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Post by mypaintbrushes on Feb 19, 2018 19:42:54 GMT -5
I had a bad experience with a guy friend recently. I’m considering cutting him out of my life - he seems utterly miserable when I’m around, which makes me miserable. He’s in a SM too. We’ve commiserated. He’s gone “radio silent” on me several times, always after long periods of speaking every day. Or we end up arguing or outrighth fighting over the stupidest stuff.
I told another friend - who doesn’t know this person - last week that I was considering performing a “mercy killing” on the friendship. Minutes later, said friend asked me out to lunch. Now things are awkward again. Truth be told, I ADORE this person. I think about him every single day. So it kills me to think of breaking things off. But if he doesn’t respect me and finds it too difficult to be around me, I have no choice, right?
My husband’s friends are ALL women. Literally, all. He does not have guy friends. He seems to have no trouble relating to women in a platonic way (romantically may be another story).
I, on the other hand, seem to have nothing but weirdness with most of the heterosexual men I know. It’s too bad - I really try my level best to be an amazing friend: supportive, encouraging, generous with time and hugs and open minded.
Having “man trouble” is also upsetting since I’m raising a son. How am I going to be able to show him respect between the genders when I can’t manage it myself?
Lately, I’ve been pondering whether I should just focus on my girlfriends for a while. I have NO drama with women. Perhaps men just DON’T like or get me - including my husband.
Luckily for me, I’m going on a solo vacation this week and staying with a woman I know. Girls only for a while, to think some things over.
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Post by wom360 on Feb 20, 2018 0:19:11 GMT -5
He probably wants to be having sex with you but not getting anywhere.
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Post by DryCreek on Feb 20, 2018 0:40:15 GMT -5
He probably wants to be having sex with you but not getting anywhere. I'll confess that this crossed my mind as a strong possibility. A "good friend" would be obliged to suppress his desires, lest he destroy the friendship by appearing predatory. That's both difficult and frustrating, and I could imagine needing distance to maintain composure. Of course, their relationship could be totally platonic and the guy is just flaky. Or he could be struggling. Now, mypaintbrushes husband might be quite successful with female friends who don't find him attractive, and with his lack of libido there's no problem. |
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sid
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Post by sid on Feb 20, 2018 0:45:26 GMT -5
I quite agree with wom that he is want8ng to have sex with you but worried he might ruin the friendship. You know for a sinking person even a small straw gives a lot of hope. Similarly, for someone in SM any closeness can naturally create some hope but due to SM does not have confidence to express. I feel that is the case!
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Post by baza on Feb 20, 2018 1:03:29 GMT -5
There was a highly respected member on the old "Experience Project" group known as "mvcmvc".
She used to espouse a philosophy of keeping life enhancing people within her close orbit, and offloading life depleting people out of her close orbit.
Her attitude was not gender specific.
But it did seem to work remarkably well for her.
As a sidebar she was also one of the very few people I know of who successfully ran an open marriage (on a "don't ask - don't tell" basis).
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Post by mypaintbrushes on Feb 20, 2018 1:42:20 GMT -5
All very profound points, I feel. Especially you, DryCreek. I just watched the TED talk on heartbreak. I’ve felt heasrtbroken because of this person in the past. Well, luckily for me, I will never experience heartbreak ever again. |
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Post by obobfla on Feb 20, 2018 22:33:15 GMT -5
Like your husband, I have had quite a few platonic female friendships, which I really value. Most of my best friends have been women. I believe I have a few such friends on this forum. Granted, I would have loved to have sex with them. They were gorgeous women. But I was not really their type, and they weren’t mine as far as what we were looking for in a romantic relationship. Had we crossed that line, it would have been a train wreck. For me, it was better to have a good friendship than have it all go up in flames for sex. Once we decided the relationship was not sexual, it relaxed us both and made it easier to talk. My girl friends and I had some of the most honest and intimate conversations with them, better than any I’ve had with male friends or even lovers. I am a better man because of them. When I was single, my friends were my wingmen, When I got married, my wife was never jealous of them. In fact, a few became her friends too. Sure, there was sexual tension. But the payoff was worth the price. So mypaintbrushes, where do you and your friend stand? You both are in sexually frustrated marriages. Whatever sexual tension you have is going to really escalate, making it harder to maintain your friendship. Hey, a lot of us have good platonic friends of the opposite sex. The problem is that we married them. The arguing sounds like a friendship I had with a woman I had a real bad crush on - we liked each other for 24 hours or so but found a way to argue after that. We both wished that the other person could be what we wanted and couldn’t stand it when it wasn’t possible. She was also very religious, so relieving the sexual tension was out of the question. My best strategy with friends of the opposite sex is to be as open as possible. If you want to have sex, say so. But if you value the friendship, say that as well. I have confronted the sexual tension bomb with a lot of my female friends. Once we decided we would or wounldn’t fuck, we moved on. We could relax and be friends again. Occasionally, former sexual partners became good friends and wingmen too. |
