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Yes. I have known two Gay Men since we were College Freshmen together. We were all just Ragamuffins when we arrived at that fifth-rate University, and together, over the years, figured out how to be rich and ritzy. They, at least, came from families of bankrupt, dysfunctional Aristocrats. And so they had the right instincts...and kept DH and Me on-track.
And there was a Suzie so poor she had to de-pledge her Sorority; from another fine family who had lost everything. But she knew all the Bigwigs of the school, which came in handy, later. My husband, I met, first week of school, in Weightlifting 101. Thought he was afflicted in some way, at first. Turns out he had been bullied to the point of Suicide. You can't imagine how pitiful and hideous he was. But he was smart, and turned out to have rather extreme potential.
So, the five of us hung together, had study groups while everybody else was goofing off. We worked out together. Those three Aristos took DH and Me under their wings, and we've been a power team ever since. The fact that we were able to wrap ourselves in this cocoon of upward-directed/goal-oriented, ambitious friends was so important. We didn't waste time, or pick up bad habits. Everything was directed toward becoming bigger and better. Most of the kids at that school came from loser backgrounds, too. But they wasted a lot of time and opportunity. We didn't.
DH and I had the most horrible accents imaginable. Think of the slimiest Mississippi White Trash you've ever heard. Think of something seven or eight class levels lower even than Haley Barbour...and throw in that yodeling quality of Mr. Haney's speech on Green Acres...where there is so much texture every word jumps through several octaves ( YouTube - ‪Mr Haney Phone Company‬‏ ) Then add heavy Celtic-derived Dipthongs...all drawn-out, Southern style....but with ugly, 'Hard Rs', 'Flat A-sounds'..... My Husband's speech the result of growing up in a Louisiana Swamp...mine the result of growing up in a Mississippi Melungeon Shantytown. We still have recordings. Awful. If you remember Yeardley Smith playing Bonita Rokeke, "The Keek", the escapee from Juvie, on #48 segment of Mama's Family....well, that was Me...except my voice was worse.
Anyway, one of those friends had the idea (and the tape recorder...we were penniless) to go to a lab at the Library, and listen to recordings of the British Royal Family, who, he decided, had the accents which represented the apex of English speech. We'd listen to a few words and repeat into the recorder....then play them back. Took YEARS until we finally had our Eliza Doolittle moments, and were able to transcend the very architecture of our speech, and step out of the Mudhole and onto Grand Boulevard. But our Gay friends were there, working with us. As a team, we helped the Guys deepen their voices, build their bodies, and pass for 'straight'. We helped the Suzie lose her 'Bruised Magnolia', apologetic Methodist Doormat speech traits, and become assertive and definite.
We worked on posture and assertiveness. We began theorizing investment strategy...and then began actually investing and saving. Even though we were still working our way through school, and on grants/scholarships, our kids started life with (tiny) Trust Funds. One of the Guys discovered the Steinmart Saks Sale, in Greenville, and we'd pile into a borrowed Van, and all drive up there to snatch up damaged/returned goods at Pennies on the Dollar. Previously, we'd had access only to used K-mart clothes from Thrift Stores. Suddenly, thanks to that Gay friend, I was dressing DH, and Myself, and our kid, in fine English and Italian things from Saks Fifth Avenue. We were now the fabulously-dressed little clique on campus.
The friend who became a Decorator helped us with our first Apartment Building...a 4-plex in a slum off Campus. We lived in one unit, and rented the rest. Today, that segment of our lives, both personal and investment, is handled by his firm. He successfully repackaged us for our move to Oregon (away from Neo-Rothschildian Mississippi opulence, and into Minimalist Pacific Northwest mode, for our 'important Swiss Brutalist' home).
The other friend went into Advertizing/Commercial Design. In a way, he created us, and continues to manage that aspect of our being. So, together, these two helped transform us, in virtually every facet of our lives. I know the long, sad stories of those guys' (lack of ) love lives. I know which famous Bodybuilding stars they've rented, and how much my friends paid for their major acquisitions (the Concert Grand Pianos, the Georgian Silver, the big houses they inhabit all alone...). I've empathized over the recurring rejections...always, ultimately, confirming the maxim: "Nobody wants a Queen".
In addition to those primary, oldest friendships, I've had long friendships with distinguished bigwigs, who were kind to me when was a nothing. They became surrogate Grandparents for our Kids. A couple of times, I've been the one standing there, holding their Widow's hands, as they were lowered into their graves.
Plus, I've been longtime friends with straight bodybuilders from the gym where we worked out for two decades....not best friends, but close. I know the most intimate details of their lives, and we've been on trips together....and one step away from Soft-Swing with a couple of them.
Last edited by GrandviewGloria; 05-28-2011 at 12:15 PM..
1. Who are you and why are you so in love with your shift key ?
2. I'm mildly curious to know what speech traits are particularly "apologetic Methodist Doormat," and what makes them so...
3. So, if I'm reading this right, you're saying that, yes, you can have functional platonic male friendships as long as those friends are wealthy gay aristocrats that take you under their wing in some soft of strange Salinger/Faulkner/Fitzgerald hybrid situation?
