Jealousy is definitely not an emotion that comes naturally
to me. I always associated jealousy with really insecure, weak people who
couldn’t be happy for someone since they were not happy with themselves. But I was
confronted with this ugly feeling of jealousy a couple days ago, with something
that I saw on Facebook. I had been skyping with a friend, when the conversation
inevitably led to our relationships. I
told him about how the Frenchie (that’s what I call him because the term
boyfriend makes me laugh when I say it, not sure why) was going back to France,
and he would be going to his ceremony and gala and that he was really excited
to be going because he hadn’t seen his friends in a really long time.
The friend I was talking to made a comment about how they
had no idea how I was able to the long distance thing, I mean doesn’t it suck
to not know who is friends are, you know male and female friends? The thought
never really occurred to me; I mean for a person with major trust issues, I
happen to trust the Frenchie a lot. The friend continued with this line of
questioning “I mean, you haven’t seen your friends for more than a year, and
you are more likely to get drunk and there may be a bigger chance of someone
professing their feelings for someone else, when they feel like they only have
one night together?”
Well this made me nervous, I’m not sure why, but it made me
super nervous. That same day, I decided to do something I never do, stalk the Frenchie’s
fb page, and then I saw a post buy a female friend on his wall, the VERY FIRST
POST and it definitely not the fact that a female posted on his wall, I could care less, It was what she had posted. So what is a girl to do, well obviously rant to her best friend? I made
L, go on his wall also to give me her verdict, “wow, that girl is super flirty”
was basically her response. Well that did not make me feel very good about myself
at all. I know if I had brought it up to the Frenchie, he would have not been
too happy, he would say something like “ I trust you, why can’t you trust me?”
This got me thinking can guys and girls really only be
friends, or does there always have to be some sort of attraction?
Well, I believe that girls and guys can just be friends. I’ve
seen it and I have also had platonic male friendships where we were strictly
friends. On the flip side, I have been on the receiving end of untoward
advances from male friends that I did not see coming, because I probably didn’t
want too. I went around asking a bunch
of friends, what they thought and the consensus was that yes, girls and guys
can just be friends. Here are some snippets from the convos:
L: I do believe that guys and girl could be just friends. But
I feel like we are the only ones who believe that. I realize that the guys you can only be
friends with are the not so good looking guys... or guys you can never see
yourself with. You’re more attractive guy friends, you can still be just
friends but there will always be this tiny thought of what would happen if we
got together
Male L: they can be just friends without feelings. Me and S are good
friends, no lingering feelings and such. But maybe it's because we both have
someone and we're both in relationships
A: Yes but its hard... Especially if you have a past with him/her
Well
everyone believed that you could be friends with an opposite sex partner, but
there was always a but.
It got me to
thinking about the role of attraction in relationships. I really think that we
are more likely to form relationships with people we find attractive in some
way. So, in theory, that would mean that most hetero sexual male/female
friendships have some component of attraction that sustains the relationship,
whether they may be aware of it or not. Even with female friends, I know that I
find my friends extremely attractive, but I’m not sure whether it is causation
or correlation; whether I’m their friend because I find them attractive or I
find them attractive because I am their friend.
What is the
line between platonic and romantic relationships? Where does one start and
where does one begin? And how do you cross the line without possibly ruining
the other side? It’s complicated, relationships are complicated, and what draws
us to one another either platonically or romantically is not well defined. What
I have come to realize, that when we are in our early 20s, our friends become,
arguably, the most important people in our lives. We are away from home,
sometimes continents away, and those friendships sometimes become harder to
find as we are trying to define ourselves.
I have come
to better understand how friendships do tend to cause jealousy in
relationships. Little bouts of jealousy, I believe, stem from rational
thoughts. In my case, if most friendships are based on some sort of attraction,
then I can be a bit jealous when one of the Frenchie’s female friends becomes
flirty. However, I will say that no matter how rational we believe, we may be
at the moment, jealousy can lead to irrational behaviour and thoughts and is
not a very constructive emotion.
I did get
over my little jealous moment, and I am definitely relieved, the feeling made
me extremely uncomfortable.
But I will
say this: everything bad that happens in relationships, I blame on Facebook
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