People think men and women can't just be friends.
But my best friend is a woman. We go out together almost everywhere, though we've never dated.
The difference between the sexes is a puzzle I do want to try and fit together. But being good friends with a woman gives me an interesting perspective, which most other guys lack.
Simple friendship leaves plenty of room for honesty. We have no qualms about noting each other's flaws. We're unafraid to be offensive or point out the nice looking person that just walked past. And we don't use meaningless adverbs to realize our charms.
While women gripe they cannot find a sensitive polite man who has manners, they often run in the other direction when they do find one. Perhaps it's because of that motherly adage about watching out for the bad boys.
On the same token men say they just want someone nice. We do want that, but too often we fail to look beyond the fa+â-ºade; the nice looks, tans, hair and fingernails.
Jerry Seinfeld once let his audience in on a secret about what's really on men's minds.
Nothing.
According to him, we're all just walking around with a blank canvas in our heads, trying to find women. We like women, we want women, but that's pretty much where our train of thought ends.
That Freudian observation isn't necessarily true. But take a good look around on a Friday night in any of the Village bars and you'll find it carries a lot of weight. Women, along with beer, weigh heavily on the minds of college males sitting at their barstools or throwing out bad pick-up lines on the dance floor.
Women themselves have stereotypes of other women, as my friend attests, such as "Barbies," or "phonies." Little surprise, she says, that men complain about girlfriends who only talk about themselves, or their ex-boyfriends or personal dramas. I can't argue. Such criticisms are valid, but one of the problems is that people avoid telling the truth about one another. It creates tension because the whole relationship is based on trying not to let the other person know how much he or she irritates them.
Of course not all couples are like that. Those are the ones willing to expose their souls, warts and all.
People always tell us we're like an old married couple, we argue so much. But a certain degree of affection exists under the tumult.
Write to Robert at rclopez@bsu.edu--2)b'--Robert's ColumnDNEditorial--2SORT'+â-ä2AUDT
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