Scared Bunny

OK, I was talking to an old school friend the other day, and she starts telling me this story about her best friend.

She was one of those that had a guy best friend. They did everything together. He shopped with her. They hung out. They were the main person the other went to with relationship problems. In short, they did everything you would expect best friends to do. Or, more accurately, they did the kinds of things that 2 female best friends would do.

See, there are few straight guys that love going shopping together. Even fewer provide good relationship advice. The typical conversation between 2 guy best friends goes like this:

Guy 1: “Dude, my girlfriend is being such a bitch.”

Guy 2: “Dude, they’re all bitches.”

In short, the guy was not acting normal for a typical guy. While there are exceptions to the rule, his actions would not be considered typical male behavior for a friend.

But, for the sake of argument, we will say she just assumed he was more sensitive and enlightened than the typical guy.

So, one night he asks her to come watch a movie. They have done this a thousand times, so she doesn’t see anything strange. They sit down, watch the movie and just do what they have always done. Then his hand brushes up against her leg. Well, they are sitting kind of close, so she excuses it as an accident. But his hand doesn’t move. In fact, it not only stays against her leg, it moves on top of her leg. And before long, he is rubbing her leg. At this point she is feeling kind of weird because this is not normal friend behavior. It was also not normal when he brushed the hair away from her face and went in to kiss her neck.

But, what she didn’t get, and still doesn’t get, is that this IS normal guy behavior. The whole thing is normal guy behavior. It’s not that the guy did anything abnormal. He has been hanging around her because he likes her. Sure it took him a long time to actually make a move, but the move came, and it should have been expected. Hell, I knew where the story was going as soon as she told me her best friend was a guy. I have known a lot of women in my life with guy best friends, and except for the few where the guy was gay, the stories always end up with the girl somehow finding out that her “friend” wanted to be more than friends.

Now, on one hand, I really don’t care because it’s like that story about the turtle and the scorpion. A scorpion asks a turtle for a ride across a stream. The turtle says “No way. If I do that you’ll sting me.” But the scorpion reminds the turtle that if he does that they’ll both drown. The turtle agrees to give the scorpion a ride, and the scorpion climbs on. But half way across the stream the scorpion stings the turtle and they both start sinking. The turtle asks “How could you do that? Now we’ll both die!” And the scorpion replies, “It’s just my nature.”

It’s hard for me to be too upset with the guy because he was doing what is in his nature. Guys tend to want to be around women they are attracted to. I have known some guys with ugly female friends, but they usually use them as either wing women, to get to their friends, as a shoulder to cry on or as a slumpbuster. In short, they use them. And I can’t say that the woman is blameless because she had to see some signs along the way. There had to be times his eyes strayed a little or stayed locked just a split second too long.

But what annoyed me was when I asked her about how the guy friend had impacted her relationships. See, since they had been friends she hadn’t had any serious relationships. She had dated a few guys, but nothing ever came of it. Let’s see if we can figure out why. First, she never had any time to get to know those guys because she and her friend were always busy. That was funny to me because almost every woman I have known would ditch female friends in a heartbeat for a guy. But they will almost never ditch a male friend for a date.

Then there was the fact that, as she discussed the dates, the “friend” kept steering her towards the bad things about the guy. I mean, the guy was a double agent. He’s in there as a “friend” protecting her by eliminating his competition. In his mind, she was supposed to be with him so, naturally, every guy she dated wasn’t good enough. Even though he had low self-esteem (the guys that use the “friend” tactic usually do) he still sincerely believed they were meant to be together.

And all of that is kind of sneaky and underhanded, but I kind of think she was using him too. She was getting the benefits of a friend and a boyfriend without all of the hassles of a relationship. Now, she wasn’t getting any sex from him, but for all I know those one and two dates she did have were giving her enough to get her by. (We’re not the kind of friends that talk about sex, so I have no idea.) So while she was getting played, she was kind of playing him too.

I guess that, the thing is, in most cases when one person is playing someone, you have to look and see if the person getting played is doing a little playing themselves. Even the “innocent victim” usually has at very least let themselves get used, and may very well be less than innocent.

And, yes, I’ve done all the things I complain about, so I am a hypocrite.

Labels: friends, games, players, relationships, used