by Veronica Bergschneider

Created on: January 31, 2009

It can be tricky at first, dealing with all of the talk of others, real or perceived, outside of the friendship, but yes, a lady and a gentleman can be close friends and nothing more. Almost four years ago, after having a gentleman at my church e-mailing me silly jokes for about an entire year, I finally got over the paranoia of what the rest of the world would say and began talking to him. It took a while for both of us to really get comfortable talking to one another beyond things related to our common projects at the church, but it's been beautiful ever since. My daughter even looks up to him as he "adopted uncle."

In the beginning of the friendship, we set mutual boundaries of no hitting on one another or trying to get the other to have sex. This, combined with the view I took at the beginning of him as my "big brother" to help me adjust to having a male friend for the first time since high school, has really helped us both determine how emotionally close we can get with each other. Since he went to school with my husband, the first time we had lunch together, my friend and I had a conversation centered upon getting the two of them caught up on each other's lives. Naturally, over the time we've been friends, he and I have seen changes in the way we relate. Some days, he talks to me as a guy letting a "little sister" know how to handle men, at other times I even get to speak with him much as many ladies do their women friends, and I rotate depending on the situation from being the "little sister" or "lady friend" to a poker buddy telling jokes like a guy over the game of cards.

As with any other close friendship, we have done a lot of sharing over our almost four years of being around each other. We've witnessed each other's joys and sorrows many times over. He's helped me find the publisher behind my first book of poetry and is the one most responsible for helping me find my way musically at our church. Each of us has helped the other deal with various deaths of people and pets we cared about, I've taught him more about music than he learned in school in the quest to help him improve his skills, and he's taught me to play poker along the way. Never before has any friend, male or female read me as well as he does when it comes time to pick out a gift for me or help me to open up about something I need opinions on. I feel really lucky to have a man for a best friend because that way I can learn more about how the other half of the population lives and thinks, giving me a better chance to understand more of the world around me.

All in all, I would say that once a person learns to see people as people instead of categorizing them at every turn, more fulfilling friendships can be opened up, whether those relationships cross the male-female line or not.

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