One of the greatest positive shifts in my relations with women occurred when I learned to have friendships with women I was attracted to, but who were not attracted to me back. Given that I was constantly attracted to women erotically, and only a fraction felt the same way about me, this shift was as important to make as it was challenging.
It is so easy for a man to remain in a “friendship” of unrequited lust in hopes that he might “get lucky” and “one day” she might see “what a great guy I am.” We men get a lot of cultural reenforcement for these hopes too, as the romantic trope of the guy who “doesn’t stand a chance” but who persists in his valiant efforts to “win her heart” in the face of horrible odds, but ends up “getting the girl” in the end, is the plot line of like 75% of all romantic movies and novels.
But a friendship born of persistence in pursuit of a sexual goal is not real friendship–a friendship with an agenda is a farce. And the attraction ends up coming out anyways, in uncomfortable, unwanted and awkward passes that catch the woman by surprise, make her feel manipulated (as she questions whether it was ever a “real” friendship,) and end up in the man feeling bitter about being rejected and having his desires invalidated yet again in his path towards romance and Eros.
Which–since the traditional Courtship Script has assigned men the role of initiators of romantic and sexual interest and women as the responders–has probably been going on since he mustered up the nerve to walk across the dance floor in the gym at the middle school dance, ask the girl to dance, and get rejected in front of all his classmates. Bitterness and resentment spreads all around, for boys and girls, men and women, and all genders.
Is there a way out? This is an urgent question. Because, as we’ve seen in the current upswell of long-overdue gender dialogue, we (primarily hetero) men and women don’t really know how to be friends with each other.
Since long before “When Harry Met Sally”–which merely highlighted our culture’s pessimism towards the question “Can men and women be friends?”–we’ve barely had any cultural examples in myth or media of this working out successfully.
Yet if (primarily) hetero men and women are having difficulty maintaining friendships without awkwardness or unwelcome agendas, how will we ever bridge the gender divide that only seems to be widening in front of our eyes, and bring peace among the sexes once and for all?
One answer is to encourage and allow a wider range of possibilities for relating between genders, with a wider array of shades and nuance. Currently, there are basically two categories: “platonic friends” and “potential romantic/sexual partners.” It’s one or the other. This leads to the controversial trope of the “friendzone,” that state of unrequited lust that seems to be the bitter bane of so many men’s existence.
Yet the concept of the friend zone does a disservice to both women and men, as it sets up friendship as a consolation prize. Since the Greeks (and of course before,) friendship has been seen as one of the great treasures of the human experience. Aristotle: “Without friends, no one would choose to live, though he [or she] had all other goods.”
Think of how much potential friendship is being thrown in the trash, because we as a society have not learned to allow or create real friendships in which one person is attracted to the other, but not the other way around. We could have an explosion of new friendships if we got this right as a culture.
One potential answer comes in learning to have what I call “platonic romance.” Think of all the aspects of romance that can be experienced without it necessarily leading to sex: that feeling of passionate aliveness, wonder, beauty, mutual exploration, creative collaboration, the vulnerable sharing of dreams, hopes and desires in life, and platonic (non-sexual) touch. Why do we only allow ourselves to experience these things across the genders if they occur on the road to sex?
Would it be possible for all these “romantic” joys of getting to know another human to flow, even if there was a clearly-respected boundary of “no sex” at the outset of the relationship? If we view romance as something deeper and more mysterious than just flowers and fancy dinners, would it be possible to experience romance in the context of a “platonic” (i.e., no sex) friendship?
Is it possible to love someone you’re attracted to unconditionally, even if they aren’t attracted to you back?
If this is something you’d like to explore, here’s a short phrase that can help you remember the task at hand. It’s not always easy. It’s a practice:
Practice loving people you’re attracted to unconditionally.
