First Time I Ever Asked Myself if Men and Women Can be Friends

The debate regarding if men and women can be friends has popped up in my life multiple times. The very first time I thought about it for myself was at the age of fifteen. At the time I was attending a private high school called Seattle Christian, which I considered my own personal Hell. Being that it was private school, the girls and boys who attended came from wealthier families. The reason that I and my sisters went was because my parents felt that it was better for us to be given a Christian education in a school full of so-called Christians even though it would make them suffer financially and disregarding the fact that maybe it wasn’t a good school for someone like me.

            At this school the popular kids weren’t necessarily attractive, but the smart ones or athletic sport stars. You might think that this is an ideal concept being that we should reward good grades and achievements over physical worth, but high school is high school no matter where you are, and teenagers are cruel. Most of these kids had been friends since kindergarten, and I began attending Seattle Christian in the fifth grade. On top of that I had problems with my cognitive learning and required extra help that this school didn’t have to funds or understanding to provide for me. I was constantly made fun of for not being smart enough and was ostracized by my peers who all knew each other for most of their lives.

            However, by the time I was twelve I made friends with a boy who we will call Damon. He also tended to be ostracized because like me he didn’t have very high grades, but also he was a little overweight, and regardless of the fact that this school prized grades and sports over looks, they still valued physical appearance. Another thing that made us friends was our mutual love for art. In the next few years we became art buddies and took the only art class together for three years in a row. He made me laugh and he was an interesting person to talk to, but I never had any stronger feelings for him than that.

            At the age of fourteen I somehow broke the seemingly impenetrable popular barrier, even though I had no strong wish to be popular. The students and the teachers had put me through so much already that I just stopped caring what they thought of me. However, that somehow seemed to be the key to my social success and suddenly girls wanted to be my friend, and boys liked me.

            Regardless, I still remained friends with Damon and continued to despise the school that had put me though such misery. Finally, at the age of fifteen, half way through my ninth grade year, I had an emotional break down which finally made my parents realize how miserable I was at that school and we all agreed that we would try out a public school instead. At first I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving. I wanted to leave so badly that I didn’t want anyone to convince me to stay.

            It was at that time when a mutual friend of Damon and mine who we will call Mark (and who would become a problem for me in the future) came up and admitted to me that Damon had a huge crush on me since we were twelve and that he would ask me to go out with him whenever he had summoned up the courage to do so. I felt very sad at that moment because I didn’t feel the same way, and I dreaded rejecting him. But I resolved to do something at that moment, which became my very cruel rule for about the next five years.

            I knew that I was leaving in just a few months and so I made this one wish. I decided that I would stay friends with Damon and pretend that I had no idea that he liked me. I hoped that this way we could still have the friendship I valued so much throughout the years until I left. Otherwise, I decided, that if he did tell me that he liked me, then I would end the friendship right then and there. Cruel? Yes. Unfair? Very. At that time I had no idea how to deal with boys who liked me and I felt that this was the best way. It seemed to work for me in the next five years, but I ended up angering or hurting a few people along the way. I’ll end up telling those stories eventually, I’m sure.

It's Your Fault

In the spring of 2010 I was living in a place where I had only dreamed of since I was ten years old. I had been able to study abroad in Italy, the country that birthed some of my favorite artists of all time. That was the main reason for being there: not the food, I mainly ate sandwiches everyday, not because of the language, I was terrible at it anyway, and not because of the men, even though they would become a distraction soon enough.

            I was lucky to room with a girl from New Jersey whom I became fast friends with. We will call her Hillary. She was tall and fashionable with dark brown hair and striking, exotic, blue eyes. She had been in a long-term relationship with a boy in Pennsylvania so she made it clear that she didn’t want to be unfaithful to him and I had no intention of getting myself involved in any flings (at least that was our plan).

            The first two months of our time there, I dragged Hillary from city to city and from museum to cathedral to look at beautiful medieval and renaissance art that made me swoon and Hillary yawn. After our quick flight to Paris to look at the Louvre and Barcelona to marvel at Antoni Gaudí’s architecture, I took pity on her and promised we would go out in Perugia, the city we lived in, do a little drinking, a little dancing and cut loose essentially.

Unlike the rest of the Americans who had been partying since the night we arrived, we weren’t sure where to go. We decided to try out a place that we had only heard about. Just down an ally off of the famous Piazza IV Novembre, there was a discoteca lined with smokers on the outside and drunk dancers from all nationalities on the inside. It was called Rock Castle with a romantic Italian brick décor, a bar in the center and a stage and DJ in the front.

            The first time I went there it overwhelmed me. I had no idea why anyone would find a place like this to be fun. It was overcrowded and seemed impossible to dance, I also had no money to buy drinks. But a promise is a promise. I had told Hillary that we’d have fun, and this was her idea of fun. Every weekend we went out, sometimes a couple times a weekend. And what was funny was that I actually began to enjoy myself.

            At the time I had long wavy blonde hair that came down to my waist. It brought so much attention that Hillary and I decided to call it my “flag” being that it would flag down every Italian man I came in contact with. At night Hillary would receive complements for her eyes, and I would get them for my hair. It became easy to just hang about and be offered drinks by total strangers. Of course I was paranoid, and rightly so, and made sure I could see the drinks being made by the bartender themselves. I began to enjoy dancing, making new friends and embrace the nightlife.

            However, there was one trouble with this type of fun: There are men that are on the look out for women who want a one-night stand. In Italy they were a great deal more aggressive about trying to find those women. There was a great deal of groping and harassing behavior. Men would follow us up and down streets and force us to dance with them. It was something that both Hillary and I accepted as a part of the nightlife, but never liked it.

            One day on a school trip Hillary and I were complaining about the men who harassed us.

            “Its so gross, I don’t understand why these guys would think we’d like that” Hillary groaned.

            “Dude, I know. Oh man, you’re grinding up on me, now I want you so bad.” I added. We rolled our eyes.

            An American boy who we teased relentlessly since we had met him decided that this was the point to chime in.

            “Guys, you know that it’s your fault, right? I mean if you go out, then you’ve gotta expect to be hit on.” It was always a bad idea for anyone to interfere with one of Hillary’s and my conversations.

            We looked at him with amused irritation. It wasn’t the last time he had said something stupid.

       
           I turned to Hillary. “Oh yeah Hillary. Its your fault if you go out at night.”
           “Well it’s your fault that you go out at all.”

            I started to laugh. “Well its your fault for being a female.”

            “Well it’s your fault for being born!” By this time we were laughing so hard that we weren’t very understandable to anyone. The boy rolled his eyes being that he had witnessed this before.

            But the truth is that society tells us that there are two type of females in the world: The so called prudish type who stay at home waiting for their future husband, and the other, the slutty types who go out at night, just asking to be harassed or worse. Regardless on whatever happens to them, they were asking for it.

            This is an incorrect and oppressive view on women. Why should it be that women should fear for themselves if they want to have a good time? Why is it that we should just accept the men who harass women or worse and it is blamed on those women? It is the men who should be shamed for behavior like this.

            Too many women throughout time have bought in to the idea that regardless on what the situation was, it is their fault. Their fault for dressing that way. Their fault for being a tease. Their fault for drinking. Their fault for going out that night. Obviously there are situations that women put themselves in that might have been smarter had they not been in that situation. But it doesn’t matter. The men who harassed them, assaulted them, raped them, are the ones to blame.