Bex and Boys That Are Friends

Remember in second grade when your teachers would make you define an intangible emotion by brainstorming metaphors? Like "happiness is... extra jimmies on my ice cream cone, finding out you don't need excessively large glasses, sitting at the cool kids' lunch table and/or not peeing my pants today." Well, when you're 26, sadness is... being dateless since early March.

My remedy for my single-itis is a daily dose of my male friends. I don't know when I finally became capable of being friends with boys, but I'm pretty excited about it. In the college years, all the boys I grew friendly with were mere fodder for my clueless notion that I would have a Ross/Rachel type romance that would magically sprout from a platonic relationship. I'd be placed in the male friend zone (naturally, as I was treating them like friends), I'd get pissed, I'd get pissed while drunk and freak out that they didn't think I was good/pretty/funny enough and voila -- no more boys that are friends.

Clearly, judging by recent developments, I've made strides in the male friends department. Not only am I challenging myself to remain friends with past hookups/boyfriends/romantic interests with the BCP, I can honestly say that I have forged some truly excellent friendships with guys in the past couple years. They'll take driving duty on two-hour road trips, bring my car in for inspection (because don't all ladies hate taking care of their vehicles? I do.), offer to install my air conditioner and enlighten me on the utterly disgusting, yet equally as fascinating, Bacon Explosion. (Click that link. You need to know that this exists.) At the risk of sounding like a damsel in distress, that shit is f'ing valuable and also mainly unavailable from my girls.

I just reread those last few sentences and now realize that it sounds like I totally use my guy friends for favors. So not true. Simply put, guys just possess a wealth of knowledge on topics that you can't usually discuss with your gal clique. Cars, tools, and most importantly, the male pysche. Like, you don't understand guys? Get guy friends a la PJ from My Boys (or me, of course) and you will understand faster than Michael Phelps can swim. They'll explain to you that men just do not spend hours analyzing their last date or most recent breakup. If things in their love life are going well, then sweet; if not, screw that, let's have some beer and drink it off and/or deny that it ever happened.

No joke, I have amazing guy friends, and their perspective on everything has helped to make me less sensitive, increased my ability to think like a guy, and laugh in the face of drama. At least a little bit. Baby steps. So thank you, my boys that are friends. Happiness is... you.