I watched "I Love You, Man" this past weekend and while the movie was no great shakes, it does bring up the question of how males meet other males. It's a problem I've always given quite a bit of thought to because I generally find it difficult to find good guy friends. In fact, when I do meet a guy that I think I can get along with really well, I tend to gush and develop man-crushes on them. I think they are the greatest people, I think they are the coolest people, and I love that they are a new addition to the boy side of the ledger.
Meeting new guys is not the problem. I mean, there are always random guys that could be available for acquaintance level activities. About eight weeks ago, I was playing basketball and met this guy who had gone to Eastern Michigan but hung out a lot on Umich's campus. We didn't know any of the same people but he seemed cool, he had an interesting job (car designer), he noted that it was hard to meet people in SD, and he was good at basketball. He gave me his email address and I remembered it all the way home, wrote it down, and then game planned to email him in a week's time.
The movie had a semi-funny scene where Paul Rudd gets all nervous and discombobulated while trying to call Jason Segel's character, his man date, for the very first time. He gets the answering machine and then stammers his way to a weirdo message. I don't think that really happens and it's clearly a parody but I have to say, when I emailed the basketball guy, I put just as much effort into the four line email as I would for meeting a new female friend. I wanted to come off as inquisitive, casual, and open to hanging out. Of course I had Googled him already so the background check turned up no red flags.
I considered what the best event would be to invite this near stranger to. Poker night with the boys? A night out at a club? Perhaps a quick meal? Maybe over to the house to watch some sports or play video games? Do we email a bit, chat on the phone, or maybe just Facebook each other before actually hanging out?
Well, I'll never know because the guy never emailed me back. After all the thought I put into it too.
The thing that sets off the events of the movie was Paul Rudd's lack of guy friends. He didn't have anyone for his side of the wedding party but more importantly, it was noted that maybe he would be too suffocating for his new wife if he didn't have friends of his own. I'm trying to figure out when this is the case in real life. Most every male I know has good guy friends, and yeah, it would be kind of weird if they didn't (Right?). The girl who has only guy friends is totally normal but guys who don't have any guy friends, even the semi-shallow boys will be boys type friends, that's definitely a bit of an eyebrow raiser.
So with that in mind, it's almost never a necessity to have more guys in your life. Thus, the bar has to be higher. For me, I have to really get along with someone in order to consider them guy friend worthy. It's much easier to just relegate guys to their little acquaintance boxes if they're just so-so. And there are a lot of things I can't generally stand with guys. That's a whole different post so I'll gloss over it here.
Over the past four years, I've met three new guy friends, people that I'd squarely consider good guy friends. Not necessarily best friends mind you, but just good friends. Like I could pick up the phone and be like "Hey, let's go hang out." Over the same amount of time, I'd say I've met three or four times that many new female friends.
Previous to that, an "explosion" of guy friends happened in 2003-2004 when I met six new guy friends. Half of those came in one package, as part of the newly constructed San Diego boys (Ameer, Gene, Ryan). The other half were all an extension of the San Diego boys in some form or another.
Before 2003-4, I always kind of gagged at the term "boys," because it seemed too cliche a label and I disliked it when people used "boys" in a sentence. Like "these are my boys." But now I've reconciled that and have no problem with the standard San Diego boys being termed "the boys." Plus, I'd never really been in an all male grouping like that so it became a bit of a novelty. That's even with the caveat that we always had a semi-equal number of girls as part of "the group."
I think part of the thing that makes it really difficult to find a great guy friend (not even necessarily as part of any established circle) is that the traits I look for aren't things guys will readily expose to one another. A visible sensibility, a lack of "I'm cool" facade, a willingness to not be totally guy-guy, and an appreciation of being vulnerable and silly. I think lots of guys potentially have all of these things, but rarely do they reveal them in one or two casual meetings.
So I look for little signs. Guys who unabashedly sing when a boy band song comes on. Someone who can hold a five minute conversation about something other than "Yo yo yo..." Someone who doesn't insist on commenting on every attractive female body part that comes into view. My ears perk up when "afraid" is used as part of his sentence (unless it's in the context of "I'm afraid I'm going to have to kick his ass.") Someone holding a pink and orange drink -- maybe to match my Tequila Sunrise.
It's all a lot harder than you'd think.
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