I am a straight married man but I have always related well to females. Even as a kid I was often friends with girls. Not exclusively. I had male friends (and still do) also. I have over the years developed a few close (almost family like) friendships with some females that I have known for years. I think this is OK. Perhaps non-traditional but OK. My wife is cool with it too and relates well to guys. I did a bit of searching online and discovered that secular web sites seem to promote this is OK but Churchie's seem to treat it as sinful and awful. I have never cheated on my wife. Never will. I view my female friends the same way as male friends and those I am very close to as I would a sister. I am an only child. One friend in particular I have known since I was 14 and is very much like a sister to me. I did have a crush on her for a while but that was years ago. So anyway. A friend of my wifes (who is female) said that it is sinful and should not be allowed. I have had people say that (pastors wifes mostly). Whats the problem. Why does it matter what parts my friends have (to put it crudely).
I think women tend to be more outgoing and since I am so introverted, I make friends with them easier. Could be it.
I have a friend who I have known for a little over a year. I actually consider her and her husband both friends and my wife knows them too. I have however known the woman longer and talked to her more. During some bad weather my friend allowed me to stay at her house a couple of days. At the time I lived 67 miles from work and over a mountain range. This was a very nice thing for them to do. Nothing in any way happend, or even got thought of happening. I thought nothing of it (except gratitude to my friend for saving me from crashing on the way home). This psycho religious nutball friend of my wifes found out and said I am probably commiting adultery or will and that I should never talk to this friend again. Especially since she is not "walking with the Lord" whatever that means.
Is my perspective so messed up and "worldly" or do I think that my wifes friend is a nut and most Churchies need to chill here.
I dont want to change the way I am just to please others who think I am sending the wrong message. I sure dont want to give up any friendships over it. I dont have a lot of friends. I sure dont need to lose any.
Oh I havent told my friend (the nice one who let me stay at her house) about this incident but I am sure she will get a good laugh out of it. Who knows, maybe she will read it here.
Anyway, I guess I am curious what do the rest of my new group (very diverse crows) of friends think about the whole men having female friends thing?
7 comments:
Oh and not to comment on my own blog. I am NOT going to give up any friends.
this is kind of comical to me in that it reminded me of something some church leaders at a nazarene church once told me. this was over 10 years ago when i was going through a divorce and was taking part of a divorce support group through their church. (when i joined, i was told my religious beliefs were irrelevant, which turned out to be not completely true.) anyway, at the time they told us we were NOT to be friends with members of the opposite gender. well naturally i thought this was ridiculous, given i had 2 good male friends at the time. i was told i needed to give them up while i remained single. sure, like that was going to happen just like i was going to not date for 5 years and remain celibate until i remarried.
what was even funnier though was the evening that i asked, part sarcastically but also quite seriously, "what if a person is gay? does that mean they can have friends of the opposite gender?" that question was ignored and later that evening, as we all sat around a table at a restaurant drinking milkshakes, it was then that i was asked "where are you in your walk with jesus?" the whole "we gotta convert this child" was then started. i just sipped on my milkshake and listened, saying only that i was "at peace" with my spiritual beliefs, although i wanted soooo badly to say "damnit! i left jesus out in my car. i'm always doing that!" thankfully the conversion attempt only lasted that one night.
yes--of course it's possible for men and women to be friends.
The Churchies think it's sinful, just as rock n roll are dancing, because THEY are the ones with dirty thoughts running through their head during these otherwise normal exchanges. They assume that everyone must be thinking those kinds of thoughts. I've learned to take their advice, literally, with a grain of salt. Most, if not all of the alienation toward the Bilble and Christianity that I experience is because of the Human Factor.
I somehow make really good friends with overweight women and have for years.
To start, I'd just like to say I second what you and others have said here.
I have a natural affinity with lots of guys, moreso than girls, and can make friends with guys more easily. I think a lot of this has to do with growing up with an older brother, and no sisters. The one girl I would consider my closest friend is a tomboy, like me, which is probably why we get along so well.
I must admit, I'd be a little jealous if the Pete had a close female friend that I wasn't also friends with, and I'd understand if he was jealous that he wasn't also friends with. Not so much for the potential adultery, but just because we consider the other to be our best friend, and to have someone else of the opposite sex in that role would be, I think, an intrusion of our own intimacy as friends and spouses (ie, if he had a female friend whom he felt he could share more with than he could with me). Of course, when I think of it that way, I would be jealous if he had a male friend that he could share more with, too. Just that intimacy issue, again. If there's something he can't tell me, but he can tell someone else, there's some communication/intimacy hinderence going on in our marriage. Make sense? :)
But yeah, it's simply nonsense, and kind of sexist, in a way, for churches or christians to insist that we don't have friends of the opposite sex just because we're married.
Oops, I was re-editing and accidentally deleted a whole phrase!
To clarify: I'd understand if the Pete was jealous that I had a close male friend that he wasn't also friends with. Insert somewhere up there in that paragraph about marriage and intimacy. :)
As a fellow only-child who would rather work for a woman and who gets along with women at least as well as men...I feel your pain.
Regardless of whether staying at another woman's house for a few days was wise or not (I think it totally depends on things that you wouldn't glean from knowing someong through a blog), it sounds like your wife needs new friends...
...church people suck.
Thanks to all who posted here.
Ninjanun, just so you know. My friend whom I stayed with is a friend of my wifes too but in the secondary sense. I met my friend at work. We worked together for about a year and saw each other every day. A friendship grew. My wife and her get along but dont know each other that well. I also like my friends husband but dont know him that well. We all trust each other.
I am in no way closer to this person than to my wife. My wife is and always will be my best friend (and she is not even a guy. LOL). I do find that my other friend sometimes provides a good perspective on things that my wife cannot see by being too close to the situation. It also helps me to understand my wife to have a female perspective of whats going on.
So I got on a tangent but I guess I was saying that there is no jealousy or need for any because my wife and I are on a different level
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