Close Friends

I've been thinking about building close friendships again today. My partner Lynxter is my closest friend and I'm thankful for that. But I also believe it's heathy to have close friends outside of your primary relationship. And that's where things seem to be difficult for me.

I think most people who know me would describe me as a friendly, affectionate, yet somewhat reserved, person. I am not necessarily that easy to get to know and people probably think I'm more serious than I really am. I have not been a person prone to asking for help in my life, a trait that my son has unfortunately picked up from me. I think being "the smart kid" in school led to me missing out on some of the social skills that everyone else picked up. I have often felt like I don't fit in anywhere, and I still feel that way. It doesn't stop me from wanting or trying to connect, but it's often a lonely place of my own making.

Throughout my life, my closest friends have been women. I have had very close male friends in my life too, but it has been primarily women for a host of reasons that would derail this topic, so I won't get into that today. Reaching out to build friendships with women when your romantic partners tend to be women can be tricky, because there's always the possibility that someone is going to mistake your reaching out as interest in intimacy that goes beyond the platonic.

Let me just say here that I am in a monogamous relationship. In the past, I tried a non-monogamous relationship. I have some pretty strong opinions about it, but I'll only say that in the long run, it didn't work for me. I don't judge others. I have also been in relationships where my partner cheated on me. Those worked for me even less. I know that I am a monogamous person. It is what works best for me and it is a boundary that I won't cross, even if I meet someone I find attractive, which doesn't happen very often, maybe because I'm not looking for it. I have a really strong sense of "treat others as you wish to be treated" and I won't do that to anyone, especially not someone I love.

I had a friend once tell me that in all friendships there is an element of attraction. I think my friend is absolutely right, but I differ with him on the meaning of attraction. He meant sexual interest but I think that instead it can mean intellectual interest or emotional interest or spiritual interest. The hard part is juggling all of that along with the insecurities of everyone involved.

And I have had people mistake my interest in them for sexual attraction. It's a very uncomfortable situation to be in. How do you explain to someone that you like them, but not that way, without bruising the fragile ego of someone you really do like? It's happened to me more than once, so I wonder if I am somehow giving off the wrong impression. I was not a person who dated a lot when I was single, so that thought has occurred to me.

Then there's that whole business of sharing intimate thoughts and feelings. I don't make a habit of ever saying anything negative about my partner to a friend. I worry that they might take something I say when I'm temporarily angry or frustrated as something more meaningful and long-lasting, especially since some of them have the context of a partner I once had, who was pretty universally disliked by my friends. And I don't want anyone to think badly of Lynxter because she's someone I cherish.

I suppose I should trust my friends more and then something deeper might build from there. Maybe that's the crux of it. My oldest friends (and my partners) have seen the best and the worst of me, as I have them. They easily separate the wheat from the chaff and they still love me anyway. They reach out to me as often as I reach out to them, our relationships are equal. There is an ebb and flow to them, to be sure, especially since my closest friends outside of Lynxter now live out of town. What makes them so magical, and what makes me miss having close friends in town, is that when we get together it doesn't matter if ten minutes or ten years have passed, at their core they are still the same friend I have always loved.

Don't misunderstand me. I do have friends who would come if I called at 3am and I would come if they called me at 3am. But they don't feel the same as some of these old friendships and I think that's what I am missing in my life right now.