Can't We Just Be Friends?

This week, the trickle of men wanting my friendship has become a deluge:

• My ex
• A guy I went out with twice that I'm not attracted to (but wish I were)
• A guy I went out with twice that isn't that attracted to me (but I think wishes he was)
• A guy I went out with once, 2 years ago, who made me feel really shitty about myself, but claims it was all him and can't we be friends?
• A married guy, a ferry ride away, that wanted me to be his mistress, but when I said no way, wants to be friends;
• A guy from Asheville NC
• A guy from Egypt

I can't do it. I don't understand how people make a friendship between a single, straight guy and a single straight gal work. I have gay friends that I adore, but that is different. With all the rest, there is an unspoken rejection on one side or the other.

Harry (in When Harry Met Sally) said something like "Men and women can't be friends because the sex thing always messes it up." And I agree.

All of this is underscored by Edmund. I knew Edmund in college. During my first year, he lived one hall over from me, and walked through my hall to get to the dining hall. Somehow or other, we became friends, and I thought he was was flirting with me here and there. Edmund was my height, incredibly thin and had a receding hair line. But he had sparkling, laughing eyes, clean energy and deep wisdom. I actually remember wishing I could fall for a guy like Edmund because he was, pretty clearly, 'in my league' so to speak. Be careful what you wish for.

Throughout college we were friends, but nothing more. After college, he moved to Seattle, and the following year, I did too (not for him--although it didn't hurt he was there). We became the very best of friends. We did everything together--hanging out at least 3 nights a week, watching Star Trek, talking on the phone every night before bed. And I fell for him; but he wasn't romantically interested in me. He would put his arm around me, run his fingers through my hair, kiss me on the eyes, and I would snuggle up next to him in a movie; but he 'didn't feel that way' about me. We shared our hopes, dreams and insecurities. He would spend hours (literally) on the phone, explaining how painful it was to him that 'no woman was romantically interested in him.' I guessed that I, somehow-or-other, just didn't qualify as a woman, in his eyes.

Finally, I literally broke up with him. I confronted him about whether he knew I was romantically interested (and he confirmed he did), asked what the hell he meant when he said no woman was interested in him, and told him I couldn't be his friend. That was 1998. He hadn't had a girlfriend since, when I saw him is 2005. I wonder if he is trying to find his way out of a very deep closet; clearly something is wrong because he would make someone very happy, should he ever figure out what the hell he wants. But I know what I want and a co-dependent, platonic, friendship with a man that sucks out all my romantic energy (not to mention my self-esteem) just isn't it.

All of this convinced me that friendships between straight men and women is something close to emotional cancer, to be avoided at all costs. I have to wonder if the universe is trying to teach me something here, but I don't see a way through this. I'm going to try and see if I can be a distant friend with my ex--I saw him this week and have no emotional stickiness towards him. I couldn't imagine getting back with him. But he feels stuck--he isn't growing, isn't deepening. I don't really see where the energy would come from his friendship. But I also feel like I owe him a little--not a lot, but he was an important part of my life and so if I can do coffee once a month without emotional blowback to me, I do want to do that.

But the rest--I don't know a way through this one. Part of it is my time. Some guy in Egypt or Asheville--I have no emotional stickiness there, but I have real friends, that I've been friends with for decades, and they rank higher.

The one that really matters, of course, is John; I'm attracted to him and I don't think he's all that attracted to me on a sexual level, otherwise, I think he'd try to find a way to make it work. But he does want friendship and I could see our friendship being SO illuminating and rich and enlightening and smart and fun. I kept going deeper and deeper into who I am and what makes me tick with him. In a little less than a month, he and I went deeper than all my therapists ever have. You can easily guess when he and I stopped corresponding simply by looking at the frequency of my posting here. And yet it feels like Edmund all over again. He would take the energy that I need if I'm going to find a partner, and I would be constantly questioning what was wrong with me that he wasn't attracted to me that way, and we'd flirt a little and I'd wonder what the hell it meant and try to believe if I just did something right, he'd finally be interested. I'd put my life on hold, waiting for him, and then I'd grow to hate him for it. John is going to make some woman incredibly happy, and I would watch from the sidelines and feel like my heart had been torn out and all my fire had been replaced with ice as I grew slowly numb. I can't put myself through that slow, inexorable rejection again, and I don't see another way out of it even as I miss him with every cell in my body.

I don't think anyone actually reads this blog, but if you do, and if you have made friendships work with single people of the gender to which you are attracted, I'd love to hear about it in the comments.