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I have a confession to make: I don’t have male friends. This is not because I don’t like men, or because I think men and women shouldn’t be friends. It’s simply because I am incapable of being friends with men. The revelation isn’t sudden. My past friendships with men have all led me to a point where I can admit that I am just not “one of the boys”.
I was in high school when I decided that I wanted to have a fromance. A fromance, as I had learnt from the Tyra Banks show, was a close friendship between people of opposite genders. A fromance sounded cool - I could learn about the opposite gender and I could be one of those “cool” girls who were friends with boys.
A fromance meant that I could have a friend who was a boy while other girls just wanted a boyfriend. And so I tried very hard to be friends with boys: I initiated conversations, I spoke about sports and, as any good friend, I accepted them as they were without wanting to change them.
But I still failed.
I believe that my friendships with men mainly failed because there was a lack of mutual commitment. I was the one who essentially wanted to be friends with the men more than they wanted to be friends with me. I was the one who cared deeply about them while they barely gave me a thought. I was the one who put in the efforts of creating and somewhat maintaining the friendship while they barely did anything.
Read more: 5 signs you're in a toxic friendship and why you should let it go
My friendships with men were case after case of unrequited platonic love.
When I look back on my friendships, I realise that each one of my friendships with men lacked something I deeply wanted. I wanted a lifelong friendship and I did not find any of this in any of my friendships as all them ended within a few months or in less than a year.
My men friends weren’t upfront about who they were and they told half-truths. My men friends were unreliable and unsupportive, they would forget the times when we were supposed to meet up and talk, and didn’t bother making alternative arrangements. They were funny and chilled, but actually too chilled for my liking and they didn’t take a lot of things seriously - including our friendship.
The men who were my friends didn’t have most of the attributes that I wanted in a friend. In fact, my friendships with men failed because I, wrongly, compared the attributes that my women friends had with the attributes my men friends didn’t have. My women friends were authentic, supportive, considerate and reliable while my men friends were unstable and simply not present.
Although my friendships with men have failed, I do not regret trying to become friends with men. Although I experienced pain and even self-doubt when my friendships failed, I still learnt something from men.
Of course I will admit that there is a chance that I met the wrong men and became friends with the wrong people, but I also realise that after continuous multiple attempts at trying to be friends with different types of men at different times and still failing, I simply cannot continue this pursuit of friendships with men.
I am not cutting off men or ignoring them completely but I am no longer desperately looking for a fromance and I am at peace with this.
More on discovering and connecting with friends:
How to make friends without influencing people
9 things we all experience when reuniting with our besties
