Love is War

Loving Couple

First Posted 09-Nov-2014

I had four riders in my car last Friday headed to a pizza place in Carytown. The girl sitting directly behind me and visible in my mirror complained that another girl not present, who had a crush on one of her friends, a guy, was getting all fussy about her spending time with the new crush. I listened to this and was reminded of something. Girls who are friends are not the same as boys who are friends or girls who are friends with boys. Since part of being modern is to include nuts who like nuts and bolts who like bolts, my point holds. There cannot be mere friendship when romance and lust enter the picture. A girl cannot just be friends with her paramour.

Girls can be friends with each other in a way that is different from the way they can be friends with boys. Ditto boys with boys. Our constant hunger for the hunt, for the conquest of her, is always present. We are either successful in bedding her, working toward success bedding her, or pissed off because we didn’t bed her. Women are not our friends. They are prey. They are still prey  when are blissfully sharing the post-coital moments cuddling as the rush of victory fades. Boorish, chauvinistic, piggish, yes. But, girls, ask a guy if there is no truth to this. I’ll bet he’ll back-peddle a bit before admitting that I have a point.

Same sex relationships don’t remove this aspect of the game of love. See, there can be no peace between men and women because of romance. The girl who complained that she felt pushed aside by the new girlfriend of one of her male friends was witnessing what happens when lust or love enters the room. It can’t be just friends anymore. Worse, is the game of “friends with benefits”. It always comes around to this question, “what are we?” If the answer is, “together,” then there probably is more sex, deeper commitment, and so on. I’ll have more to say on this–sex outside marriage.

Sex is a lot of things. One crucial thing it is–is to make babies. And babies and parenting mean a lifelong commitment to the child. It is life changing. A man’s life as a bachelor dies. In its place is a new life as a father. So, casual sex is toying with baby making and trying to pretend that it’s just a few moments of passion, a bit of horizontal bop without consequence. Once the hunt is on, once a guy starts pursuing a girl, he is headed for fatherhood and a potential death to life as he knows it. It is with consequence. This, then, is the bad news for the pretty young blonde who just wanted to be friends with one of her male buddies. It can’t be. He has gained a girlfriend at the cost of losing a buddy. In the near-term his friends have to adjust themselves to the new truth. He isn’t just him. He’s them, him & her together. So, love, sorry, your buddy is gone to be replaced by something new, a couple now called your buddies, plural.