I used to like the friend-zone

Back when I was just a boy. Before peer-pressure began to shame my position.

Before, I even knew what to do with my attractions. As if every girl I spent time with brought out the exact same feelings… Silliness.

For context. I am a first-born, albeit to a very disconnected family. So disconnected, that outwardly I appeared to many as adopted. Look a little closer and it only appears as half-adopted but adopted nonetheless. Meh, *shrug* that may be the case but I was never shown the paperwork.

What that means, is that there was no real advice. No tips from the elders. Apart from what the micro-managed religion which encompassed nearly every moment of my youth, directed my ‘guardians’ on what to say to me.

Who knew, so many people could be wrong.

It was always as if, just the very idea of a teenage boy and teenage girl speaking to each other would result in an instant pregnancy! And yet at the same time, sentences put so plainly as that, were to be avoided when speaking to me. I don’t know how the male leaders felt about things, I only know they had no ability to grasp the concept that I might be different from them. And I knew there would be problems if I ever spoke that.

Even while going to what felt like “the outside.” Public school, was a little different then my sheltered life but truly it’s not like I really knew of much beyond that. Yet even there, the same energy seemed to carry through masculine traits. Boys bragging about what they would be able to do with girls, even while using shaming names to the ones who were willing to be a little more promiscuous. None of it ever really made sense to me.

Like asking a person for a favour, while shaming the behaviour that would produce it… Silliness.

Maybe that’s why I ran away from the girl who told her friend to tell her boyfriend that she wanted to date me. (I still don’t get why people talk through people this way). I don’t know if it’s true, I just remember the kid telling me that “she said she’d give you head, if your her boyfriend.” I think I was about 14 and I just said “What is that?” He told me and I couldn’t even understand why people would do that.

FYI. That’s how you get the label of a rebellious goodie-two-shoes, simultaneously. Odd at church, odd at school, odd in life amongst all these evens.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a virgin story. Apparently 18 means I was a late bloomer, but even still, it’s the loss of the friendzone that bothers me.

I don’t know why, I just know that it always made me different then most.

Not all, just most.

Most of the other guys seemed to be more bothered by the loss of an opportunity that was in their mind. That being in the friend-zone was a bad thing, like a curse. Philosophically speaking, that’s just an inability to enjoy the moment.

Hmmm.. I guess I used to like the friend zone, and I guess I still do. I just used to, too.