CommonSpace columnist Jenny Constable wonders how the innocent days of childhood friendship become such complicated affairs for adults
I DIDN'T always find it hard to make male friends. In fact, my oldest friend is actually a guy – my longest serving pal and first 'best friend' when I was wee. So close we were, that I still have the photos of our two-year-old selves, sporting soapy beards and peering over the rim of the shared bathtub our parents had shoved us in to save time.
My childhood is a mesh of memories of both princesses and Pokémon, and this was normal to me; I never grew up with the notion that boys and girls were any different from each other.
From my pre-adolescent perspective, I saw no difference between chasing my guy pals about with wooden swords in our back gardens after school and spending my weekends playing hairdressers with my girlfriends and our increasingly balding Barbie dolls. We were just having fun, regardless.
Read more from Jenny on sex and relationships: Why the 'manic pixie dream girl' image is damaging the dating game
Of course, my five-year-old self was entirely right and this was completely normal. But this begs the question: if that was the case 20-odd years ago, why is it that at 21 years of age, I can count the number of close guy friends I have on one hand (and this is with me not using all fingers, and including my dad)?
Now, I’m very lucky to have the friends I do, and consider myself blessed to have such an extensive social circle. And this does, of course, include men – I do have guys that I’m friendly with (honest).
However, not including the ones I’ve dated, slept with, who already have girlfriends, or with whom I shared a bath as a toddler, the nature of the friendships I have with men nowhere near match the same depth or intensity as the ones I have with my girlfriends.
This has played on my mind for the past few years, and has been particularly notable during my time at university. Maybe there was something wrong with me? Was I funny enough? Interesting enough? Cool enough?
At first, I thought my inability to make deep platonic connections with men was an indictment of a lacking in my character. However, this issue isn’t just contained to my own personal experiences, and has in fact been echoed by countless other women I’ve spoken to.
Time and time again I’ve had fleeting friendships with guys which flickered out as the realisation dawned that the motive behind wanting to hang out with them wasn’t in a bid to get some action.
What is it that stops men and women from being 'just friends'? When did platonic friendships lose their value? And why did this change occur?
For me, this pivotal moment which separates the two sexes stems from an acknowledgment that, at least biologically, men and women have a few fundamental differences – ones which become all the more apparent with age – and this change I refer to is, of course, puberty.
The beginnings of an awareness of our own sexuality: The time when guys shoot up three foot in the space of a year, girls start wearing bras and getting periods, and all at once, men and women become entirely different species no longer able to communicate naturally.
This shift which takes place in adolescence, whereupon boys and girls are pushed into the realm of dating and masturbation, still manifests well into the realm of young adulthood.
The only personal interactions I get from most men, the only time I ever seem to be high up on their agenda – even those who I actually felt I got on well with – is limited to potential dates, and the ambiguous grey area of "is something going to happen?", then seems to extinguish the moment it becomes apparent that sex is off the cards.
Women are not glorified sex toys that can be thrown under the bed when they exhaust their use – we are people, we are human, and we have the capacity to form platonic connections as deep as the romantic or sexual ones we create.
Time and time again I’ve had fleeting friendships with guys, or even tried with great futility to maintain platonic status with old flames, which flickered out as the realisation dawned that the motive behind wanting to hang out with them wasn’t in a bid to get some action.
This felt all the more bitter as I watched them continue to see, and do actual activities with, other lassies with whom they obviously saw potential for something beyond a platonic relationship as I was unceremoniously shunted to the side.
Of course, this could be more of a reflection of my own misfortune when it comes to the type of men I seek to be my pal, but the fact that this experience is a collective one among women suggests that it’s symptomatic of a greater problem, a historic issue that manifests itself in different forms through the generations; the toxic notion that the worth of a woman is based largely on her abilities as a tool for sexual gratification.
Whatever the reason, it’s hard to disassociate my worth with my sexual desirability. The only attention and affection I get from most men as a young adult seems to be largely dependent on whether or not they get to fuck me at the end of it – no matter how much value I apparently have to them.
Read more from Jenny on sex and relationships: What Disney didn't tell me about the search for 'The One'
Women are not glorified sex toys that can be thrown under the bed when they exhaust their use – we are people, we are human, and we have the capacity to form platonic connections as deep as the romantic or sexual ones we create.
And maybe, just sometimes, it’d be nice to go for coffee, or dinner, or to the cinema, with a man, without feeling like I need to take my clothes off to make it worth their while.
Picture courtesy of Jenny Constable
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