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Post by mypaintbrushes on Feb 20, 2018 22:56:40 GMT -5
Like your husband, I have had quite a few platonic female friendships, which I really value. Most of my best friends have been women. I believe I have a few such friends on this forum. Granted, I would have loved to have sex with them. They were gorgeous women. But I was not really their type, and they weren’t mine as far as what we were looking for in a romantic relationship. Had we crossed that line, it would have been a train wreck. For me, it was better to have a good friendship than have it all go up in flames for sex. Once we decided the relationship was not sexual, it relaxed us both and made it easier to talk. My girl friends and I had some of the most honest and intimate conversations with them, better than any I’ve had with male friends or even lovers. I am a better man because of them. When I was single, my friends were my wingmen, When I got married, my wife was never jealous of them. In fact, a few became her friends too. Sure, there was sexual tension. But the payoff was worth the price. So mypaintbrushes, where do you and your friend stand? You both are in sexually frustrated marriages. Whatever sexual tension you have is going to really escalate, making it harder to maintain your friendship. Hey, a lot of us have good platonic friends of the opposite sex. The problem is that we married them. The arguing sounds like a friendship I had with a woman I had a real bad crush on - we liked each other for 24 hours or so but found a way to argue after that. We both wished that the other person could be what we wanted and couldn’t stand it when it wasn’t possible. She was also very religious, so relieving the sexual tension was out of the question. My best strategy with friends of the opposite sex is to be as open as possible. If you want to have sex, say so. But if you value the friendship, say that as well. I have confronted the sexual tension bomb with a lot of my female friends. Once we decided we would or wounldn’t fuck, we moved on. We could relax and be friends again. Occasionally, former sexual partners became good friends and wingmen too. I guess it’s at the awkward stage. We chatted briefly a couple of times today, but no texting. I’m leaving for my solo trip early Thursday morning and I’ll be gone for a week. I ALWAYS miss this guy when I’m gone, and he’s messaged me when he was on vacation (we’ve had some frank discussions about our SMs when one or the other of us was out of town). I’ve been spending a lot of time really pondering where I went wrong. I was too nice, too forgiving of this person’s flaws at the outset. Now he sees me as disposable. Awesome. :/ |
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Post by mypaintbrushes on Feb 20, 2018 22:58:37 GMT -5
And, to be clear, I stated my boundaries and intent to protect the friendship. At least for my past, I did.
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Post by northstarmom on Feb 21, 2018 7:54:28 GMT -5
You seem to put a lot of time and thought into relationships with men, including your refuser, who don’t treat you well. You blame yourself instead of letting go of them and turning to people who treat you like they cherish you.
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xfoo
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Post by xfoo on May 19, 2018 16:49:44 GMT -5
My husband’s friends are ALL women. Literally, all. He does not have guy friends. He seems to have no trouble relating to women in a platonic way (romantically may be another story). A man who has ONLY female friends? Does this ping anyone's gaydar? Not casting stones, just pointing out that perhaps your SM may have a homosexual foundation. |
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Post by petrushka on May 22, 2018 23:38:10 GMT -5
My husband’s friends are ALL women. Literally, all. He does not have guy friends. He seems to have no trouble relating to women in a platonic way (romantically may be another story). A man who has ONLY female friends? Does this ping anyone's gaydar? Not casting stones, just pointing out that perhaps your SM may have a homosexual foundation. By what manner of logic do you come to THAT conclusion? I am baffled. All the homosexual men I ever knew (and know) have lots of male friends. Why, after all, would they only hang out with women?!? |
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xfoo
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Post by xfoo on May 24, 2018 1:50:10 GMT -5
I remember the 2 kids from high school who turned out to be homosexual had a lot of female friends and almost no male friends. I wasn't even one of the "cool" kids and they didn't really fit in with my crowd. The one mid 30's co-worker who turned out to be homosexual had soooo many female friends (he mentioned one male friend the entire time I worked with him). And my daughter's group of friends from high school had 1 guy in it. He had a very hard time getting along with other guys. He identified as homosexual his senior year. All anecdotal, I know.
I will say that after coming out as gay they have all reversed that trend and have many male friends (mostly other homosexual men). So maybe it is more of a closeted homosexual thing. They are also all more of the flamboyantly feminine homosexual male. The ones who everyone "guessed" was homosexual, but just hadn't admitted it to themselves yet.
I just thought it was interesting that mypaintbrushes' husband had ONLY female friends, much like the other 4 guys I know who also had mostly female friends (and also turned out to be homosexual).
As for the logic behind it... just observational, but men who act feminine don't generally fit well in groups of masculine men, different interests and manners. I've heard that very masculine homosexual men exist, but I've never met any (that I know of).
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