I was recently a grooms(wo)man in my ( male person ) best friend ’s wedding ceremony . During the planning for said wedding , I receive two very different kinds of pre - nuptial e-mail .
From the bride : " Hi Bridesmaids ( and Liz ! ) – Here is the dress for everyone . Liz , yours will be the black variant of this . "
From the groom : " Guys ( and Liz ) . Here are the tuxes . Except for Liz ’s . She ’s in a wearing apparel or something . Let ’s make her stand directly next to [ redacted ] , because remember , they used to bang . "
Daniel Fishel/Thrillist
On the enceinte twenty-four hour period , as I stood out amongst a sea of aureate dresses and tuxedo , it bump off me that this whole experience was the double-dyed metaphor for my life . Iamthe black interlingual rendition of the dress . I ’m a girl who has always been one of the guys , but also very much a girl ; not really blending perfectly into either side . There are a crowd of perks , and plenty of detriments , to this life . Here ’s the brutal truth .
" Women can be territorial . But in realness , with sodding guy rope friends , there is no posterior motive . "
Being “one of the guys” earns you a lot of labels
If you tend with the male child , you ’re a guy cable ’s girl . A cool girl . A tomboy . A misfit . Or , on the other remainder of the spectrum : a slut . A tease . A homewrecker . the great unwashed often confuse you for the womanhood we all love to loathe – the 1 who talk about fellow lady like this : " Girls just never seem to like me … [ cue stick flipping of the hairsbreadth ] … I havenoidea why . "
mind – a woman with no girlfriends is not to be trusted . And while I ’m proud to say I ’m not in that encampment , char in my shoe are at least assumed to have an ulterior motive . Or , we ’re laud for how nerveless we seem : the one guys fall in sexual love with , the ones other girl need to be . The"cool girls . “Eh . It ’s all a bunch of symbolical labels that actually mean very little .
Not to say I do n’t see those label , or have n’t cast them onto others myself . Women can be territorial . But in reality , with pure guy Friend , there is no ulterior need . No labels . Minus the anatomy , there is zero difference in how I feel about these friends – they ’re basically girls ( just do n’t tell them I say that ) .
Being one of the guy cable can be a lot of fun – and not just because groomsman marriage ceremony preparation ( drinking whiskey , roleplay consortium ) smokes that of a bridesmaid ( nail salons , hairstylist ) . But being confined to these label can also finger claustrophobic .
You have to go through a different kind of adolescent agony
We all bang teenage girl have it baffling ; going through a fight to make sense of social standards being welded onto their adolescence ( makeup , bras , acting timid , crossbreed our legs , competing for male attention , I can keep going here ) .
But there ’s a whole other layer on top of said growing pain when part of your descend - of - age floor includes being wrest from the pack that raise you . I ’ll never forget my confusedness when my female parent pulled me apart and explain I would eventually have to put a shirt on while run around outdoors with the neighborhood boys .
But unlike a lot of my girlfriends , who over time get a line to depend on each other and allow the boys be boys , the solace I recover in my guy friends stuck . The bond was thick – and solely platonic * .
Girlfriends absolutely hate you
They guess so intemperately not to , but in effect Lord , your guy cable Quaker ' girlfriends just ca n’t stand you . In fact , how sharply they adjudicate to friend the crap out of you is almost solely fuel by this hate . There are n’t exception to this , because even if his girlfriend / fiance / married woman has occur to term with the nature of your " just friend " relationship , and may even truly like you now , she most definitely hated you initially .
RememberMy Best Friend ’s hymeneals ? Yup , so does she . You ’re the one her bae came to first with his problems , who knows how to make his preferent natal day bar , and who knows every intimate item of his life story – detail she make she may never know . To rub more salt in this open combat injury , his parents belike adore you . Every clock time I put myself in these girlfriends ' shoes , I honestly think about how much I would hate me too .
