Wine-Addled Thoughts

The death knell.

“A deadness occurs in relationships when people are no longer willing to tell each other how they really feel.”
~ Shakti Gawain

Here’s the really fucked up reality of dating as “one of the guys”…

It is, absolutely, utterly depressing bullshit.

It doesn’t start off that way, of course. At the beginning there’s a sense of privilege, of uniqueness having been brought into a special fold, of being thought of as the rare girl who’s okay to hang with (most of the time, anyway) on a boys’ night. It’s nice, truly, if only for a moment. See, as a hetero female, the line you straddle is very, very delicate.  On the one hand, you gain a more intimate understanding of men. On the other, you gain a more intimate understanding of men. Unfortunately, unlike the fodder that is easily, albeit problematically, dismissed as “locker room talk”, the conversations you’re privy to as a woman who’s one of the guys is just, well, a little bit depressing.

There are two different things at play here:

The first is the conversation that revolves around women (in general). There’s a sort of discomfort among many men, particularly the ones in long term “things”. There’s a boredom to them, an ennui. If they’re married, they’re a bit listless. If they’re dating/engaged, they’re a whole lot sarcastic. Women are burdensome; relationships like nooses ever-tightening around their necks.  Sure, they’re coupled up, but they’re rarely happy about it. Because why would they be? They’re in it because society told them to be, because their friends were doing it, and they were a bit, however differently, bored, at some point in their past. And for just a little while, while emotions and hormones were flying high, the coupling felt okay.  Now, it no longer does. But being in it is easier than not most days. Because holding shit down on your own is exhausting.  And so, here we collectively are. “The truth” is rarely what a single girl wants to hear. But they’ve forgotten you’re there, “hanging” and listening, because you’re “one of the guys”…and now it’s out there anyway.

The second is much more personal, intimate, and differently heartbreaking. When you’re the girl friend (sometimes turned girlfriend) that’s “one of the guys”, you’re privy to a different kind of conversation: a discussion of the beautiful women they’ve encountered, they women they’ve loved, the women they were (and, in some cases still are) in love with, the women they’ve fucked, the women they’ve wished they fucked…and on and on it goes. Strong women should take all this in stride, but, while it’s doable, it’s no easy feat. But let’s just say you’re strong enough to surpass all of that, or, at very least, to fake it with smiles and courtesy. The worst part, the absolute worst part, is the forgetting. The forgetting that you’re not just one of the guys. The forgetting that you are, in fact, a woman, who, every once in a while, likes to be reminded of her femininity. That you’re a woman who wants to be regarded as one of those women you one day won’t forget because you were, in your own way, beguiling, sensual, and special. The forgetting cuts like the other edge of an already poisonous blade…

The shining light at the end of this tunnel, however, are the few men who love openly.  The ones who, for all of the jokes, sarcasm, and other nonsense, embody actual love for another.  Rarer still are the few who, while all jokes and sarcasm about everything else, love with nothing less than seriousness, passion, and honesty. It’s beautiful and elusive, but you are the few who give tattered hearts hope.

With hope,