Today’s topic is something I first wrote about a couple of years ago when I was the online editor at KING Magazine. I entitled it “The Gay Friend Conundrum”, which looking back on it, was in poor taste. Still, the issue I wrote about remains a valid one, and since I can’t find much of my old work at KING, I felt like delving into it anew. Enjoy. ——————————————————————————— I’m friends with very, very few females, especially single ones. Some guys like to have a lot of female friends, pride themselves on it even, but I don’t and I try to keep it that way because of one reason and one reason only: Sex.

It’s not so much I want to sleep with all my women friends, it’s just that if I’m speaking honestly I would. If I can’t, I keep my distance, not because I can’t control myself. Quite the contrary. The real issue I have is allowing a woman to get so comfortable with me as a friend, she starts talking to me like I’m a human diary, about things like, you guessed it…sex. Maybe this hasn’t happened to other guys, but I will admit it’s happened to me on a couple of occasions. A female friend of mine is going through a dry spell. She’s not getting any and because her and I have talked about everything else she’s going through in life, she feels it’s okay to start talking to me about this dry spell she’s in. She tells me she hasn’t gotten laid in “forever” and how badly she wants to have sex. All the while, I’m sitting on either the end of the phone, or looking right across from her wondering how the hell I ended up here: A perfectly able and willing man, talking with a woman about her desire for sex, yet not being a part of the solution to her problem.

At some point, I usually take it upon myself to remind my friend just who she is talking to and how her issue isn’t so much a lack of opportunity as much as it is an unwillingness to capitalize on the opportunities she has available. In other words, she can have sex if she chooses, with me. Unfortunately, because we’re friends, the woman doesn’t see things this way, which is not only frustrating but also slightly disrespectful. Some women like to use the whole I see him as a brother excuse for why they can’t use their male friend to bail them out of their sex drought. But that dog don’t hunt, because I have a sister, a real one, and we never, ever talk about our sex lives with each other. Never will either.

Then there’s women who have no problem telling a man, Well, I just don’t see you that way, and though I appreciate the honesty, it begs the question: How is that men are men when a woman needs help moving, but when it comes to sex, we’re like her girlfriend – easy to talk to? In life, few juggling acts are harder to keep up than the one a man and a woman must maintain in a platonic relationship, which is why I’m friends with so few females. As for the women who are my friends, I make it very clear to them: If sex is their issue, I am the solution. They may give me a look like I’m crazy, but hey, what are good friends for?