" Remember ' My Best Friend ’s Wedding ' ? Yup , so does she . "
You get oddly comfortable being inappropriate
Sometimes I catch myself in group setting talk about thing like The Pirate ( two words : Urban Dictionary ) . Most times I even act it out with sound effects . Sure , it gets gag ( because The Pirate is hilarious ) , but here ’s the thing : I ’m not always surrounded by a bevy of bros … and it ’s not typically recall of as the most ladylike affair in the worldly concern .
In the same path a lot of us probably do n’t realize how our Kardashian - saturate polish has do us to say , " I be intimate , right ? " a mess more than we ’d all like to intromit , the crass behavior of my dude friends has become a very real part of my own personality . To my internal forget me drug , it ’s not a big deal . But drop off me into a different chemical group , and thing can get uncomfortable fairly fast .
It ’s like play slaps as kid . finally your hands end up so pommel they just block spite . My inside are like that – after years of being playfully harassed and ridiculed by my guy cable acquaintance and being part of all kind of disgusting jokes and incompatible pranks , I ’ve grown a stocky skin that I ’m proud of – but I also ca n’t always draw a decency line .
Boyfriends are always suspicious of you
There was never a clock time in my living I did n’t have to explain my relationships with guy to a significant other . And the thing is , I get it . I verbalise to a member of the opposite sex activity who is n’t my boyfriend almost daily . Whowouldn’tbe threaten by that ?
The wholeWhen Harry Met Sallytheory gain this a constant uphill battle : you ca n’t perchance really just be friends with this guy , because guys and girls are neverjustfriends . And no matter what you say , it ’s lose - lose . you could try convincing your S.O. that you ’ve never hooked up with your good guy Quaker . He ’s like a brother to you . If that works , your boyfriend will be relieve – but he ’ll also have residuary resentment that there are affair you ’ve told this friend of yours that he will never know .
Which , if I ’m being honest , is altogether bonnie .
Or , in an endeavor to be fully vapourous , you might admit that you did hook up with your best guy friendjust that once , but it was years ago , and you ’re pretty certain you both had just had Goldschläger crack for the first clock time . So it does n’t weigh .
Yeah … dependable luck with your swain ever sincerely trusting you alone with this person .
" have ’s just say I ’ve doused plenty of potential sparks . "
You approach romantic relationships with guys very differently
When you ’re surrounded by champion of the male variety , you run to think bozo mayonlybe concerned in you for that nature of family relationship . But as one of my crony very sagely clued me in , no bozo initiates a relationship with a fille to just be friend . It can sometimes turn into that , but it ’s never the initial goal .
But there ’s something else to this , come from the fille ’s perspective . I often see bozo as non - romantic selection from the jump , essentially friend - zoning myself . And believe me , prospective mate get that vibe ; often reading it as a " she must not be interested " rather than the more probable in my vitrine " she ’s just totally clueless she ’s doing this . "
permit ’s just say I ’ve doused plenty of possible Dame Muriel Spark .
You’re stuck being every guy’s confidant, not one guy’s everything
I ’m survive proof that an unbreakable , non - sexual guy - girl dynamic can exist . Still , it ’s naive to believe those pesky laws of attraction don’toccasionallyrear their worthless caput . I ’ve in spades have the frustration of serving as a valet de chambre ’s go - to shoulder for all thing love - related … and yet never being the personhe’sin love with .
And that ’s the grim side – when , at some power point , you wonder if this guy you ’ve always loved so dearly might be factual boyfriend material . Then he descend over , carry your hand , and tells you : " I do n’t know what I ’d do without you , I lie with you , you ’re the best . " And then he gives you clinch and kisses and direct home to his girl . It would tire out on any person – but there ’s a unequalled struggle for the miss who undulate with the boys , and realizes she ’s sought after for every role except that of the woman those son want to love unconditionally , romantically … and forever and ever .
Would I ever in reality vary any of this ? Absolutely not . These relationships have truly shaped my identity operator , and are a constant reservoir of comfort for me ; they remain long after the non - platonic ones come and go , which to me , shit them the most special ones that survive .
Plus , even tomboy Joey nabs Pacey in the end .
- Maybe we made out once , but it was a really long prison term ago … shut up .
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