Before team platonic gets all riled up, let me say off the top that I am a believer that men and women can in fact be friends. It’s just if someone – man or woman – utters that cute little phrase to the other party of the alleged friendship, nothing could be further from the truth with respect to the true nature of the relationship.
If you are friends with someone of the opposite sex, you just are. You don’t make a speech about it. You don’t declare it. Just like in same-sex friendships – wait, that sounds weird; so let’s just say “regular friendships” so as not to confuse anyone – if you are compatible, you spend time together and operate under the assumption of friendship. That’s it.
When someone stands on a soapbox and says, “Let’s be friends,” they are not saying I want to be your friend. I don’t have any solid linguistic statistical data, but I’ve been told – and by “been told,” I mean I told myself – that “let’s be friends” translates to “I am not your girlfriend” or “I am not your boyfriend” in 326 languages.
The FACT that women and men use “friend” as their ace-in-the-hole emergency exit when warning signs present themselves that someone might be catching non-mutual feelings for the other “friend” is not the problem.
What I take issue with is how the card is manipulated to selfishly meet the needs of the non-reciprocated party.
Men and women play this card from completely different angles for polar opposite ulterior motives, and for the life of me I can’t decide who is more disgraceful with their M.O.
A woman decides that she doesn’t want to “hurt a man’s feelings” by romantic rejection. Sounds honorable enough, right? Wrong!
Why, you ask? Because usually the reason why the woman isn’t attracted to the man is so superficial that they barter friendship with the man only so that they can live with themselves. And to make things worse, they take advantage of their “friend” and use him as a husband-substitute/stand in to do the manly things until they find their better-looking, better-job-having, taller, thinner, college-educated, more sophisticated, world-traveled man.
I have a regular friend who likes everything about her “friend” of four years. But his pot belly utterly repulses her. So that’s that. “Girl, he is going to have to get a c-section for me to even bother,” she says to me.
But she tells him she needs to heal before she takes it “there” with another man while secretly creeping – with the intent of establishing long-term relationships, of course – with men she finds physically compatible.
Yes, men, if a woman has told you “let’s be friends,” you are her husband’s stunt double. And that bedroom furniture she is making you rearrange for an extreme seduction redesign is for the sake of somebody else.
Enter the man’s consolation prize for his female “friend,” better known as – I hate to even type this term, but I must – the “friends with benefits.”
While the woman is attempting to use the “friend” card to justify her repulsion to an otherwise nice guy, the man uses “friends with benefits” as an opportunity to keep sleeping with someone and get his ego stroked as he bides his time for the real Miss Right.
Us ladies have a term for someone that we are in a physical and emotional relationship with that we are attracted to as well, you know. Are you ready for it? Lean in … listen closely … we call it … A BOYFRIEND! Quite provocative, isn’t it?
I mean, think about it. Who is “friends with benefits” actually benefitting? He doesn’t have to remember your anniversary (because there is no anniversary for friends). He gets a pass on Valentine’s Day, and he doesn’t have to deal with you during holidays except for ravaging through the plate you got from your big granny’s house when he breezes through for a “midnight run.”
Meanwhile, at this very moment a husband is detailing his wife’s car and on his way to pick up his mother-in-law up from the doctor’s office to earn what your FWB gets as a courtesy under the false premise of “friendship.”
Don’t get it twisted, he is attached to his “friend with benefits,” but he truly believes he can get somebody better, and you’ll do – not only in the meantime, but if his first-round draft pick falls through.
Even as I close, I can’t declare a villain victor, because both scenarios are equal parts the pits. And until we pull that friend out of the deck, there will always be a “get out of honesty free” card in the mix.
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Live Well Ferguson 5K set for May 19
The third annual Live Well Ferguson Twilight 5K Run/Walk has been scheduled for Saturday, May 19 in downtown Ferguson, Mo.
Runners and walkers of all ages and fitness levels will take to the streets of the City of Ferguson on a USATF certified course for the only twilight run/walk event in North St. Louis County. The 5K and one-mile races start and finish at Plaza at 501, an outdoor entertainment area at the intersection of Florissant Road and Suburban Avenue. The post-race festivities include a concert, vendors and specials at local restaurants.
Race fees are $15 through January 6; rates increase to $20 through mid-April. There is a $5 discount for participants 19 years of age and under. Special rates are offered to teams of 10 or more. Registration is available online at www.livewellferg5k.com
Proceeds support youth scholarships for summer programs at the Emerson Family YMCA. Awards and prizes will be presented to top finishers; medals will be presented to the first 1,000 finishers.
For more details about Ferguson Twilight 5K, go to www.livewellferg5k.com
