RUMINATIONS . . .

I'm not bored anymore.
Nor am I hungry, thanks to Wok-1's chicken and eggplant in garlic sauce.
And I have much better things to do, but I thought I'd pontificate for a while upon the eternal question: can men and women be friends?

I stand by my answer: YES.

But this is not an easy stance to hold onto, for it has very seldom been true in my own life, particularly with ex-boyfriends (the non-stalkers, that is). The end result of most --but not all -- of my co-ed friendships has been either: (1) man develops crush on me and the feeling is not reciprocated, or (2) I develop crush on man and the feeling is not reciprocated; in both cases, the tension and the awkwardness overwhelms one or both parties and the friendship falls apart. This is really a shame because I've known a truly unbelievable number of fantastic men and boys in my life, and it would have been so lovely to have continued to be their friend, through thick and thin . . . but I digress.

Side-tracked: there is one group of men with whom the above pattern never has taken hold for me: husbands or boyfriends of my girlfriends. I just don't go there. I don't understand single women who are drawn to other women's men. That's just not right and I don't do that. Besides, if a girlfriend is close enough to me for me to care, her significant other simply becomes an extension of her; just another family member to add to my ever-expanding family tree. And I'm not a big fan of incest . . .

Back to the topic at hand: I wish I was more talented at maintaining my co-ed friendships and feeding them in the same way that I feed my friendships with my girlfriends. I think I'm too afraid of the aforementioned tension and awkwardness. How can I tout myself as being a mature adult when I can't even deal with silly feelings like that for the sake of a friendship, right?

But then: maybe it's the depth of the friendship in the first place that I should pay attention to. Is it really worth my time and energy to work on a friendship that is surface-only? I would love to have male friends to whom I am as connected and attuned as I am to my close girlfriends -- friends whom I can call up at random times just to see what's going on, friends whom I can ask to dinner or coffee without it turning into a "date," friends whom I can count on to be available for idle hanging out and chatting, friends whom I can pal around with and lean on and wrestle without the whole world thinking there's something inappropriate going on, friends whose advice I seek and value, friends who will chatter with me about movie stars and mull with me about the geopolitical impact of SARS, friends who make me feel protected in a different way but with the same quality as my girlfriends, friends whom I can protect without coming across as a nagging significant other . . . But if I'm not going to have that appreciative level of friendship with a man, then is he worth pursuing as a friend to begin with? How hard and how long must I work at a friendship before determining whether it's worth it or not? Is that just a cold, harsh way to approach friendship in any case? And what about The Unrequited Love Syndrome: I pursue a friendship with the purest of platonic intentions, and he turns it into "Oh, she's asking me to dinner; she must like me and want my hot body." Sigh. What to do . . .

And then: there's the added burden of everyone else. Everyone has something to say about everything. I think one of the main reasons men and women find it so difficult to be friends with each other is because everyone else tells them it can't be done. You and a man are hanging out four evenings a week together? You must be lusting after each other. You and he have a favorite coffee shop, restaurant, book store, movie, whatever? You must be dating. You're single and he's single and you're still spending time together? Well, then it must be meant to be. No, no, no!!! Forget hormones, pheremones, whatever-mones. Sometimes, a girl just wants a trusted, beloved guy friend or -- gasp! -- friends (plural) -- to enrich her life as another branch on the family tree . . .

All that being said, I still believe it's possible. I guess the secret lies in my own willingness and ability to be a little bit more honest, a little bit more sensitive, a little bit more dedicated, a little bit more tenacious, a little bit more of lots of other qualities that I'm still working on developing in myself . . .