were physically and emotionally abusing you”. Dangerous precedent to set for family, because that becomes what you expect out of relationships (and friendships) as well.
I don’t know though, I gotta say there’s a hell of a lot of validation in it for me that I never fucked him or did literally anything.
I don’t really care that he walked away, bitter, because to me a legitimate friend wouldn’t have cared that I only could provide friendship for him.
I got placed into the “fuck zone” and he got mad because I actually, genuinely valued his friendship and needed him in my life and couldn’t afford or mentally think about complicating that–especially not with the gravity of my self reflection over the last ~2 years.
It’s a bit frustrating, mostly because I worry that it’ll happen again.
Why is it so hard to just be friends with the ladies in your adult life? (25:36)
I had another friend who recently admitted they had feelings for me. Which, I gotta say, I was really happy in the way that they approached me about it…BUT only after I felt really uncomfortable in their physical presence for about 3 minutes and they knew and, had they been honest with themselves, I don’t think they would have had to question the scenario at all. (Or I think they would and should have saved themselves the initial encounter).
I’ll circle back to their approach, but for the record, they definitely were misreading things, which, maybe for people who don’t see me interact around others (and thus don’t realize that’s just who I am), they might take my friendliness and cynical wit as “flirting”, but I still don’t see how that is my fault. Who I am is who I am. I’ll be upfront with you, but you have to ask the questions. And then you have to ask yourself if you’re scared to ask me them because you’re intimidated by me or because you know I’m not going to give you the answer you want.
I think a lot of men think about the attractiveness of their opposite sex friendships and, because they might find some of those ladies sexually attractive, they don’t actually consider whether they would be good partners. Sure, they might be compatible at base value in a relationship…BECAUSE THEY ARE ALREADY FRIENDS. But if they would stop to ask, or even THINK, about what relationship values look like–what family dynamic they expect, religion, whether they’d be open to children, the familial trauma they’ve endured and health considerations moving forward, how maybe they just need a fucking friend right now and not a “boyfriend”, ways they like to spend their time, I think a lot of discrepancy would be adjusted.
Just because you want to stick your dick into someone and you get along with them on face value doesn’t mean you’d actually have a good relationship.
And maybe this is the detriment of the typical “male” versus “female” friendships. I’ve had an extensive array of both.
With reference to my “male” friendships, I’ve sometimes been the first woman who they’ve actually been able to emotionally open up to–simply because I myself am so emotionally open. That’s just who I am. I connect with everyone like that (unless you are scared to confront your own shit…in which case I probably make you very angry). I am sure it is alluring, especially to those who otherwise lack that emotional support. Please don’t conflate this with “romance”. This is literally friendship. You are allowed emotional support in your friendships and emotional intimacy IS intimacy, but it is not inherently sexual. Learning about what makes the people in your life who they are is part of being their friend.
Maybe because so many “male-male” friendships are dependent on sports and specific hobbies, but you can be emotionally dependent on people outside of your relationship. You can talk to your friends about the shit you’re struggling with. If they don’t stick with you–it’s not always a reflection on you. Sometimes they’re just shitty friends (or maybe it highlights a reality in their life they can’t address at the time and maybe never will.) Sometimes you’ll realize a lifestyle change means losing friends who were using you for access to things (drugs, alcohol, a party house, rides). Those aren’t your real friends. And real friends are out there, but you have to have the space for them.
Female-female friendships talk about EVERYTHING. We describe things in detail. Men, if you think your women don’t tell their best friend every little detail, you’re delusional. Or your woman is lying to you. Get the fuck over it. Life is not always some big secret and you don’t need to be embarrassed about things that make you HUMAN. Even if society in this masochistic patriarchal world has told you to suppress your emotions publicly, be the provider, be the “strong” one (read: not vulnerable emotionally), be the “alpha male” as if we haven’t read about the difference in chimpanzee and bonobo culture and seen exactly why alpha males are NOT the future, expressing yourself as a human is necessary for actual happiness.
And there is so much repression in the USA–emotionally, sexually, artistically and creatively (because of “professionalism”) that we have literally moved away from what it actually means to be “human” in favor of simplistic lizard creatures who lack emotion in favor of “simplicity” and “productivity” and the guise of an ideal public image. It’s disgusting.
Personally, I like being able to provide an objective female perspective for my male friends. I’ve helped a lot of them figure out ways to approach their way of thinking or understanding where their spouses or partners are coming from when both of them were otherwise lacking in the communication range. The idea that you are only supposed to be close with your partner is a toxic mentality perpetuated by controlling, abusive relationships. Yes, in the olden age before the internet, social media, and affordable air travel this might’ve been the case due to physicality limitations. This is not that world, anymore. Your support network should have layers. Of all sexes and different types of people.
I have, however, noticed the difficulties of maintaining these friendships in adulthood–likely in part because I am conventionally attractive and formal education is less strictly scheduled and involves more nontraditional outlets for meet ups, such as in a bar setting. I know some of them think about me sexually. I do not care. I don’t think about them like that. I don’t give them any cues or indication that I’m into them and I make it clear I don’t mentally have those expectations if they do approach me about it.
