Chicks over dicks

The Subtle Art of Choosing Your Friends over Your Significant Other — or Not

I apologize if the word “dicks” offends anyone. The recognizable phrase just captures in one breath the entire premise and idea behind my thoughts. And I thought it might be a little less offensive than “hoes.”

I was originally going to approach this topic by giving an anecdote, as this article was inspired by specific, real people and specific, real scenarios of misguided friendship and hurt egos. But I realized the situation would be too complicated to explain to a stranger. For the sake of time and discussion, let’s just dive straight into this mess.

At what point do we draw the line when we are dating but maintaining close friendships? At what point do we become awful friends for the sake of loving our significant other to his/her satisfaction, and at what point do we become terrible lovers in order to please our affection-needing, attention-requiring friends? Is there a balance? Is it ever acceptable to realize that, although chicks are over dicks, sometimes the “dick” magically transforms into THE ONE and THE ONE takes priority and requires cultivating a tender relationship, that to marry THE ONE, you sometimes have to shirk your other relationships. Although ugly to admit, sometimes certain people are just more important than others.

Nearly every decent human being I know will tell me that they will not abandon their friends once they begin relationships. I’ve had multiple conversations with friends who, while gleefully spilling the gory romantic details, will remind me occasionally that “we will still have our girls’ nights out!” Nearly everyone can agree that friendship is a priority and that friends will most likely last longer than their significant others. As if people have expiration dates.

How many of these promises are actually fulfilled? In these past four years of college, I’ve been the third-wheeling single friend 75% of the time. I’ve had ridiculously good male friendships that dissolved the instance they “got the girl” (with all of my help and hand-holding and tissue-passing, of course). It’s a little bit more reasonable for male-female bonds to sever when someone gets a girlfriend or boyfriend; I wouldn’t want to be that bitch who keeps getting drinks with someone else’s boyfriend. Although very, very bitterly, I can accept that I should be a little bit more distant from my best guy friends in an attempt to relieve another girl’s stress and be a good female. I wouldn’t want another girl doing that to me. There are unwritten rules for us chicks too. We have our own bro code (actually, we don’t. But we should. That might help us reach world peace).

It always annoys and saddens me endlessly when my girl friends suddenly have boyfriends and proceed to abandon me like an unwanted toy (I’m thinking Toy Story for some reason). I lick my wounds and know that things won’t be 100% the same and accept it; there are other friends out there! But time and time again I’ve seen couples become obsessed with each other, isolated from the outside social world, unable to comprehend that there are more than 2 people on this planet. Girls especially become extremely emotionally involved and when there isn’t a friendship support system, disaster strikes if the relationship crumbles. Obsession and isolation is just plain unhealthy.

Sometimes I want to shake my girl friends’ shoulders, hard, and scream, “YOU CANNOT ONLY HAVE ONE OTHER HUMAN BEING IN YOUR LIFE ESPECIALLY ONE THAT HAS A PENIS, THAT IS NOT GOOD FOR YOU, YOU WILL BE VERY VERY SAD ABOUT THIS LATER.”

Sure, it sounds bitter. Maybe I am bitter. The amount of friendships that were perfectly fine and had the potential to blossom into bridesmaids-ships and suddenly fell apart is too numerous to count. Same goes with male friends. I can’t help but admit how childish I am sometimes, that I’ll honestly feel that tiny prick of sadness when my friends start dating. How selfish, how immature, I know, I know. I’ve berated myself endlessly for it.

I can find comfort in that some people are able to draw the line more finely than others. Some people are able to prioritize with finesse and make me feel not like a secondhand discarded doll.

The answer is effort. All it takes is a simple phone call or — dammit, I’ll settle for this — even a damned Facebook message that reads, “What’s up? We should catch up.” In my friendships, I appreciate the effort, however minimal, of spending time with me. I appreciate it endlessly. In my eyes, that makes you a commendable human being. I should buy you a cookie.

But sometimes, people won’t make the effort and truly disappear. Shit happens. You and I have different expectations for our friends. Set them however you personally wish, and most importantly DO NOT COMPROMISE ON THEM. Actually, it is impossible to compromise. Expectations can be modified to become more realistic, but it is very, very hard to completely change what you want in a friend and ignore those accidental feelings of hurt, bitterness or jealousy. However, do not give your friends shit if they don’t happen to meet the bar all the time. Their bars are different than yours. The more you pick at the problem, the worse you will feel about it yourself and the more problems and burdens you add onto their already heaving shoulders.

But if they start to disappear on you, make some last efforts and if there’s nothing, there’s nothing. Fighting fate is futile. Learn to let go.