My best friend is a boy that most of my friends have never met, but could probably talk about for hours. Although skeptical at first, they’ve come to understand that the basis of our friendship is completely platonic and that he’s become the closest thing to a brother that I’ve ever had. But, even now, we can’t go out for dinner at our favorite restaurants (despite having told the waiters, what feels like 1000 times, that we’re “just friends”) without somebody asking us when we’re going to be a ‘thing’.
And honestly, I’m sick of it. I’ve got my theories about where the idea that the boy-girl friendship dynamic would always become something more came from (‘Love, Rosie’ I’m looking at you) but I’m struggling to understand why I’m expected to find someone who’s been sick on my favorite shoes and broke their arm by jumping off my bed (yes it’s as stupid as it sounds) attractive. I may regularly drop everything, no matter how busy I am- much to the annoyance of my more local friends, to drive an hour to his house just to say ‘hey’ but i’m not in love with him. This is not a dramatic heart-and-head internal conflict, don’t worry. In fact,the biggest conflict in our relationship is who gets the most chunks of cookie dough when we split a tub of ice cream. No joke. That’s the way it’s always been but people just cannot accept it.
The most annoying thing about it all is how ignorant people can be. I don’t expect people to understand every aspect of my life and the ever-growing complexities of our friendship, but I’ve had longer friendships with dramatic teenage girls that nobody want to talk about. Somehow him and I are everybody’s favorite topic of conversation. Whether I post a photo and get asked who the new love interest in or I have to drop things to go save him from bad dates, people always have something to say. It frustrates me that he can’t come to family dinners anymore and avoids my house during the holidays because of my super persistent cousins. Their mountain of questions have drove him away, but I’m glad he gets to skip out on the monthly grilling and quick fire round. The conversation starts with a question about our (obviously non-existent) sex life and ends up being a debate about whether or not he is gay.
I don’t know where questions about his sexuality come into our lack of sexual tension and maybe it bugs me more than it should, but us millennials have turned so shallow. Maybe the media presents an inaccurate representation of how we’re supposed to be, but it’s hardly 1984-esque brainwashing. We are perpetuating the growth of a society in which young lads who don’t want to fuck every girl in sight is gay or just a pussy. And it’s wrong. I think the freedom to be who you are, conforming to typical masculine/feminine stereotypes or otherwise, is a beautiful thing –and should be a right, not a privilege- but I do not believe in categorizing people and pushing them into boxes in which they don’t belong.
My best friend is not gay, or in love with me- I can say this with absolute certainty, as I believe we are close enough to have either of those conversations without it having implications on our friendship. He’s been there for every major life event and we’ve been inseparable since the day we met. We’ve been across the world together, spent whole days in A&E and almost got arrested. We talk a lot about parallel universes and he’d got me convinced that these alternate dimensions really exist, but I’m not looking for anything else, i’m just glad to be in this one- it’s where I found him. He’s always a step ahead of me and the reason I fully believe in platonic soul mates. He makes every day brighter and I couldn’t imagine the world without him. I love him to bits but don’t want anything more from him or from us, he’s everything I need him to be (yes, even with everything staying in his pants) and I’m so glad he’s a part of my life.
So no, we’re not shagging. Please stop asking- it really puts a dampener on our plan for world domination.