Completing the circle,
My other friend I referenced ended up texting me after I hung out with him about “wanting to ask me a question”.
Now, I have stated SEVERAL times I do not like physical contact. (Not just with him, on this blog I mean). I know some friends like hugs, but I do not like being walked out to my car and EXPECTED to have any physical contact of any kind. Wanna keep me safe? Watch me from the driveway several feet away. Please don’t invade my personal space. Rick & Morty should’ve made that clear. It’s not about you, it’s about the extent of abuse in my past. I know it’s just a nice gesture that he does because it’s him, but it was just a lack of awareness for a personal boundary of mine that he ignored mainly because he wanted the opportunity to present itself.
Naturally, I hugged him, had a very awkward “okay, bye!” as I turned away abruptly, got into my car, and shut the door before I could feel any more uncomfortable, and then of course I later got that text.
I’m not an idiot, I knew what it was gonna be about.
Granted, he had a lot going on the rest of the weekend so it took him a few days to follow up (also because I didn’t respond until the next morning), and when he did he texted me and asked if he could talk to me about something. THIS is about as close to the “right” scenario as you could get, I think, so we’re gonna give him a kudos even though the whole awkward hug-at-the-car-thing happened. When I said, “sure, ask away” (or some variation) he called me (a little annoying as I personally don’t like phone calls, I either like facetime or texting but in this context understanding tone of voice and delivery is important) and asked how I felt and whether I saw this in any romantic context. And even though I know he was disappointed that I was very clear I did not feel the same (nor was I in a place in my life where this was helpful in any way, shape, or form as I had explained how I was moving back South and spoke about a guy while we were hanging out), he completely respected my answer and let me explain about the aforementioned fuck zoning incident, my concerns about it affecting our friendship or similarly happening going forward, and frankly the response and his patience in listening to me made my respect for him go up. He also hasn’t let it affect our friendship, that I’m aware of.
In truth, I think if he actually saw me with other people more frequently, he’d “get” it.
That I wasn’t treating him special, that this is just who I am with everyone, that I connect this well pretty easily because I’m so open and honest and WILLING to talk about the harsh shit because life isn’t a highlight reel.
And granted, I don’t look or have an interest in “partners” that I can’t see myself growing old and experiencing the highs and lows of life with, so I get why that opening would be alluring and can’t really “fault” him.
It’s easy to be around for the highs and when it’s convenient.
What I value above all is being there when it’s not.
But the connection I feel with a VERY select few individuals isn’t like any of my friendships. And I can’t really explain it. I just believe in it. (TBH me being a closet romantic shouldn’t be strange to anyone, ya gal is an artist and watched The Notebook almost every night for a year my freshman year of college.)
I know it’s really hard, especially when you’re worried about opening up to someone because you perceive doing so as being judged (whether it’s for mental health, familial concerns, etc.), and when you finally get to, it seems like it’s cruel for them to not reciprocate your advances. Might I remind you that women all over the world are constantly being murdered for this. If this is THAT intimate for you, please just start getting a therapist who can remind you, professionally and objectively, that this is ~just friendship~ and that friends AND partners will not and should not judge you for these things, especially not if you’re committed to growth and learning.
This is also why we need to be able to colloquially discuss sex in less repressed terminology. So men won’t get confused or over assume when you talk about this that it has to be in reference to them, or its some kind of “advance” versus just a question to understand the male mentality even if I go out of my way to specify this and you know all my favorite comedians. (And so men in my DMs won’t ask me for advice on their current relationships while also saying they “wish they had tried harder” with me as if they’re the type of person I ever would’ve been into?????????? Or as if that’s not completely disrespectful to their actual current relationship and myself for thinking I would find that a compliment???) Because a lot of men take “rejection” as “failure” instead of “women are their own whole ass human beings and their sole value as human beings on a floating rock in space should not be tied to their sexuality in reference to YOU” and if you use their lack of sexual interest as a reason to exile them from your life, you never actually cared about them in any beneficial context. So by all means, good riddance.
Instead of placing me in the “fuck zone”, be like my friend Dylan from undergrad (and MTV’s the Real World Season 38) who would have LOVED to fuck me (along with most women on the planet) and made that obvious, but also was literally never pushy, never creepy, was an actual friend. He sat with me, talked track with me, respected my boundaries and talked relationships and never took it as an insult to himself that I wasn’t into him and I fully attribute this to his own self confidence and colloquial views towards sexuality. He is actually a great example in a lot of ways how you can be sexually forward or comment on appearance in ways that are literally just objective statements without expectation, not creepy and lingering stares. And I think it comes down to how casually he speaks about it, his delivery, and his responses to your reaction.
All in all, the “fuck zone” sucks, but there really is not greater validation than a man who desperately wanted to fuck you and made it blatantly obvious that was your only contribution to his life (because when the option was removed, he’s nonexistent), and you never did it.
Thou shalt never know the touch of my hand, mouth, tongue, or interior on your penis.
Now you all can go fuck yourselves, because I sure as hell won’t.