February 2009

You’re not my friend. You’re my husband’s friend, or my family’s friend. Let me make it perfectly clear, unless you are Mike or Sordid you will never be my friend.

That doesn’t mean we can’t be friendly, I love reading your blogs and my family loves spending time with you. I just don’t have a need for a male friend. I’d love to meet your wife, heck, I cozied right up to Will just so I could claim a friend with a pink car that didn’t come from Mary Kay. My husband is my very best friend, he’s the man I rely on, talk to, ask questions of and trust with my secrets.

My girlfriends fill a very important role in my life. We’re silly or snarky together, they challenge me to be a better person, a kinder mother, a gentler wife. My girlfriends inspire me reach higher and we comfort each other when we fumble. I talk to them them about the things I can’t tell my husband, things like menses and ingrown hairs. Things that might make me unappealing to him. We play tennis, take hikes and go to parties together.

There’s no part of me that requires the input of a male friend. I have a brother for that. There’s no reason for me to spend time chatting with guys, I have a husband to talk to. There will never be a swipe at my husband on my blog, nor out of my mouth; it’s not funny when folks do that, and it’s neither funny nor clever. In fact, there’s that awkward silence where you don’t know if you’re supposed to laugh or leave the room.

There’s an abundance of women who write about their husband’s inadequacies. If they aren’t moaning about how difficult their marriages are, they’re making little jokes about how their husband is dumb/slow/horny/easy to manipulate. I gasp a little.

I don’t think men are stupid. I think my son is wonderful and bright and kind. I’d hate to imagine him having a wife who thinks he’s anything less than a hero. I wouldn’t want my daughter to think her husband is disposable.

I don’t have any guy friends of my own.

I’m not missing anything.