An older relative of mine kept making out-of-character, sarcastic comments when I told him I was going to Leeds to a match with my friend Anto. When I needled him about his remarks, he said it might be seen as inappropriate for me, a (straight) married woman, to be going away with a (straight) male friend.
What is appropriate, then? I asked. A daytime walk or lunch. I decided not to tell him right then that not only would we be having lunch but we would be sharing a hotel room – at night. The conversation bruised me, even though my husband laughed heartily. I was subdued when I met Anto at the airport. But we guffawed over the idea that we wouldn’t be able to keep our hands off each other as he ate a sourdough sandwich and, knowing him as well as I do, my concerns turned to what impact his bread choice was going to have on our shared airspace as his stomach expanded.
Not only did we share a hotel room for one night, but, due to a big storm, we ended up having to stay a second night in a Travelodge. As we finally waited to board, we were having a laugh with a grandad, father and son in Leeds jerseys about being waylaid for three days. The young boy, swinging off a bar, said he didn’t get much sleep at the hotel. “Yeah, well, I had to share a room with this fellah.” I pointed at Anto and I can’t remember if I actually said, “And he never stopped farting”, but I was definitely thinking it. The men responded with disconcerting tight-lipped smiles.
[ My best friend sexually propositioned me and I haven’t seen him sinceOpens in new window ]
There is a unique stomach-curdling wind vortex around Leeds airport, even on a good day. As it turned out, I couldn’t keep my hands off Anto because as the plane got reefed around in the storm, I hooked my arm tightly under his. We talked quietly and intimately, choking down warm gin and tonics, and chuckling despite certain death. Anybody could have assumed we were a couple and I realised that the lads at the airport must have thought it weird for a woman to be joking around about sharing a hotel room with her husband.
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I could say that I am phenomenally lucky to have an actual husband who does not bat an eyelid about who my friends are, their gender, age or where or when I found them. I shouldn’t have to say that I’m lucky. I don’t question him on his friends, most of whom are women, a legacy of his nursing background.
I am not denying the chance that platonic feelings can morph into something else. All friendships start with an attraction and there is a certain amount of discernment and skill in cultivating that all-important chemistry that keeps any friendship playful and interesting. If electricity creeps in, it could be down to an inability to decipher that it is not actually sexual tension. After all, we’ve been teasingly asked since we were toddlers if our nose-picking desk buddy is our boyfriend.
If that messy wave comes, you take it head-on and find out if it’s total wipeout or if you stay standing. When I was younger, some friendships fell away due to a tectonic shift caused by an actual shift, but a few survived, and even thrived after bumbling encounters deftly killed and buried any question of romance.
It doesn’t enter my mind to set different boundaries with male and female friends. It evokes concepts such as segregated schools ... it makes me feel my role in the world is dependent on men’s desires
I have a lot of love to give and there’s a fine line between platonic love and romantic love, but it is there. I remember the exact moment I fell in love with my husband, the precise sensation. It was fear. I was on the top deck of the bus, coming into O’Connell Street, and he texted me on my Nokia phone about playing chess with a client in the refugee centre he worked in. My internal organs tightened and dropped. Oh no, I thought. These feelings are ecstatic and glorious but terrifying and unmanageably enormous. They came to take me away like the BFG and I just sat into the ear of this gentle giant, instantly worried about how requited or enduring this love would be.
I am confident that that kind of all-encompassing, could-ruin-my-life love is reserved for my husband. If my friendships do not detract my attention or affection away from my marriage but, in a way, only make it better by me being happier, we’re all winning.
In my late 30s, I had the incredible luck of two big, deep friendships falling into my lap. One is with a woman who I admired from afar, with her red lips, jumpsuits, and massive hoop earrings – the coolest person I had ever seen. The other is with a man whose very presence knocked me off my feet from the moment he walked into the room and still does.
The early days of friendship can feel a bit like romantic love. The hunger for new knowledge about them, the giddiness of being near them, the thrill of their name on your phone, the itching to tell them something that only they will get. How exquisite friendship can be.
It just doesn’t enter my mind to set different boundaries with male and female friends – what activities we can do together, what things we can say to each other. It would make a mockery of all the effort I put into the friendship but, more than that, it evokes, for me, concepts such as segregated schools and the idea that even sharing a space with someone of the opposite sex is going to somehow derail my ability to function normally.
It makes me feel disempowered and that my role in the world is dependent on men’s desires, limiting the way that I am allowed by society to interact with them. Like I’m going to absolutely wreck everyone’s buzz if a man and I make a deep emotional connection with nothing else on the cards but life-affirming friendship.
I have always felt, in a way, more comfortable with men. That’s probably because of a boarding school experience during which I lived in fear and dread of the girls and women that I was trapped in the convent with. Or maybe it is because my brothers were always figures of safety and protection to me – easy, largely predictable company that I could talk to about anything.
My world is dominated by men. I function in so many settings surrounded and significantly outnumbered by them. In the football club I volunteer in and at work, the male-to-female ratios are wildly disproportionate.
The numbers thing doesn’t really upset me. I am often speaking in rooms of 50 to 100 people in which I am the only woman. You’re turning into one of the lads, a man said to me recently. I don’t want to be one of the lads. I want to be here, as me, a woman, but still have an opportunity to be true friends.
Women are taught to fight for equality. More than equality though, I’m looking for equilibrium. If I am expected to confidently find a balance with men in all other aspects of my life, I want to do it within friendship too.
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