Guy Friends

Hello, blog readers.  Welcome to another post made by me.  Yeah, I know it's been a week since I last posted.  I mean, I've been writing posts in my head, but I haven't actually written on the blog.

Ooh, by the way, big announcement:  I'm spending the next month of my life moving to Indiana so I can teach history and English to elementary kids and junior highers next school year.  Woo hoo!  But that's not what I'm going to officially post about today.  No, today, I want to post about some very cool people in my life, and why I believe they're so important.  I'm talking about my guy friends.

Honestly, I don't know how to properly explain how awesome it is to have guy friends like mine.  I refer to my closest guy friends as "adopted brothers," and they are some of the most awesome people on planet earth.  I mean, not only did one of them and I recently have an awesome moment like this on Facebook:

Hehe...yeah, I'm a little in love with my fandoms...Although he's not entirely accurate.  I will merely have to educate any uneducated man on the above topics.

But my guy friends during college did so much to push me towards God and become more Christlike.  My guy friends have made me laugh and have prayed about things that have upset me to tears.  They have actually seen these tears themselves at times.

"Wait, you let guys who aren't your boyfriend or brothers see you cry?"

Why should I hide it?  I am not an impervious to emotions, and the guys who saw me cry were like brothers to me.  I mean, I hate to cry in front of anyone, really.  I hate to cry.  I mean, the first time I cried because of a movie was when Jack Sparrow got eaten by the kraken in Pirates of the Caribbean:  Dead Man's Chest.

So, yeah, basically any crying for me at all is a big deal.  And usually I wouldn't mean to cry, but I'd be saying something emotional (usually as a prayer request), and I'd get choked up, and a few tears would fall.  I don't think any of them saw my out-and-out bawling my eyes out, but they did see tears.  And that's not a bad thing.

"But then you get emotionally attached!"

Oh my word, I'm getting emotionally attached to my friends, and that's a bad thing?!?!  No joke, they're friends.  You're supposed to be emotionally attached to them!

"But they're guys, and you're a girl, and..."

And...what?  Honestly, why is there all this social pressure that the only reason guys and girls form friendships is because they like each other as more than friends?  I have been asked before if I like certain guy friends because I talk about them and tell stories about fun stuff we did at work or church.  Can no one of opposite genders be friends without questions being asked?

I mean, maybe this is just a Baptist college thing.  I mean, at Northland, all you have to do is go to the coffee shop together, and people begin to wonder if you're dating.  It's kind of ridiculous.  Fortunately, I never went to the Daily Grind with any guys unless we were working on a group project.  Anyway, that is a completely different topic.

Go ahead...grab a chair...we won't ask questions...but we'll all be thinking it...

Back to the topic of guy friends.  It's not like I ever went digging around campus looking for the perfect guy friends to add to my collection.  Just like most friendships, these things just happened.  Over time, we would get to know each other better, and I would begin to trust them more (although, never as much as I trust my friend who are girls), and I would open up more.  Sometimes, it would be just one of my guy friends and me standing around talking, and I wouldn't care what people thought.  If they asked me if anything else was there, I could easily tell them "no," because as far as I knew, there was nothing there, and I had no desire for anything deeper to develop.

"Yeah, right!"

Okay, yes, at times I did develop crushes on guy friends, but that was very rare, and we still remained friends and stuff.  And, overall, that didn't really happen because I have had a lot of guy friends during my life.  Twice, when I was little, I had guys as my best friend:

Me and Willem

Me and Carl (snipped from class picture)

Basically, I never was really guy-ophobic.  I mean, yes, I had my boy hating stage around age eight and nine.  And then there's the fact that if I'm not VERY comfortable around a group of guys, I'm not going to go do stuff with them over the girls, even if I prefer what the guys are going to do (Yes, I'm one of those girls who would rather be over there kicking a soccer ball or trying to shoot a basketball than standing around in a little circle talking with a bunch of girls about girl stuff.).  But, really, I don't think guys should be excluded from my close friendships solely on the basis of their gender.

So, as a girl who's been a lifelong friend of guys, what would my advice be to girls who have guys who are friends/who want guy friends?

Party with Friends--2008

1.  Let the friendship form naturally.  Just like any friendship, if it's going to happen, it'll happen.  If it's not meant to happen, then it won't.  Don't just pick a random guy and think, "You are my new guy friend, and we will get to know each other and become like siblings."  Quite honestly, all my friendships with guys just kind of...happened.  We happened to talk because of some mutual friends, we found some common interests, and next thing you know, I was going to get paid $1,000 if I fell on stage at graduation and managed to take out the president on the way down.
2.  Don't tell them everything you tell your girl friends.  I feel this one should be obvious, but based on the Internet, it isn't.  Girls, he doesn't always need to know the reason you're upset, unless he's the problem, in which case, you might want to discuss that with him and clear up any misunderstandings that occurred.  But, really, sometimes I would just be like, "I'm not in a good mood.  I'll be fine later."  Sometimes, my attitude would clear up in a few minutes, and I'd be my normal, laughing self again; sometimes, my mood would take a couple days to improve.  Like I've said, guys have seen me cry, but never as much as my girl friends.  I don't tell guys who I'm crushing on (Although, if they figure it out, as has happened, then so be it, as long as they don't go spreading it around.) or what I'm planning on wearing to Artist Series.  Some conversations are better left for when there's only women in the room.

