Wednesday, September 5, 2012

When There's A Woman In Your Life

Fact: It is easier for me to be friends with women.

Is it because I'm gay? Maybe. I don't identify with women more. I just get along better with them.

Fact: My closest friendships have always been with guys, with one exception

The one exception aside, the longest, closest relations I have had have been with men. This ranges from my freshman roommates to current roommates to Brian (the man who I was previously in a relationship with).

Fact: All female relationships I have had at BYU have fallen apart, slowly degraded and/or simply became non-existent.

This makes me sad. Be ready for a string of pseudonyms. Tina was my rebel friend freshman year. We hung out, played poker, dissed cookie-cutter Mormons. And then I told her I was gay. And our relationship got better! Three in the morning trips to random places, meeting with random people to go to random parties, clubbing. We had a blast. What happened to her? Her mother died and she now is in charge of taking care of her 12 and 16 year old sisters. BYU and college are no longer options and she is gone.

How about Adriana? She dated my freshman roommate and had her heart broken asunder when she promised to marry him and he promptly broke up with her later that day. We studied American Heritage together, went running, swimming talked about music and books. And then I told her I was gay. And our relationship got better! Where is she now? I don't know. We just stopped talking.

Cari? We baked together, I took her on a date (I asked) traded hot coco recipes. We haven't spoken though except through tiny get togethers over the past two years.

Vanessa? I thought I legit liked her. Explored new places in Provo (try doing that with anyone. Provo is small enough to make it difficult). She has now moved away from my life. Still attends BYU. She's just not in my life.

Luci? Summer thing. Even worse, I thought she was a friend for life. But now she's gone.

Shelly? I always took her little scrapbook things and rearranged them for amusement. She confessed to me her hopes and dreams and fears. We watched (and constantly disagreed about) The Voice. She's on a mission now. And gone, just like most female friends I have made.

What is it about BYU that makes my female friends hard to keep and while my male friends go off on missions? I do not know. I'm making a conscious effort to keep my female friends. Even if my track record doesn't show it, these friends are valuable to me. So, to my remaining female friends, I have two years left to keep you all and I WILL be doing it.

As a last little thing, my best friend is a female named Kim (not a pseudonym.) I'm surprised I have not talked about her yet. She is the first person I ever said "I love you" to. She is the first person I told I was gay. She is the first person to have accepted me for, well, me. She is the first person I cried in front of. I do love her. I haven't seen her for longer than three or so days since beginning college because her and her smart little brain attend UC Berkeley. But I've kept her as my best friend. And I don't feel as though we have drifted apart.

2 comments:

  1. For a second I thought you were talking about Evil Kim and I was about to be like What??!! You told me before you told her!
    Jealousy is apparently a fine friend of mine.
    I think maybe some time we should get together and talk about what a terrible human being I am and what went down this summer.
    Love you,

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    Replies
    1. Silly. I still consider you a friend. The summer fling was from LAST summer. :)

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