Women Who Know

I was talking to one of my best guy friends the other day about managing romantic relationships with other friendship. We talked about what good friends we’d been to one another, and what made the difference between our friendship and so many other male/female so-called friendships. He told me that he loved his girlfriend and that he could never, in this phase of his life, invite a person into his life who would interfere with his happiness. He said that he’d grown to understand that he had to walk away from friends who put their own selfish needs before the duties of friendship.

By “the duties of friendship,” I mean the responsibility of knowing that another human being trusts you to be a part of their life, indefinitely. Friendship is a give and take exchange. There are times when one friend takes more than the other is prepared to give, but at the end of the day, reciprocity is not a lost concept.

My friend was talking about walking away from the kinds of female friends who juxtapose themselves against the love of your life for the purposes of measuring their own worth to you. These are the friends who, as soon as you get into a relationship, look at the time you are spending with your love interest and immediately compare it to the amount of time you spend with them. If your time with your love outweighs the time spent with your friend, the friend is very unhappy. So, the friend calls you excessively, criticizes your mate constantly, and makes discouraging remarks as often as they can.

It seems that women who don’t know find themselves being this kind of awful friend to the men in their lives. Immediately upon meeting a new girl in their friend’s life, they are critical, negative and calculating. My humble opinion is that women who behave this way do so either because they are insecure about their own prospects for finding love or because they have unrequited feelings for their “friend.”

These bad friends come in a couple of varieties:

1) The Let’s Be Alone Together Friends (Or, Let’s At Least Make Sure You’re Alone): These women embody the old adage, “misery loves company.” When both she and her guy friend are single, they talk about how awful the dating scene is; now tired they are of playing games; and how they’d rather be alone than be unhappy. If SHE is lucky enough to find someone to date for a spell, HE has to hear ALL about it. Likewise, he hears just as much about the breakup. Unfortunately, if HE finds someone special, she doesn’t want to hear about the bliss–only the misery. She wants to hear about the fights and not the romance; the lack of trust but never the divine assurance. Truly, when he talks to his insecure friend about how great love can be, she winces because she can’t quite believe him, based on her own circumstances.

When women become this kind of friend to a man, they often project their own flaws onto the woman in his life. For example, if a woman regards herself as untrustworthy, she often tries to convince her male friend that his girlfriend is the same…and so on. When men keep these kinds of women around them, they reduce the likelihood that their romantic relationships will succeed because their focus is often in the wrong place–they become more concerned about the perception others have of their relationship than examining reality. They risk becoming so wrapped up in what their friends think about their woman, that the fail to see her for who she really is.

Women who know never want their friend to lose love based on misunderstandings. They want for their friends to make decisions based on truth that they uncover on their own. So, if their friend is in a relationship that appears certain to fail, they restrain themselves from giving unsolicited advice, save in the most dire of circumstances. If they respect their friend, they know that he will eventually see what they do and act appropriately. They trust him to come to them if he needs help, but they generally butt out if he does not. Even when he DOES ask for help, they temper their advice to his own well-being. They ask questions like, “How do you feel about that?” and “What do you plan to do?” They try their best to steer clear from comments such as, “Let me tell you what I would do.” and “You need to leave.” This is because women who know understand that what’s good for one is not always good for the other, and, what’s most important is that their friend think through his next move ON HIS OWN and assess what is best for him, based on his unique needs.

2) The Secret Admirer Friends. Honesty is the foundation of any meaningful friendship. This means that in one’s deliberate actions directed at her friends, she should be as transparent as possible. I don’t think this is difficult to do–unless, of course, the emotional dynamics of the relationship change, unbenownst to one of the friends. Extraneous feelings cloud the duties of friendship. As a result, some women end up treating their good friends as they would someone who is much MORE than a friend. She expects things of him that you wouldn’t otherwise expect–like that he spend the amount of time with you that he would a romantic interest; that he “escort” you places as would a romantic interest; that he refrain from talking about the women in his life with you out of “consideration” of your feelings. I don’t think that women who do this are always malicious. Sometimes, it’s largely unconscious. Undoubtedly though, at one point of another, these women realize that they have feelings for the man they call their “friend.” At that point, they must be very careful not to treat him differently, if doing that would hurt him in the end.

I learned the truth about love through my faith. The truth is, love is patient and kind; love is not jealous and does not envy. Women who know this have better things to do with their energy than manipulate the love within their friendship to force romance where it has no place. We can’t control for whom we develop feelings, but we can control our behavior once we realize how we feel. If we temper our actions with patience and kindness, we won’t become anxious about would could be between ourselves and our friends. We won’t get jealous because our friends have lives outside of our friendship. We will place the healthy compassion we can show for others at the top of our emotional priority lists.

The Bottom Line: With proper perspective, being a good platonic friend to a man often requires little more than being a good friend to a woman. Some people can become so consumed with their gender that they have forgotten how to be human beings first. Friendship demands the ability to resist the urge to be selfish. Demanding an abundance of attention or the romantic love of a friend constitutes the brand of selfishness that can destroy the foundation you’ve taken time to build together. It’s never worth it in the end. Women who know treat their male friends like human beings first. Human beings are deserving or respect, honesty, candor and consideration; human beings are deserving of patient, kind love. That’s the bottom line.

A few tips for the wise:

1. When he talks to you about his life, LISTEN, but don’t stock the information away so that you can use it to your advantage later.

2. When he talks to you about his relationship, LISTEN (you guessed it), but don’t use the information to bring him closer to you. Real friends are close, regardless.

3. When you hang out, embrace honesty about the other people in your lives so that no one gets the wrong idea about where you are in your relationship. If you find yourself in a friendship where one of you becomes jealous of the other’s love interests, something more than friendship is in the mix. Don’t let this ruin your relationship.

4. When you meet the women he dates, treat them as extensions of HIM. Don’t treat them as though they are the enemy (even when you don’t like them). If you value him as a friend, don’t complicate his life. Your friend doesn’t need the added stress of his friend feuding with his love interest.

5. If you ever develop feelings for him (or vice-versa), always consider the source of the feelings before you settle on full disclosure. For example, if the feelings stem from loneliness or jealousy, work on your own personal issues first. If they come from a genuine place, then honesty–with discretion–may be the way to go. But, always, always, always take a moment to consider your friend’s current circumstances and what role that conversation will play in his life. Sacrifice and love (platonic or otherwise) go hand in hand. Remember that.