Conscious Choice: Between Friends

January 1997

Between Friends

by Carolyn Reich

I have always bristled when people spoke about “just being friends.” What do you mean “just,” I sometimes manage to spout. Friendship is one of the noblest virtues; agape is the highest form of love. While eros flares up inopportunely, sparks and sputters, and goes out just when the weather gets cold, agape burns with a slow, steady light that can guide you through life’s storms. While family love shines its critical glare right under the Christmas tree, the love of friends makes for a holiday feast of togetherness and joy.

Of course, those who make the clumsy claim are usually trying to find a delicate way to assert that they are not having sex together. Sometimes they are merely acquaintances or friends of convenience; more rarely, they are mates and partners in life. The word “just” really doesn’t apply to them, though they may use it, out of habit or respect for the power of sex. And it’s true that sex is powerful stuff. It can be an instrument of tenderest love or brutal aggression; it is a linchpin of romance and a barometer of marriage. But what, exactly is its place between women and men? Is it an emblem of communion — or simply the snake in the garden?

I have a couple of friends (not) named Jack and Marci. They are contented and spirited lovers and friends — a near ideal married couple in that their relationship is alive whether they are together or apart. Jack and Marci live the harried schedule of a couple with two jobs, two kids, and the need to do art. They often don’t have time or energy for actual sex, though sexuality flows between them as a living part of their union.

Jack has a best friend named Jody. He has known her longer than he’s known Marci and he calls her every day. Jody calls Jack, too; sometimes they talk two or three times a day. She goes out to movies with Jack; babysits for his and Marci’s daughter; invites Jack to New York when she does a show there. Jack, for his part, sees Jody’s every show. He gives her free chiropractic when she needs it and claims her publicly as his friend.

There’s more: Marci, who is no freak of generosity, is not even minutely jealous. Jack would laugh if anyone suggested that his relationship to Jody was somehow inappropriate. Jody has never pined for Jack and Jack is not attracted to her. Marci confides guiltily that it helps that Jody is not physically attractive. In short, sex is not in the picture, so everyone feels that the marriage is safe from the pull of the friendship. And it is.

Now, aside from the obvious lack of political correctness in Jack’s physical response to Jody, there is something disturbing for me about the story of Jody and Jack. It’s not that Jack and Jody or Jack and Marci are sick, or in denial, or wrong in any way. It’s that this is the rare standard by which men and women are best friends. Sometimes one person (or both people) in the couple is gay. At other times, they find each other physically unattractive. More rarely, they have made a conscious or pre-conscious hands-off compact — before the spectre of sex could rear its head. They don’t just nip their sexuality in the bud, they cut the stem before it blooms. Something in me rebels angrily against gathering flowerless stems.

So my friend Todd and I are not “just” friends. That is to say, some winged “I love you” flew out of me some time after we met, and I have honored that sense of love. Such unplanned commitment is a rare enough gift (or curse), which I have met only a few times in life. It was probably part of my preschool attachment for Debbie Gast, who moved away and became my imaginary childhood friend. It is a mainstay of my love for Sue, who has a penchant for moving to distant, unattractive towns. It sustains my friendship with Wendy, who begins work when I go to sleep and wakes up when I can’t get to the phone. It is the force that brings me to brood about Marci’s life as a cheaper alternative to talking long distance on the phone.

Just as Debbie Gast — or her image — helped get me through childhood, Sue and Wendy and Marci make up the fabric of my world. I cannot imagine my life without them. My commitment and love for them doesn’t eliminate conflict; I am mildly appalled, for example, by the way Sue is raising her son. I think Wendy should get serious about making a living, and I wish Marci would insist on some time for herself. I am not a mere fan, but a friend of these women. I appreciate and love them — though I’m not always fond of the way they live their lives. I know from the lectures I’ve sometimes received that they each feel the same about me.

Neither does our love for each other protect me from insecurity; on the contrary, it seems to exacerbate some of my flaws. If Wendy doesn’t call for a while, I think she’s found more exciting companions. If Sue doesn’t visit, she’s shedding old friends. When Marci has a new friend over, I simmer with jealousy: will she boot me out of her life? These worries do not negate my love for them or theirs for me; they are simply part of the useless background chatter in my brain. Sometimes I can experience and laugh at them all at once. At other times, I have to wait till the cloud passes; then I wryly contemplate the perfection of a friend who embraces ridiculous me. In any case, I know that my love “conquers fear.” It survives the gyrations of jealousy and uncertainty to emerge whenever my friends and I stop to talk. This is exactly the same kind of love that I feel for Todd.