Another Party--2009

3.  Respect them.  Despite everything popular culture would like to tell us, guys are no more idiots than girls are.  For every guy who's an idiot, there is an equally airhead girl somewhere.  Unfortunately, it would be sexist or something for the TV to tell us that, so popular culture instead portrays men as stupid people who need the women and children in their lives to figure everything out.  Here's a novel idea:  Let the guy lead.  If I really love my guy friends, I will listen to what they have to say.  Even if I think his plan is the stupidest one on planet earth...which actually rarely happens.  Maybe I've just got extremely smart guy friends, but the ones I call brothers, I would trust, on average, in almost any situation.
4.  Allow them to talk about things they want to talk about.  Really, if you made him put up with your latest episode of "Adventures at the Mall," you should be prepared to in return listen to him talk about Halo or the Green Bay Packers or whatever else for a while.  It's not all about you.  This goes for any friendship.  You can learn a lot by listening to someone talk about something you don't know a ton about.  Allow your world to expand.  Friendships go both ways.  Honestly, though, if they get inappropriate, be prepared to remind them there is a girl in the room (and just you remember those moments when you and your girl friends start to get a little TMI when a guy is around, okay? ;) ).

Yet Another Party--2009

5.  Feed them.  Seriously, give them food.  On average, I've found they don't always care if I made cookies myself or bought a package of Oreos at Wal-Mart.  They just want food.  And they will eat food.  Popcorn, Cheez-Its, beef jerky, frozen cookie dough, whatever--you give them food, and they will eat it.  And you will form an inexplicable deeper friendship bond simply because you gave them food.  I don't know how or why this works, but it does.
6.  Don't form the friendship simply because you have a crush on the guy.  Seriously, this is doomed to backfire and failure.  Take it from a girl who knows.  If you form a friendship with a guy, and it's solely because you're attracted to him, when you don't like him anymore or when he finds out and admits he doesn't like you, everything crumbles.
7.  Stop worrying about what people will think.  I've had to do this.  I'll be standing there, talking with one of my guy friends, and this annoying voice will whisper, "What are people thinking?"  I've had to learn to just toss this voice aside with, "Well, we know we're not dating, and if anyone asks, we can tell them that."

Work Crew--2011

8.  "The Friendzone" is not the worst thing in the world.  Girls, not every close friendship with a guy needs to lead to dating.  Hey, maybe he'll date another girl.  So what?  You and he can still be friends, and hopefully she doesn't get jealous of you.  And if he starts paying more attention to her and less attention to you, big whip.  She's his girlfriend.  What were you expecting?  Maybe I'm sounding harsh and sarcastic here, but really, when he starts dating, she's going to mean more and more to him as time goes on.  That's kind of how dating relationships go.  His guy friends probably have an empty controller at the Xbox because he's spending time with his girlfriend.
9.  But what if he and I start liking each other?  Uh...congratulations!  That is so awesome!  You and a guy started out as being just friends and you fell in love, and now you'll get to go to the coffee shop together and stare at each other longingly for six hours a day while your friends ask for weeks if you're dating yet.  And then you'll start dating, and then when you get engaged, all your friends will be like, "Finally!" because they're so sick of the eye babies you're making all the time.  And then you get all the stress of wedding planning, and you can tell everyone that it all started out by just being friends.  And I think those are some of the sweetest love stories because these two fell in love simply because they liked to hang out with each other.
10.  Have fun.  Really, just whatever it is you and your guy friend like doing together, do it.  Have your little inside jokes.  Make some crazy memories.  Celebrate birthdays.

Extension Team--2011

11.  Push each other more towards Christ.  I saved this one for last because it's the most important.  Maybe you can't share your deepest prayer requests with him, but you two can pray for each other, even as "just friends."  I've prayed for my guy friends as they've gone on mission trips, broken up with their girlfriends, lost loved ones, didn't know if they could afford to come back to school the next semester, etc.  And I know they've prayed for me too.  The guys I was closest to in college were the ones that I prayed with and for the most.  And then there are the wonderful conversations we've had about God, whether discussing theology or just being amazed at the way God works in our lives.  Even if you stink at singing, sing some of your favorite hymns or worship songs.  The best friendships you will ever form, whether with guys or girls, are the ones where you let God in on it.  He will strengthen your friendship and make you love each other in Christ even more.

Maybe you're not the type of girl who really is friends with guys, and that's okay too.  This world is made of all types of people.  But for girls like me, forming these friendships is important because guy-girl friendships are completely different from girl-girl friendships, and in a good way.  These are friendships that made me see life differently.  Believe it or not, even if I never marry one of my guy friends from college (and since many of them seem to be happily pairing off with females who are not me), I feel each of them has prepared me in some way for my future husband (Should God allow me to marry.) because each of them taught me something about guys and how to treat them (Although, trust me, I've had girls who've had to teach me stuff about guys so I didn't completely ruin my friendships with them.).  So, if you're nervous or scared about getting to know a guy more, take comfort in this:  I have no idea how to form friendships with guys either.  All I know is that after I wind up stuck with them is to throw them some food every once in a while and be myself.  And...that's how I ended up with all these guys eating my cookies and making me laugh so hysterically I could barely move.

I guess in the end, I'm the worst person to come to for advice about this because I have no idea what I'm doing.  I'm just making it up while I go along.

But, wait, isn't that how life goes most of the time anyway?