There is this cable show called “My Boys” about a female sports writer who shares many the same interests as men and therefore has more male friends than females. I don’t think the show itself it great, but it is definitely a concept I can relate to.
I love sports and music. I like beer. I do not obsess about my nails, hair, waxing, weight, make-up, etc. I am more than happy waking up, taking a shower, throwing on jeans and a t-shirt and walking out the door with a wet head and no make-up or hair products. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an ugly fat hag either. I think I look like the girl next door with few extra pounds, but still a size 8. Okay, I digress.
My whole life I have had more male than female friends. I find men more open with their feelings – they like you or they don’t. I find it easier to be honest with men than women. You can tell a man that he’s being a jerk or a pig and he’s cool with it as long as you don’t harp on it. You tell a woman that and you must obviously hate her and have put yourself on her shit list. Granted – I am generalizing. I have female friends that, for the most part, don’t fit these generalizations as there are some men who stray from this as well.
I also find that I like a man’s emotional strength. I think it’s inspiring and moving. Maybe my Italian background has laid the foundation for my admiration of silent suffering, but a weak male is not attractive. Maybe it’s a primitive natural instinct to be attracted to a strong male as he is more likely to survive and therefore provide for his family, whereas the weak male is prone to struggle. So where am I going with all this male-female differences and such…… I have recently been bothered the actions and words of a close male friend of mine.
Over the years, many friends have come and gone in my life – for various reasons, good and bad. Those that have stayed close to me have been able to deal with my insanity, frankness, wild yet conservative, open yet reserved strong personality. And, well, they also haven’t pissed me off or betrayed me to a point where we couldn’t forgive and move on. Like I’ve said in previous blogs – I am not perfect! Nor do I expect those in my life to be perfect. My close friends and family, in my humble opinion, have their own personal strength which I admire and draw on from time to time.
There is this one close male friend “R”, whom I have known for years, that has recently begun to question my sincerity in our relationship. I have made an attempt to rectify some of my behaviors that have left “R” feeling neglected. Just when I began to think that things were reverting back to normal I’m confronted with R’s insecurities again. This time I realized that my disgust of his feelings is because I am seeing – for the first time – weakness and a lack of self confidence. R and I have formed a close tight bond over the years because we have provided each other with strength and inspiration to get through life’s difficulties. R has always been, as I have seen it, a strong man until recently.
There are many things going on in his life that would be overwhelming for anyone. He and his wife are struggling with their finances, he was just notified that there will be a change in his position within the next few months with a possibility of being let go due to downsizing, and he has a great desire to start a family but it has proven to be a bit of a struggle. But I have been taken aback by his faltering self confidence. R was always one to believe he could do anything. He had this rough tough city attitude of survival – he had set goals and was bound and determined to achieve them. At times a little support and nudging along the way were needed, but then again who doesn’t need that every so often. To see this strength fade bothers me more than I would have expected.
I am seeing R as a weak individual and I want to walk away. This is not in my nature. I usually am the one people come to in times of need and can be extremely supportive. I don’t understand why I am feeling this way with R. Well, I guess that’s not true. To the best of my ability I can identify the cause for this feeling as being disillusioned with his neediness.
The other thing that is bothering me with R is his marriage. His wife is a good person and I truly have no complaints about her. However he shared with me that they were not spending much time together due to both of their schedules and that after discussing this with her they agreed to try to spend more time with each other. He also shared with her that earlier in the year he was questioning their relationship and went out to dinner with another married woman. R claims nothing happened, and I have no reason to not believe him. But then he tells me these next few tidbits, and truthfully I can’t get them out of my head.
First, he tells me that his wife had plans to go out for a celebratory dinner with friends. These plans had been made months ago, and he was to join them. When the evening arrived he was exhausted and discovered there was a high probability that he would be the only guy there. So R and his wife agreed that he should stay home and rest. As it turned out, all the other men that were invited to this dinner cancelled and R would have been the only guy there. This made his wife feel better that they made this decision. As the night came to a close she drove home, not thinking to try and call him because he was hopefully resting. She walked into an empty house.
R had left no note – no message on the answering machine – no message on her cell phone – NOTHING. When she attempted to call his cell phone it went directly into voice mail. She left him a message to call her, which he did about 2 hours later.
R claims that a female friend of his had an emergency with water overflowing in her bathroom and no one else was able to help her. So R drove a half an hour to help her shut off the water and diagnose the problem to the best of his ability. When I questioned him as to why he had not left his wife a note as to where he was, R simply said that it all went down so fast and he had many phone calls to make along the way he was not able to call her. I asked him why his phone wasn’t on – because as many of know when it goes straight to voice mail this usually indicates that the phone is off. R claimed that the battery was low. (Yet, he has a car charger – hmmm????)
Now his wife, God Bless Her, asked the same questions. She calmly expressed her disappointment in his inability to leave her SOME kind of notification as to where he went and/or why. Bringing up the fact that if she had done this to him, R would have been irate he agreed and apologized. She also mentioned that this is not the first time he has done this. Several months ago a similar situation happened. R says that his mom had a friend whose car had broken down on the highway near his home and no one else could get to her in the pouring rain so his mom asked R to go help this girl. He got dressed and raced out the door, again leaving no note, no phone call, no nothing. His wife arrived home to see all the lights on, the TV on, yet no sign of her husband. She tried to call him, but he wasn’t answering his phone. She noticed the last 2 numbers on the caller ID and called them. One was to his friend, whom he had gotten off the phone with because his mom called. The next number was his mother’s. When the wife called his mom, she confirmed the story she would later hear from R. However, after going through this once, R failed to learn the lesson and repeats the same action. How is this supposed to help improve his marriage?
Then R tells me that one night he came home late, because one of the guys was unable to drive home and he offered to take him home – again about a half an hour away. He DID call his wife that night, so things were fine. Now he told me that he was going out with the same group of guys and that there was a high likeliness that he would have to drive this person home again. EXCEPT this time, he was thinking of staying over since he knew it was going to be a late night and because a friend of his that lives 10 minutes away from this person needed his dog walked the next day.
Doesn’t this all sound a bit fishy? If I was his wife, I would be feeing a bit mistrustful of all these stories and situations R keeps finding himself in. I might even start to wonder about where he actually is – who he is with – and what he is really doing. My heart is breaking for her. R wanted to try to fix a marriage he thought was in trouble, yet all I see him doing is causing more damage.
And this failure to improve on his flaws, this failure to see that his actions are not conducive with making his wife feel loved, and this decline in self confidence has led me to look at this long time friend through different eyes. I don’t like what I see. This is not the man that I once knew. But with patience that a friend like R has earned throughout our relationship, I will try to continue to be his friend and see him through this rough patch. I just hope that my view on him is not forever altered.
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