orichalcum

Happy Birthday, Leon!

Let's see...lots of interesting things to talk about. Great weekend running Alea for close friends I don't get to see too often and new friends like Fiona. Yummy food, pretty park. Onto more interesting topics:


Borrowed from apintrix:

Ten Things I've done that most of my friends probably haven't - and if you have, I'm curious to hear!

1. Gotten on the back of a complete stranger's motorcycle.
2. Stayed up for three continuous days.
3. Written 22 pages in 3 hours, 3 times in a row.
4. Gotten frostbite (a mild case.)
5. Hugged a 2000-year-old olive tree in the garden of Gethsemane.
6. Asked a guy to marry me.
7. Eaten chocolate covered-grasshoppers (without knowing what they were.)
8. Run the length of the Olympic stadium (at Olympia).
9. Petted a killer whale's tongue.
10. Been sneezed on by an elephant - and ridden one bareback.




In other news, I've been pondering friendships between men and women. Specifically, I've been thinking about generational changes, and how many people of my parents' generation are skeptical or suspicious of platonic male-female friendships, at least between heterosexual or bi people. And I've largely sneered at that idea, cuz, well, I have lots of close male friends who I'm perfectly fine not sleeping with. :) (No offense intended here.)

But what I'm not sure about is that I do think that at some level, my very close friendships with guys are qualitatively different than my closest friendships with women. Not more or less close, but different. I'm not sure I have a good way to express it, particularly. I might say that my close friendships with guys seem more purely philia, more selfless and generous. I want less from them; I'm extremely happy when they find romantic partners who make them happier people; I expect a certain level of casual physical intimacy and cuddling as part of the relationship. Trust is an enormous and key part of any friendship with a guy. You could call it "sisterly," certainly, and that may be part of it - I grew up with one brother but no sister, so I have a sense of how that kind of relationship is instinctively supposed to work.

In my close friendships with women, I think I do lean on them more for advice and support beyond the "big hug" variety, although not significantly more. I'm probably slightly more possessive, and want more of a holistic relationship in which we share a variety of activities and confidences. Regular updates about each other's lives are more important - the gossip aspect. Physical contact, while still nice, of course, is less important, and I worry less about maintaining long-distance friendships. I care about whether my female friends are friends with each other. I worry about whether my female friends are backstabbing me and don't really want to be my friend, but I never fear or worry about them directly.

So what I _don't_ know is whether this is just me, and everyone else has precisely equivalent friendships regardless of gender, or whether this says something about socialization ( or even biology, to drag Lawrence Summers into this) of people with regard to gender. Am I expressing a socialized need for a sense of community with other women different from friendships with individual guys? Is this an aspect of social competition/looking for "protectors"? (I don't really think so, but...)

      So I'm curious as to whether other folks find any difference in their friendships based on gender, and what they attribute this to. How much can we get past our parents' prejudices, and how much are they still applicable?