Men and women are different and segregated by nature. The only way to cross those boundaries is for one man and woman to meet, get to know each other, and marry.
Anyone have a best friend of the opposite sex and it's truly platonic? Really. Just best friends who can talk and share anything. Nothing past a hug. I'm thinking more of a friendship that has some time behind it. Not some one you met a couple weeks ago. Whataya think?
Yes, several, for varying amounts of time, few, if any of them have been a sexual or emotional attraction to me after high school years.
I know a long standing female friend was attracted to me at one point, and proposed either a relationship or a sexual relationship, I declined and that was that, we're still just as close as we were before and there's been no problem because of it.
I don't choose my friends based on gender, I choose my friends based on their personality, interests son on and so forth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by redfish1
opposite sex friendships are Impossible for normal people.
guys are only friends with girls because they want to hit it and girls that are friends with guys usually need attention or they're users
and the truth shall be told!
That sounds like a very limiting way of life, I'm glad it doesn't apply to me.
To TheViking, out of curiosity, since you've been on the opposite end of this...
If YOU were the one to propose intimacy and/or deepening the relationship to evolve into the romantic with a female friend, and she turned you down, would you choose to continue the friendship, knowing that that wasn't in the cards (as has apparently happened to you when the roles were reveresed?)
And, does this sort of thing make it a truly platonic friendship (where there is no sexual attraction between parties), or just an uneven friendship, where one person would gladly see it turn to a romantic relationship, but will accept it if that's not going to happen, and one who has no interest in that at all.
I'm just not sure I'd categorize a friendship where one is attracted and the other isn't as a truly platonic friendship. To me, that seems more like a pining, unrequited-type situation where one party is settling for something less than they'd prefer, and not so much a true friendship.
1. Who are you and why are you so in love with your shift key ?
2. I'm mildly curious to know what speech traits are particularly "apologetic Methodist Doormat," and what makes them so...
3. So, if I'm reading this right, you're saying that, yes, you can have functional platonic male friendships as long as those friends are wealthy gay aristocrats that take you under their wing in some soft of strange Salinger/Faulkner/Fitzgerald hybrid situation?
1. I think I pretty-well explained who I am: a Non-White, up from the lowest mudhole in the Poorest State, and steadily climbing. What is it that I'm doing with my Shift Key that irritates you so? My business dealings with Germans, however, have made me extremely unsure of my use of Capitals, and I am aware of inconsistencies and overkill. And someone normally cleans up after me.
2. Most specifically, the habit of ending words with an up-note, indicating anxiety, subservience, and permission-seeking. We didn't go about this very scientifically...mostly just got in there and did it...but everything from cadence to projection to,"Speak from your Chest; not from your Throat", enters into it.
There was a tentative, whiny, pleading quality to her speech, back then....sort of an eternal cringing...some holdover, I think, from the Nineteenth Century. I think it went back to that century of near-starvation that Mississippians went through, from the 1860s to the 1960s, when Middle-Class women there frequently lived lives dependent on the charity of others (no, Vivien Leigh did not fully convey the pathos and desperation inherent in Blance DuBois' situation), while weekly being browbeaten by their Preachers, for not adequately feeding the insatiable hungers of narcissistic religions (Nothing was ever, ever, enough. If you weren't perpetually in a state of Nervous Breakdown, you were not 'keeping that Revival Spirit all-year-long'.).
Anyway, this girl felt guilty for her Parents' poverty, her Grandparents' losing the Plantations...and for being a 'Sinner'...and for not making straight A's: "Those Baptist and Catholic girls make straight A's. Their Parents make them do it. Why can't you?". She knew the social rules. And she was so sweet and nurturing...like a Skogkatt. But otherwise, we had to rebuild her from top to bottom. She had been taught to be sorry and ashamed; basically as a state-of-being. We had to teach her, basically, to f--k the World.
3. I believe that I described three different kinds of platonic friendships I have successfully maintained with men. And I carefully described those two Gay friends as having been from impoverished/dysfunctional families. They're wealthy, now, because we all became so, as a team. As I said, they arrived as impoverished Ragamuffins, too.
Personally, I found Salinger, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald repellent. I'd rather think of myself and my friendships framed by Balzac, Tennessee Williams, and Hermann Hesse. But perhaps I did fail to convey that DH and I, early-on, became the Alpha Pair. While those friends are protective, and our interests have long been comingled, DH & I are, ultimately, the Fountainhead of the Cash Flow. I've got the Moxy, he's got the brains...
I have several female friends I wouldn't want to have sex with if the situation presented itself, and as I said, I've declined it when offered too.
And even if there is a potential sexual attraction, it doesn't need to get in the way of form the basis of a friendship.
People who choose their friends based on gender first and foremost would, at best, be described as narrow minded, if you ask me.
In regards to heterosexual couples, having friends of the opposite sex is dangerous. And if a man has too many female friends, he'll think from their perspective and turn against his own gender.
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