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Just Friends '93 |
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Okay,
okay - I know I've talked about this before but that doesn't mean I've
come to a conclusion about it, it doesn't mean I've figured it out. I've
been running up against this particular situation time and time again
and still don't know exactly what it means and what to make of it. It's
the platonic female friend thing, the "I like you a lot but don't
see you that way" thing. And it has me puzzled. So today is this
"Planet of Platonia" edition of Aerial View. Having said that, let me tell you my experience: in the year and a half since my last relationship broke up, I've gotten to know three or four women, all single, about my age, living alone, haven't been in relationships for awhile and for all intents and purposes can be categorized as available. In each case I struck up a friendship and then at some point made a pass. In each case I was rebuffed and offered a furtherance of the friendship already in place. Some of those offers I was able to accept be cause the women in question went on to date someone else or re-kindle an old flame or what have you. And it is always far easier, for me anyway, to be friends with a woman if she is hitched up with someone. It just works that way, for me. But some of the other women: well, try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to do it. It just wasn't in me to shut off the feelings I had, of lust, of wanting, of sexual attraction. And I feel guilty about that, to some degree, like I'm being a quote unquote typical male. I got a feeling from these women that they were disappointed in me, that they offered me something grand and glorious - their friendship - and I turned it down because it wasn't enough. I had a woman say to me one time, after I told her I couldn't be friends, "Why does it always come down to sex? Why can't men and women be frinds?" I couldn't answer her at the time but now I think I can. See, as much as you may hate this or it may frighten you, as much as you'd like to think we are way past this, as much of yourself you have invested in the belief we are above all this - the plain truth is: men and women come together to make children. They form what Desmond Morris called "the pair bond". The pair bond exists for one reason: to raise children and keep them protected long enough for them to mature and set out on their own. If you've searched for years and years to find out what is the meaning of life, I'll tell you (get real close now); the meaning of life is this: to continue. That's all life wants - it wants to go on and on as long as possible, it does not want to die out and cease to be. That would be death and death is defined as the absence of life. This drive within us, this need to further ourselves along down through the years leads to all kinds of bizarre rituals: dating, courtship, marriage, personal ads. Falling in love is an adaption mechanism that allows us to be with someone long enough for a child to gestate and grow big and strong enough to be kicked the hell outof the house. And sex and erogenous zones and orgasms are the reward for pair-bonding. This is how it works in the heterosexual world. I guess it works in the homosexual world, too - the pleasure is there - sex is pleasureable - but there are no results of a sexual union, unless it's with an outside party. And that is a whole other show. So how does all this pair-bond stuff work into our platonic plans? Let me offer you a scenario: you're a heterosexual male with his own phone-in talk show, you meet an attractive single heterosexual woman ( who may or may not have her own phone-in talk show ) and you are drawn to her. You know why, too - she displays all the signals of the sexually receptive female: rounded breast, full, dark lips, wide hips and long legs. You know that this is just sexual mimicry of signals we received as we evolved that let us know when the female was rutting, when it was time to mate. The breasts are echos of our simian ancestor's rounded buttocks - they've moved to the front because homo sapiens is vertically-oriented - stands upright - and so the round rump of a receptive female had to be duplicated somewhere that could seen by the front-facing homo-sapiens male. The lips are labia, the lips of the vagina, located on the anterior, once again so they can be seen. The wide hips and long legs signal a sexually-mature female, one who is producing eggs and I'm not talking a chicken farmer here. So there you are, mister host of a phone-in talk show and there is this female sending all these signals of sexual maturity and receptiveness and you want to buy her flowers and take her to dinner and the movies and whisper sweet nothings in her ear and tell you love her so she might invite you to fertilize that egg, you, above all those other potential fertilizers - and what does she tell you? Let's be friends, shall we? So everything goes right out the window, the flowers, the dinners, the movies, the sweet nothings, the whole thing and you're standing there shaking hands, saying "Yeah, but...I...." Where I am going wrong is this: these may be sexually receptive females but I am not the one they want to sexually recieve. And I would really appreciate it if just one of these women had say, "Thanks for your interest but I don't wish to sexually recieve you." Instead I've heard all kinds of things about how "now is not a good time for me" "I just got out of a long term relationship" "I need to learn how to become friends with men" "If you're my friend, you're my friend forever but if we become lovers you might last three months". I've heard every variation of the "Why don't you just hang around and watch me sexually recieve the guy who you could never be?" routine. But that would be asking too much, no one would be that blunt. But I've always taken pride in being somewhat self-aware, self-aware enough to say that I may not be considered a good choice for one-half of that all important pair-bond. Gee, it stinks to have to admit that but there you are. Where this all leaves me is this: I will not become friends with any more single heterosexual females again any time soon. I have enough of those as it is. In fact, I'm thinking maybe I have too many. And I will reject this general shift in thinking of the female population ( a self-delusional shift, if you ask me ) that believes I can answer strictly to the higher callings of my homo sapien brain, that my intellect can somehow over-rule millions of years of evolutionary shaping. I for one, can't. My mammalian brain, at times, rules me completely and ruthlessly. And what am I to do about this? What are you women thinking? |
