Boys and Friends

This week has hosted a lovely string of meetings with friends - over coffee, and omelets, and delicious, sinful, organic pie. There has been chitchat and banter, and glee over each other’s respective successes at life. There has been admiring of each other’s coats and purses, before I inquire after their men, and they inquire after my dogs. And we part ways with a hug and a smile and a lovely to see you…because you see, we are girls, and this is what girls do.

Boys, I guess, are harder. But…they’re not, really. When I think of why the majority of my close friends are female, and the ratio of guys to girl is 1:10 at best, I inevitably wonder how it ended up that way. Because I do like hanging out with guys, and getting to know guys, and generally being around friends of the male persuasion. And sure, I have boy angst in my background, and my male-relative-childhood angst is palpable, but I don’t think that’s the issue here. I think the issue may come down to something much, much simpler.

I am, mentally and socially, the age of seven.

Seven was a good year - don’t get me wrong. I rocked the second grade. There was some solid story time, and hanging out on my bff Samantha’s farm (her family owned goats!). We were cute enough to get away with murder, but our short attention spans and boundless energy meant that life was a string of OMG! A Cloud that LOOKS like a Bunny! Did you SEE that? What? Let’s go ride bikes!

As every good seven year old knows, boys (or girls, respectively) are icky. It’s not that they’ve especially done anything wrong…but the boys aren’t like you, and thus are worthy of collective distain. You are a girl. You play with other girls, while the boys play with boys, and the two social groups seem to ignore each other, entirely, until you have a snow-wedding where you are married to an unfortunate looking boy with the last name Snell.

As this analysis is all very stereotyped, let us not forget the burgeoning gay and lesbian children, lost and wandering between the groups without a sense of belonging, and the lone smelly kid, who no one played with at all. But for the most part, I believe my seven-year-old self was typical - I clung to my small group of same-sex friends and didn’t think anything of it.

Later on, puberty happened, and guy friends happened, and first relationships happened. Sex happened. University happened. And then there was a lot of beer, which blurs things a little, but, along the way, almost all of the friendships I grew and maintained were with girls. When boys (now technically men) came into my life, the scenario always seemed the same: someone would inevitably end up liking someone else who didn’t like them back, and then someone always ended up heartbroken, or rejected, and it was awkward, and Ivy ended up without male friends, again.

There were, and are, exceptions - notably, guys in long term relationships, distant cousins, and gay men, circling the periphery of my life and being lovely in their non-girly ways. I like that. I like hanging out with guys, and mixed company, and kicking back with a beer and a terrible local hockey team (bandwagon supporters in tow). Just don’t ask me too many questions about sports, and we’ll be fine. Oh, and don’t ask me to play cards, I can’t do that. Or pool…oooh, especially not pool. Anything with hand-eye coordination, really. What am I into? Umm…well…knitting? I have a lemon tree named Cecil, and some puppies….no? …I don’t belong here?

Whatever, guys, I don’t need you anyways. I have my female friends, and I have my brain tumor, Steve, and my crippling loneliness, and we’re just fine without you, thanks. As long as my life doesn’t turn into a Sex and the City episode, I’m okay with hanging out with my girlfriends over coffee any day.

Also:

Dear Vengeful God, please don’t let me turn into anything resembling Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City. Please, please, please…I hate her horse-faced show, her ugly hats, and her one-dimensional consumer friends so very, very much. Thank you, God. You rock. Amen.