Girl Gone Wild: Can't we just be friends?

By Loki Ferris

"Honey, I'm home," I yell at my PC but it doesn't respond. No kiss or hug. I figure it's the same thing as being married for 10 years. At least my PC has a good vocabulary and doesn't talk down to me.

I turn it on, and warm up the keypad to whatever has a deadline while sipping gunpowder green tea. If the words don't flow, I take a little break and chat on the phone, but when I'm on a roll, I cannot be bothered by hunger, sleep or a need to pee. (Don't hold it like I do--it's really bad for you).

I want to write more, and I'm enabling this by streamlining my list of girlfriends to only the closest few and spending time with a few guy friends without the drama of them "liking me." I don't want any more men to hang out with on the off chance that I'll succumb to their devastatingly charming ways or witty repartee under the influence of three Newcastles. My history of making and breaking dude friends is summed up by Janie's favorite catchphrase: "I can't be bothered!"

Who am I to prove that women and men can be friends? This is true, for the most part, but more often than not one person has a sexual inclination for the other person.

It's not like I feel I have to have a caveat over my head like a billboard: Let Befriender Beware. But I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when I'm losing funny and stimulating male friends left and right because I won't reciprocate the interest beyond friendship. I miss them terribly, but I understand how difficult it must be to hang out with someone all the time and not have a chance. So does that mean the few dudes that I have left only hang out with me because I just might change my mind? I am capricious, but I know what I like, too. If there wasn't a "spark" at the first meeting, there won't be.

Reconnecting with a high school buddy of mine, I excitedly hung out with him for a few weeks. I was thrilled to reminisce with him and had always found him to be hysterical. Though he attempted to pay whenever we went out for a bite, I opposed it, saying it wasn't technically a "date."

I'm not proud of my blunt moments, but I felt I had to let him know where I stand; I didn't want to lead him on and I wouldn't want anyone to do that to me. He knows he's a great catch, and if I was tired of being single, I'd be all over it. Try as I might, I cannot conjure up feelings that aren't there. He wasn't willing to wait around, and I don't blame him.

Kate was being her kind self when she extended her home as a place to stay for her German pen pal Hansel. Little did she know he intended to stay for three weeks! It was so obvious that he loved her. In every picture he is blissfully looking at Kate while Kate is looking directly at the camera. Hansel revealed his true reasons for staying in town that long to one of Kate's close friends, prompting Kate to have "the talk."

"I don't think of you other than as a good friend," she said. He replied by being slightly offended that she went there. What a liar! She didn't know whether to be embarrassed or righteous. Doubts swirled in her head until her roommate told her that Hansel planned on returning to Vegas with a work visa because, in his words, "Kate might change her mind in the future and be my fraulein!" Okay, I added the fraulein bit, but you get what I'm saying.

It's times like these I wish my gay friend Matt still lived in Vegas. If I felt fat, he'd take me dancing, sometimes to Gipsy, which I didn't mind. If I was blue, he'd take me out and reassure me how "fierce" I was with a snarl. I miss him. I miss all the other guys too, but not enough to watch them sulk every time I speak of another man. I've even toned down my flirting for fear that I will do it again--that is, befriend a man who will abandon me or who I will kick to the curb because "I can't be bothered."

E-mail your comments and questions to loki@lasvegasmercury.com.