I have a night out every three months or so where I invite all my consultant colleagues out for a beer and pizza. We share it around different people’s houses and whoever’s house it is gets to choose the date. But it’s a « boys » night out. One of my female colleagues rolled her eyes the other day and, I suspect, half jokingly said, « what about the girls? » Which I brushed off, but yes what about the girls?
It’s an interesting dynamic which I’ve had several examples of recently which got me to thinking – so here I am again!
My boy 13 is having a few issues with « three’s a crowd » at his new school. I, foolishly, it turns out, said what about the girls? Half the year are girls, surely you can talk to some of them?
Apparently not, not without overtures of « you fancy her! » so that hasn’t changed in 30 years I see. He has a female friend from primary school who he talked to at length, she’s now at a different school – maybe he could talk to her, he’s run with the idea so we’ll see.
But that boy/girl dynamic is back…
I went for a coffee the other day with a female friend of both myself and my wife. We’re good friends with her husband too. I love having coffee with her, my conversation is different to that which I have with my boy mates. I’m more open, freer to touch on more « soft » subjects. I realise now that before I emigrated my best conversations were with my next door neighbour – a woman.
I was chatting to the wife about the phenomenon. (As usual at 1130 at night when I wanted to sleep but, now she has time🙄). Once you get married making friends with a member of the opposite sex is fraught with difficulty on many different levels. (Mainly related to the teenage “you fancy her”, nothing changes…)
She has different conversations with her male friends too. She rides with a few fellas and thinks they think of her as “just one of the boys” I suspect they would view it differently but I know she will allow them to talk about subjects they might not necessarily crack in to.
When we have a boys beer and pizza night I specifically make it boys only. I’m not being sexist, or exclusionary, it’s because the dynamic is different (what one of my feminist colleagues would describe as toxic masculinity I suspect) but it isn’t. It’s just a different kind of relaxation. And that’s all right.
I know for a fact that I could go on one my wife’s girls’ nights out and manage fine and join in fine. But their conversation would be different, the dynamic would be different and their evening would be lesser as a result.
So a the girls can go out together without the boys too. And that’s also fine.
But actually that’s not the issue either. Women should be able to have coffee with men who are friends and vice versa. And we should teach that to our kids, especially our teenagers (harder with all those raging hormones of course) otherwise we’re missing out on rich and alternate conversations which are a fantastic source of catharsis.
But it basically boils down to – go and have coffee with friends, it’s one of life’s greatest and in my opinion most worthy sources of wellness.