Let’s consider that sex is a part of all friendships; it’s true that no friendship is sexless. Men, I understand, used to “talk” in the locker room; now, I imagine, they “discuss” in their men’s groups. Except for some backslapping and youthful experimentation — maybe a new-age hug or two — the hetero men probably don’t touch. But their conversation includes sex, and their behavior encompasses it. Both macho posturing and male bonding are sexual, whole body, experiences.

In the same way, my women friends and I have a sexual relationship. Some of us work out or go dancing or do other physical activities; we all discuss the hoary details of our physical and sexual health. We share our inclinations and dreams; joke about our growing middle-aged appetites; worry out loud to each other and get ourselves soothed. We hold hands and give each other neck rubs and hang onto each other around the waist; we support each other as whole, sexual beings. Luckily, the culture embraces those acts as positive signs of agape-type love. So sex is also a part of my friendship with Todd.

I share with my friend Todd a love for building things, a resistance to rules, and an appreciation for the interplay of opposites. We diverge sharply in our differing sense of humor, our contrasting culinary tastes, and our opposing sense of what constitutes cool. Like other friends, we hold hands, hug each other good-bye, and sometimes indulge in a kiss. The sexual charge of those kisses made them different from the kisses I shared with my other friends, but the strong dose of affection they conveyed has always been exactly the same.

Then, one day last summer, Todd kissed me on the lips. One night last month, we made our way to bed.

Uh oh.

I suddenly identified strongly with Eve. Like her, I have tasted what my culture forbade. Now Todd and I know each other in a new and secret way; we’re more naked than before, and we don’t know what to do. With the help of our shared inclination to rebel, we may be able to resist the easy conclusions that Todd is my lover, that I have been unfaithful, (you mean, you’re married?!) that the two of us are simply having an affair. We may even be able to deepen our friendship — to claim the sexual wholeness only same-sex buddies and lovers usually gain. On the other hand, we may wreck it all; I’ve seen it happen before.

Now that we know each other — in the Biblical sense — Todd and I have a lot to sort out. For one thing, we need to reaffirm our friendship in the face of secrecy and guilt. We acted out of love (and lust, of course), but we transgressed a vivid cultural boundary. By refusing to define ourselves, we will break another taboo. If we can transcend the guilt of those transgressions, we will still have our own set of boundaries to map. We need to create a general sense of what is integral to our friendship and what is exceptional and should be rare. More difficult and ephemeral, we need to manage our new vulnerability to each other without shutting down or stepping on each other’s hearts. We need to address the question our taboos let us avoid: what is the difference between friendship and love?

For my part, I have been formulating an answer from before the moment of that first breathless kiss. Married for 20 years, I know that romance does not define true love. Every friendship has its share of romance, and new friends are always a little in love. Romance blooms and dies and blooms, but commitment survives, love remains, and real marriage continues to deepen. I love my girlfriends no less than I love my husband — and I love him with all my heart and soul. Dangerous as it is to say, I love Todd, that way, too.

The difference between my love for my husband and my love for my friend(s) is not in the physical affection I parcel out but in the contour of our commitments, the shape we’ve assigned to our lives. I am committed to building a life with my husband; with my friends I build moments that link up through the years. It’s a delicate distinction, and one that I suspect makes most of us uncomfortable. It may be the very reason for the taboo on sex between friends. And the taboo makes sense — not only for those who prefer not to think about things, but also for people like me, who tend to think they are above the law.

Sex is not the center of my life with my husband; I didn’t marry him in order to have sex with him, and if he were somehow impaired, I wouldn’t leave him behind. Our sexual life is a fulfillment of our joy, need, love, and, desire for each other. At its worst, it is a friendly obligation; at its best, a sort of divine play. It is neither a sidelight in our lives nor the mere plaything that popular culture will paint it. Sexuality is a potent and powerful form of life energy, and it must be directed with care.

Of course, my husband shares more of my life and my plans than any friend I have. For that alone, I owe him the most of my energy, sexual and otherwise. My life, though joined with his, remains my own journey. My energy, like my body, is my own to dispatch as I please. But if I want to be honest, and if I want to be fair, I will be careful not to divert too much energy, sexual or otherwise, from the great adventure of our lifelong love. Still, I maintain that great friends, like great lovers, must open up their hearts to each other. What they do with their legs is a kind of aside.

To the extent that our sexuality supports my friendship with Todd and builds our love, it is a positive force that will energize every part of our lives. To the extent that it diverts us from the shared goals, high regard, and joy we find in each other, it is a dangerous shadow we will have to learn to avoid.

I hope we will learn to ride this energy, letting the situation and our hearts guide us to right action. I suspect, however, that we will have to make rules. I fear that those rules will limit not only the extent of our lovemaking but the reach of our love. If that happens, it will be a cause for grief, the sacrifice of our greater friendship to save the lesser. But if a miracle occurs — and we do both believe in miracles — we will have drawn our own unique contour, and built our own kind of love.

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: