On Friendship Between Men and Women.
By: Nick Popov
Tags: Sex, Friends, Relationships, Personal Development, Friendship

Photo by Sarah Noltner on Unsplash

So, the friendship between a man and a woman. There’s so much written about it… There are several opinions on that.

1. All friendships between men and women always involve sex.

2. If friendships don’t involve sex then it’s a FRIENDZONE.

3. Friendship between a man and woman can exist if either both parties find each other unattractive either both are not straight.

4. It just doesn’t exist.

In reality all of the opinions are bullshit. Sorry for being rude, but guys, come on…

On my own example I can prove that

1. I’ve had friendships with women when both parties are straight.

2. Some of the did not involve sex at all.

3. Friendships indeed existed and some exist up to this day.

Let me now tell you a bit more on how this works.

Julia

(I had two friends, named Julia… Don’t ask me about it…)

I was 16 and she was 16 too. That friendship was actually really hilarious. We both were happy chatting with each other for hours on end. Neither one of us was unattractive, but I wasn’t really her type and she wasn’t my type either. I had male friends, she also had female friends, but we only found comfort when we were meeting one on one. When we couldn’t meet, we just spent time on messengers, that were popular back then. Mostly texts, but also ICQ or whatever was the hype 20 years ago.

Sometimes we went to the swimming pool or played soccer together. Julia was an avid soccer player and I wasn’t up to her game. But, as I was a friend and we played with female teams, I usually made up for the missing players, mostly goal keeping. I still hate to admit that I was her favourite goalkeeper, when I was playing for the opposite team 😊 One time it even got very heated and we had an argument and a brawl, as she managed to hit me in the balls with the ball, but instead of stopping the game, she naturally scored the goal and celebrated this.

Apart from this Julia was extremely strong and athletic and could wrestle with me, sometimes winning bro-brawls. A lot of people laughed at me as I’m big and strong myself, but boy this girl had muscles…

Anyways, most of the time was spent in discussing people and things around us. I cannot vividly remember what we talked about, but we mostly shared emotions. We confided in each other, knew each other’s secrets. I remember spending whole nights chatting about her recent break up with her fuckboy. And I was happy to do it — she did the same for me. She was always there, always available, always fully involved and invested.

Of course, we had boundaries, but none of them were not rule based as in the famous Kissing Booth movie on Netflix. Boundaries were like — don’t touch anything a brother/sister wouldn’t touch. Nothing more specific.

I don’t exactly remember on how this happened, but with time, in order to piss idiots off, we started holding hands when we were not in relationships with other people, and even French kissed in front of other people. Sort of played girlfriend/boyfriend.

Yes, we were 16-year olds and we both had relationships with boys and girls. Me — with girls, her — with boys. Some relationships were longer than others, but we had both dry spells when not a single body of the opposite sex was around. And then, of course, as you may guess, we had sex with each other. Several times. But, most of it was under heavy alcohol influence and I still don’t exactly remember on how exactly that happened. As we were both dead drunk, we did not even manage to use condoms, so I still think that we both got lucky. So, obviously, with time came the other boundary — not to get totally drunk when we are alone. Consensual sex was fine, while drunken sex wasn’t exactly consensual — we were more like animals then humans.

But… even with this rule we had sex several times. It wasn’t any good, to be honest — we were very nervous and went over the top not to hurt each other’s feelings. Like saying everything we want to do and discussing whether it’s acceptable or not. It’s actually very funny, that I write this — it’s so so personal for me, but I’m fully honest with those five readers that I have. But we both agreed that teenage bodies just want sex. And it’s better to fuck with each other then to fuck with random people. Whom we don’t really know.

And it’s actually interesting, but back then we realized what is the difference between sex with a person you’re romantically involved with and with a person, with whom you’re not. Yes, we were brutally honest with each other and could discuss everything — sex and periods and stupid crushes were not off limits. So, for us the difference was that the mechanical fucking was not sex. Real sex involved romantic feelings. Exactly the sensation of fully owning the person you like or love. While the mechanical fucking is just a dick in the pussy. For straight people, like us. Akin to masturbation, but with a real person. From then on I understand what sex work is or what pornography is.

Funnily enough, after having sex with each other, we realised our real feelings towards each other — we were friends. Out sex was eerie and very nervous. We did want to have sexual satisfaction, but we were extremely fearful of fucking up our friendship. Our friendship was more important that this stupid sex.

What I did find in this relationship with Julia and what she found in it?

I found a person I could confide in, I found a person to whom I can talk non-sense to just share how happy/unhappy I am. I found a person who doesn’t want anything out of me, just my friendship and good feelings. And, the most important thing for me — she accepted me as I am. She could understand me without words. And she was always on my side. And, most of you know that a girlfriend does not accept her boyfriend fully and always wants to change something. A friend doesn’t do that.

Julia found the same in me. And on top of that she could also talk about intellectual topics. She could also feel like she has a brother, whom she never had. She could feel good about herself. And she could always rely on me.

The other dimensions of our lives were also affected by our friendship. My male friends were always questioning my friendship with a girl, though they all admitted her to be gorgeous. Possibly out of friendship with me, as they saw her as my girlfriend.

But, let’s be honest — male friendship is much more about taunting each other and common activities. Most of the male friendship circles degenerate into drinking clubs or fuckboy clubs or sport/video game clubs. No intimacy, no discussion of relationships, no help during transition periods (when you transition from one romantic relationship into another). Last, but not least — my male friends were jealous as fuck when they found out that we actually play sports with Julia.

For those of you, who don’t understand what male friendship is. The best help and advice I personally had from male friends — on breakups — was like “drink it up and fuck some bitch”. After which I was force-fed a bottle of Gin and driven to a strip club. Obviously, I passed out before hitting the dance floor. So, the “fucking of the bitch” could not and did not happen.

As a contrast, after this evening Julia made me drink a cucumber brine, made me vomit and drink 4 shots (100 ml) of vodka to feel better. Afterwards she silently hugged me as we were talking the whole thing through. Nothing was said about my sorry state. I think I even cried. And every men knows — a girlfriend will accept men’s tears as weakness. A friend won’t.

Yes, some men will say — “Ah, you’re a fucking faggot” when they read this, but believe me — deep inside, every man is very emotional. The real difference between men and women is that men don’t show the emotions, while women do.

What did my male friends think about Julia? They probably thought of her being my girlfriend and me being polyamorous. They never said more. They did not dare. But, probably, deep inside themselves, they were full of envy.

It wasn’t easier for Julia — she was taunted by her girl pals. She was criticised, let down and literally bullied for her friendship with me. Her girl pals were not happy about her hanging out with me. They thought she’s in love with me and I’m friend zoning her. Which wasn’t true.

Our boyfriends / girlfriends had the same thoughts about our friendship. Literally — no one understood it. Even my parents called her my girlfriend. No questions asked. Her parents did the same to me — I was her “official” boyfriend. I had to sit through Thanksgivings and Christmases. Pretending to be a boyfriend. I even had to make “anniversary” romantic gifts.

Not that I did not enjoy that, but it was weird. For the record — her sister was dead sure that I was gay. She even tried to match me with a gay she knew 😊 I’m still sorry for the first thoughts the guy had, but I’ll be honest. We are still friends with this guy, and, though we live in different countries, we have often phone calls and spend a lot of time playing video games together.

Sadly, this friendship ended naturally. With Julia’s unfortunate and really pre-mature death. She’ll always have a special place in my heart. I’m sorry, but I can’t share more details on that, as it still hurts me. A lot. After all, we spent many years together and grew up together. We’ve been together through thick and thin. Thus, a part of my youth is literally dead…

M.

The other friendship with a woman, that I afforded myself to have, happened almost 20 years later. Damn, I’m old 😊

So, this friendship is different. I managed to be adopted by a woman that’s older than me. She’s more then 20 years older and I’m her adopted son. You know, friendship may be really different. My wife is her “adopted” daughter and I’m her “adopted” son. That’s what our relationships are. Obviously, there’s no sex involved, but otherwise we spend hours on end with each other. We chat, drink, eat and live together.

Yes, most of this happens over messengers and stuff, but we do meet in real life to shop together, eat together and just spend time together. To share feelings. And I treasure this a lot. As the friendship is ongoing, I don’t want to share more details about it, but it is what it is — we’re like playing family. Though in reality we are not — once again it’s something more then a family. We can really shamelessly discuss much more a normal family would.

Summary

The summary is that friendship between men and women do exist. But, they’re different from any same sex friendship. And they’re actually something more then just a romantic relationship.

I hope you all can explore the same thing one day. I don’t regret a day with my female friends.