I'll admit that I have a lot of friends who are girls. In my academic fraternity, all three of my littles are girls, four of my grandlittles are girls and my adopted grandlittle is a girl as well. You might be thinking, why is this important? I recently was asked the question "Can guys and girls be friends?" but before I could answer, one of my friends said, “No, it just won't work.”
Hearing this made me think about how many people go with the idea that you can't be friends with the opposite gender. I know it can be intimidating when you're dating someone and they meet someone who you call your best friend that you do spend a lot of time with. It can also be a little scary when there are many memories you have with your best friend that you don’t have with your girlfriend. However, even when you are dating, it is still OK to have friends who are girls, even best friends.
Recently, someone told me that I have too many friends who are girls and I didn’t like the idea of someone acting like they knew what was best for me when I don’t know them that well. Growing up, I always had that one best girl friend and I’m lucky enough to have retained many friends through college and camp. Of the girls in my life, most of them are like sisters to me who are mainly just there to bop me on the head when I do something stupid (which is a lot). I never really thought of it as a problem because I treated them the way I treated my sister and looked after them the way I did for my sister. Sometimes we get jealous and we let the jealousy get the best of us.
There are some things that I feel more comfortable telling girls rather than guys. I do get along with guys and always have that set of guy friends in my life that I'll do stuff with, but sometimes it's good to get a woman’s sense when you tell them something. I recently told one of my friends that I act a certain way around some people because I don’t know how I feel about them seeing the real me. When I went through a breakup, I told two of my closest girl friends before I could tell anyone else. It wasn’t anything against telling my guy friends, but at the time, I wasn’t as comfortable telling them.
One thing I have thought about is how you satisfy both people in a relationship of having friends who are girls. What I have realized is that I do not know how to satisfy both. I've spent so much of my life trying to make lots of people happy and sometimes might not even make myself happy. I know in the end someone will get hurt but we just don’t know who it will be. I understand that in a relationship you want to spend as much time as possible with your significant other, but they also need time and space to do their own things.
Some people might not understand some friendships, but I do and always will. I do have a lot of friends who are girls and yes, I might be close to them, but it doesn’t mean I should be judged or treated any differently. Some people just connect better with certain people and while it has taken some time in college to find my group of guy friends, I will still always have that one girl best friend, if not maybe a few more.