What happens when a guy friend makes the main man uncomfortable?
STORY BY Michele Wojciechowski PHOTOGRAPHY BY Mary C. Gardella
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015
There’s a famous line in the iconic movie “When Harry Met Sally”: “Men and women can never be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.”
Is this true? Not in my experience. I’ve been friends with men from way back when we were boys and girls in middle school all the way up through adulthood. I still have close male friends, and I’ve been happily married for more than 20 years.
This concept of men and women being friends, though, can seem foreign to people who don’t experience it. We at “Her Mind” decided to talk with women who have made it work and ask them how others can too.
One of the Guys
Nora Daly, a 47-year-old midwife and resident of Ellicott City, has been friends with guys since she was a kid. It helps that she grew up with four brothers and one sister. She’s still friends with a guy she has known since first grade and one from her college years. When she was an Army nurse, she says she used to hang out with men. While working in Florida, she worked with 16 doctors, 15 of whom were male. They gave her an earful — talking about their wives, families … and even Viagra. “I listened without judgement. Maybe that’s the key,” she says.
“In my line of work (now as a midwife), I am usually with more women than men, but I feel as comfortable having discussions with men as I do with women,” Daly says. Her husband, Bryon, has never complained. Because her closest male friends live far away, she only sees them a few times a year now, but they continue to communicate regularly. Daly has gone to museums and state parks with her male buddies because these are activities that her husband wouldn’t enjoy.
“I think that women and men can be friends just like women/women and men/men relationships,” she says. Most important with her friends, and with her husband, she says, “be honest.”
The Green-Eyed Monster
Can jealousy creep in? Sure. But perhaps not in the way you might think. (For dealing with jealousy, see sidebar.)
Marilyn Opitz, 50, a freelance cosmetologist, artist, organizer and blogger, lives with her husband, Patrick, in Gaithersburg. She’s been friends with men since she was a kid, and Patrick isn’t jealous in the least. But previous boyfriends sometimes were, even though most of her male friends have also been gay.
“In some past relationships, these friendships were a problem,” explains Opitz. “Jealousy did come into play — not because there was a threat to the relationship, but because those partners were jealous of the times I spent with those male friends.”
Even some female friends were jealous of her male friends for the same reason: She was spending more time with them. Opitz says that in these cases she pulls away, or even ends friendships with the jealous party.
Like Mother, Like Daughter
Columbia resident, Jane Slavin, 71, is employed by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C. Her best friend at work is a man she calls her “work son” because he’s her daughter’s age. Slavin has had male friends for as long as she can remember, but so did her mother. “My mother had many male friends who were just friends, and I learned from her how it was done,” says Slavin. “She was much more interested in talking about sports and business as opposed to traditional female topics (at the time) like recipes and child-rearing, so she was perfectly comfortable in a group of male friends at a party. I wound up being just like her.”
Slavin doesn’t get together with many of her male friends anymore, mostly, she says because they’re retired and spend their time with grandkids. Her husband, Martin, has never been jealous. “My husband has never fussed about my having guy friends because he doesn’t feel threatened,” she says.
Friends with Exes
Marsha Wight Wise, a 48-year-old stay-at-home mom, part-time tour director of Baltimore Heritage and a blogger, has been married to her husband, John, for 19 years. While her closest male friend is a guy she met in middle school, she says that most of her peripheral male friends are ex-boyfriends. “I think that is a testament that I initially picked them for the right reason – compatibility.” Although the romance faded, the friendship remained.
Her husband understands, as she had these male friendships since before they got married. She feels it all boils down to trust. “I think it is easier to be friends with men when you are in a relationship. It takes the romance option off the table,” says Wise. “I pick male and female friends the same way – they have to be smart, funny and interesting.”
Friendship Strategy
Since she was a kid, Jodi Hume, 42, has felt more at ease with the opposite sex. That’s not to say that the Baltimore County resident doesn’t have female friends; she does. In fact, her closest, dearest friends tend to be women. But she admits that it takes her a really long time to warm up and relax around them.
In her business life, as a personal strategist, facilitator and coach for business owners and entrepreneurs, about 90 percent of her clients are men. “I generally feel like I can be more myself – without really thinking about it – around men. So my business and more casual social circle is more filled with men than women,” she says.
Hume sings in a band and remembers when a friend of her husband, Paul, said, “I can’t believe you let Jodi sing in a band and hang out with guys all the time.” Paul’s response, she says, was “I don’t LET her do anything … We’re both adults.” Just as Paul supports Jodi, she supports his membership in a pool league that meets weekly and recently traveled to Las Vegas for a national championship.
“We both put a lot of effort into making sure the other one isn’t missing out on things that would give them regrets later,” says Jodi.*
