Belonging
I’ve always preferred the company of girls to that of men. To be honest, I’ve never really felt any particular kinship with other dudes. When I was a small boy, I slept in my sister’s bedroom because my brother scared the shit out of me. I played games with my sister, or I played quietly by myself. My imaginary friend, Misty Codge, was a girl, and I wanted sneakers just like hers. When my sister had sleepovers, I hung out with her friends all night. Girls, I always knew, were way better.
When I went to school, I quickly learned about gender separation, something I had never experienced before. It seemed really weird to me in kindergarten that the boys played with other boys and girls played with other girls. The boys played stupid physical games that got them dirty. I, on the other hand, refused to get dirty. The girls were unwilling to hang out with me because then they would get teased about me being their boyfriend, an utter absurdity amongst five year olds. I promptly formed my own playground club and invited boys and girls along.
Of course, school being ultimately a place of enforced conformity, I couldn’t keep convincing my peers to ignore gender groups, and this led to my realization that in order to hang out with girls you had to be girlfriend and boyfriend. The next week, I had three girlfriends. Simultaneously. Of course these little playground romances were nothing more than modified games of pretend, and the girls would just go right back to playing with the other girls when bored with the game.
And it wasn’t just school. As I grew up, gender groups started getting enforced everywhere. I remember keenly one day when Mom was having a bridal shower at our house for one of the girls in our church. I helped my sister and her decorate and clean up the house, but when the guests started arriving, my mom sat me down and explained that boys weren’t allowed to attend bridal showers and that I would have to play in my room when the ladies arrived. I remember feeling so betrayed and so wronged. I felt excluded, and I hated it. I remember crying quietly in my room because none of it made any sense to me.
In high school, I was the sensitive geeky guy that all the nice honors-class girls went to when their boyfriends were acting like assholes (which happened on an almost weekly basis). I helped girls by being their friend in times of trouble. I joked with them and made them laugh with graphic stories in which their ex-boyfriends were horribly mutilated for being stupid enough to dump such wonderful human beings. Once or twice, I got romantically interested in one or two of these friends, but that tended to end poorly. By and large, though, I was the safe guy, the guy you talked to and joked with. This is the only part of high school that I enjoyed, and I’m happy to say that this continued throughout most of college and led right into me dating and marrying one of my best friends in the world.
The truth of the matter is, though, that life feels like it has separated again. It may or may not be true of course, but perception is reality in such matters. My female friends are married or dating, and, you know, I’m happy for them. But my little selfish inner five-year-old sometimes feels like I’m being locked out of the bridal shower all over again. When we meet up with married friends, I’m expected to talk with the husband even though it makes me feel even more uncomfortable than most social situations do already. On a very primal and emotional level, I miss my female friends, and I hate being categorized with all the other men.
Being a feminist, I hate myself for this. I understand the concept of protected spaces. I understand that all minorities — even the ones that I belong to — need safe places. I understand that I’m not allowed in unless I’m specifically invited. I don’t want to be a man who’s just trying to colonize a proctected female space. But I still feel that terrible feeling that five-year-old Rusty first felt on the playground. I miss being Rusty, the harmless guy who was one of the girls. And I feel defeated by the When-Harry-Met-Sally veil that separates me from where I’ve always felt happiest and most comfortable.
Technorati Tags: Women, Feminism, Gender, Friendship, Melancholy