The Taboo of Mixed-Gender Friendships

THE SHORT VERSION

One of the most annoying situations for me is the taboo of men and women being close friends, ESPECIALLY if one or both are married or in a relationship. If they are friends, it is likely that the spouse is also heavily involved in this friendship and the two friends hardly ever hang out together without at least one of the spouses/significant others around.

It is not to be said that the male/female friend and husband/wife should not be friends as well and/or that they shouldn’t ever hang out together along with the woman/man, but that this male/female friend would is primarily the woman/man’s friend. Usually this situation occurs when the male/female friend and woman/man have known each other longer than the woman/man has known her/his spouse.

Some may think that this becomes a predicament because, in a girl’s case, the girl may have grown up a tomboy. Or that in some cases the female gender generally annoys the woman because she is not interested in trivial gossip, shopping and scrap booking. So, while growing up, the majority of her friends would usually be guys.

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This taboo is seen, in my opinion, most frequently in a church setting. I remember as a teenager sitting in my youth group listening to someone announce the etiquette of how one goes about asking for help with anything spiritual, life lessons, etc. If you were a boy you would talk to the Youth Pastor. If you were a girl, you would talk with his wife or with the Youth Pastor, so long as his wife or another woman was present.

Immediately I thought this to be incredibly annoying. I didn’t want to talk to the damn wife. Yes she was there to help, but she was not the leader that was hired and was shown to be qualified to help the youth. When dealing with underage teenagers, I understand the specific guidelines that need to be issued for sake of some legal reason, let’s face it; do I need to say anything more than “catholic priests”? Even worse, that particular scenario usually entails same gender children.

However, I feel that if we are both adults and you need to talk with me in a public room, with another person present or in a room with the door open – because I’m of the opposite sex – I think you are insecure. You may call it staving unneeded rumors, but I just call it insecurity.

Basically, I am annoyed with the ingrained feeling I have that I will never have the chance to be as close with a male teacher, leader, friend, pastor, authority figure, etc. as another male, simply because I am female.