My eureka moment happened yesterday when I received an email from my good friend Travis who I haven’t seen for a few years. He is an amazing and fun person who was more like my family then a friend when we were younger. Travis is gay and has been open about it for as long as I’ve known him, he is flamboyant, loud, and energetic and will have a dance party at any time in any place as long as there is music playing. Seriously he broke it down at superfresh before when his cell phone began to ring with his favorite Janet Jackson song. But as feminine as he is I never associated him with the female gender and I considered myself lucky to have a male confidante on my side. I guess I just assumed that his opinions on certain issues would be the same as other men’s. After reading this week it hit me that the only reason he and I were so close is because he was like a girl friend, Travis builds relationships and communicates with others as a feminine person. He embodies characteristics that most men wouldn’t be caught dead owning up to. He is uninhibited with his actions and emotions; he always wanted to confide in me and others when something was bothering him. Also unlike men I know he never got embarrassed when telling a humiliating story, most of his stories began with, “ Oh my god you have no idea what I just did, I am soooo embarrassed!!” He wasn’t really embarrassed but he found humor in all situations and knew how to laugh at himself.
I have never had relationships with other boy friends that even came close to being as deep meaningful before Travis or after. I trusted him completely, maybe it’s because he showed me his weaknesses and genuinely had no hidden agenda behind being my friend. I don’t think I was ever one hundred percent unguarded when with heterosexual men, it’s uncontrollable. But I could always be my true weird and flawed self around him because we had no judgment or expectations about one another, I’m not even sure if I could say that about all of my female friends. This is my acceptation to men and women being friends, it can only work when attraction is removed from the equation.
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Heather,
ReplyDeleteI also have friends that are gay "male" and "female" and I don't think that these types of relationships with heterosexuals are considered "cross-sex" relationships, although biologically they maybe the opposite sex. If that's not too confusing.
What I'm trying to say is... these types of friendships should stand the test of time because there's no challenge presented by either party since there's no attraction and you share commonalities which also make it less difficult.
I've had cross-sex relationships in the past were I'm sure there was some attraction by both parties but noone ever crossed the line and nothing became of it. One friend moved out of state and we still keep in contact but we have different lives now...and I think that's what will terminate a cross-sex relationship if anything (when the other party enters into a committed relationship).