Friends with Men
I have never been friends with boys, teenage boys, or men. I have always been friends with girls or women who think it's easier to be friends with male-type people, but I've never been sympathetic to their now-cliche responses.*
Last night, I tried to explain my own inability to some roommates, and I'm not sure I got it quite right, which is why, all Ancient Mariner-like, I'm doing it now.
All relationships are defined by the substance between people. Typically, that substance is power, or information, or both (this is related to both Foucault, and Actor-Network Theory, neither of which is as prosaic as this blog post). The more of that substance is shared, the closer that relationship is. In very specific relationships, that substance is physical intimacy.
Women are all sisters. My degree of friendship with other women is on a broad scale of closeness, but it's all just a degree of the same relationship, which is defined by how much we have mutually forgiven/tolerated of each-other, and how much we intend to tolerate/forgive. It's mostly information, with a little bit of power. Every female I know falls on that scale, from "Mother" (all the information and a significant amount of power) to "female stranger" (little power, and as little information as possible). Female supervisors, students, employers, co-workers, and other professional relationships all fall into that same scale, but at sometimes artificially maintained distances for the sake of professionalism, or naturally maintained distances because of personality or social differences.
Between the subject (me) and the gender to which she is attracted (men), the third substance (sex) comprises a portion of the relationship, and that third substance significantly alters the landscape of possible relationships; It's no longer a sliding and navigable balance of power and information, but a series of navigable scales within a rigid categorization.
"Sex" - or more accurately, the possibility of sex, requires these categorizations. That "possibility of sex" is a substance itself, closely related to power. It requires boundaries, limits, and categories to be added, for the sake of society and the Plan of Happiness.** These restrictions are created and enforced by society for every sexuality, not just mine. There are laws against marrying siblings and first cousins, against sexual acts with minors, against using force or power on unwilling sexual partners. Sex has boundaries. These boundaries become more simple for those of us who allow ourselves sex only within marriage, but it also widens the difference between "sex" and the "possibility of sex," because the "possibility of sex" becomes "the possibility of marriage," which is much more different and narrowly defined.
The pattern created by acknowledging sex as a factor creates for me an entirely separate sliding scale for men. Where women all fall on a single, sliding scale of information and power sharing, men must be categorized into two sliding scales, one for each social category: brothers and non-brothers. The "brother" category contains every masculine person for whom the possibility of sex does not exist or has been removed. That includes social categories like married men, co-workers, professors, family members, the mentally handicapped, roommates' boyfriends, and people with bad hygiene. These relationships look a lot like my relationships with women. The substance between us is just power and information, and it is negotiated carefully over the -sometimes- artificially (but no less rigorously) maintained denial of the "possibility of sex."
The Non-Brother scale is the only category in which the "possibility of sex" is allowed to become part of the relationship substance. Men on that scale have three options. I can shift them to the "brother" scale if appropriate, let them drift away into oblivion, or allow that through their own effort they move closer to me. I choose the direction a man can move, but not how fast he gets there. The man who gets closest, wins. It's very Merchant of Venice.
So why am I never friends with men?
I don't know. It just sounds like such a waste since eventually, I'll only have one non-sibling, and why give away all that information and power?
But now you know what structures you're working with, so maybe it's just When Harry Met Sally all over in here.
* They all, to a woman, declare that men are easier because there's less drama. It has been my observation, though, that these women like the company of men not because these women don't like drama, but because they generate their own drama, and don't need to ingest it to have excitement in their lives. These kinds of women aren't avoiding emotion; they're avoiding competition, because that's the best way to "win.
** The troubling admission I find here, is that underneath all of the religions and social restrictions, all of the artificial categorizations, UNDER it all is the biology or nature of sex. My gender is more fundamental than even age, or family, and so is my gender attraction. What does this mean for those who are trans-gender? Who function socially with same-gender attraction? And what is it like for heterosexual men? Or people who don't restrict sex to marriage?
My friendships with men do tend to be of a different flavor or quality than my female friendships, and I think you are right that the "possibility of sex" (however remote) (which, for me, is also, first, the "possibility of marriage") partly accounts for the difference. That said, I do have male friends (though far fewer), and I find value in those relationships, partly, perhaps, because I am good friends with my biological brothers, so it doesn't seem that different; but also because sex isn't everything. Being friends with men gives me a chance at different perspectives, and a chance to explore different interests, than I am likely to have with my women friends. It's just a different dynamic, and one that, I hope, will one day inform and enrich the relationship I'll have with my husband. Plus, there's the possibility that a friendship could evolve. And regardless, why eliminate effectively half the population from the pool of potential friends?
ReplyDeleteI should add that for me there is another category of friends which includes both men and women, which is not brother/sisterly, and which I shall call affinity-friendships (but I borrowed the word "affinity" from Jim Gee's work on "passionate affinity spaces"). These are a species of information-friendships, in that they about mutual interest in something else, but to the degree that they require toleration/forgiveness, it tends to be of a fairly shallow kind (e.g. I can tolerate that a friend might think DS9 is better than B5, if we agree that Doctor Who is better than both of them). So, for instance, I have affinity friends because of mutual scholarly interests, fandoms, and hobbies. A few are also brothers and sisters. But from my POV this type of friendship has nothing to do with "possibility-of-sex", regardless of gender/orientation of the people involved (though that might occur later, it would generally be regarded as interfering with the original basis of the friendship).
ReplyDeleteI think I understand what you mean by "affinity friendships" and they do still navigate a scale of information and power, but with much more information than power. You don't give them power over you or information about you, but connect through a third Actant - a fandom, interest, affinity in a space that, regardless of gender or gender orientation, ultimately does not include the "possibility of sex" substance.
ReplyDeleteDid I get that right?