The Symposium Revisited

a dialogue on intimacy at davidson

k r i s t y   m a r y n a k &

a r a   d i l e e p a n

Kristy: That toolshed Philip "I'm a Libertas editor" Sasser called my room the "psycho ward for four counties."

Ara: Well, duh, Kristy. I mean, you light candles and incense and listen to the Tori DiFranco Girls while you spoon with your friends and talk about your hearts and feelings and ovarian nonsense. How many reasonable people do you think like that kind of thing?

K: I'm sure it's much more reasonable to drink beer from one of your three fridges, blast Led Zeppelin, trade Varsity football stories, and crotch-scratch. I admit that every conversation doesn't have to be a therapy session, but it's okay to talk about more than Nietzsche and rumbles with the Sharks.

A: That was high school, come on . . . well, at least the football part. And who are you to say that the will to power's not important? That's some fundamental shit. You girls sit around and gush or whatever but at least we think with our heads.

K: I'm going to let that heads comment go.

A: Then what about the rest of it? Are you trying to say that all we ever do is fuck around?

K: I'm saying that friends should be able to be intimate without being labeled as overly sentimental, whiny, or homosexual. We cuddle because we need to connect physically with others without it being sexual. And we feel that, in a healthy way, we can provide a little sexual healing for each other.

A: Oh geez, sexual healing? Give me a break. Intimacy, fine, all right, I can deal with that. I'll call my friendships intimate, but I'd call all friendships intimate. People who I just know and maybe say hello to, they're not my friends. My friends are the ones I can and do talk with. Of course I'm intimate or close or whatever you want to call it with them, but you have to be or else the conversation wouldn't get past, "How was your break?"

K: Well, I just don't see where the intimacy lies in your friendships, especially physically. There are different components to intimacy, and I think they all must be met in some way. How do you satisfy them? Sometimes I want to be with someone and not talk--like when I'm stressed and my friend Kate rubs my shoulders. Don't you just need a bosom for a buddy sometimes, Ara?

A: I will admit that sometimes I do need a bosom. But I sure don't want it from a friend.

K: I think there's an unhealthy gap between us then. You need a bosom for a buddy because the pathetic alternative is your hand. You substitute your hand for a buddy and don't understand that intimacy doesn't have to reach a sexual climax. I'm not condemning masturbation, but I think there are limits to its effectiveness.

A: Maybe, but I'm not going to go spoon or sit on my friend's lap because I feel like I need some physical contact. And I don't care if it's one of my guy friends or a girl. This is just me, I don't know about other guys, but any physical need I have, first, I'm not going to readily admit it, and, second, when I do admit it, I'll want only a particular sort of friend to satisfy it. I guess that works for a lot of guys, because you don't see guys hugging each other and whatnot, but we always talk about how we want a girl, and that means girlfriend, not a friend who's a girl. And with her would come the fulfillment of those physical needs, at least to an extent.

K: Don't you see value in non-sexual friendships with girls? I feel I have meaningful relationships with guys that haven't and will never fulfill any sort of sexual need. Men and women are people first, not sexual beings, and at some point you have to get over the gender boundary or you'll miss out.

A: I don't care if I miss out. I just want to avoid a big mess because that's what would happen. You can't get around sexuality, especially if you want to be at all close with someone. If a straight guy and straight girl are close friends, they're going to come to the point where their relationship becomes unclear, where they don't know if they're just friends or if they're something else. But what would be bad is if one of them was attracted to the other and the other wasn't attracted back. What happens to this established friendship then? Say I were friends with a girl I wasn't sexually attracted to--I would restrain myself from revealing too much about myself in any respect because I wouldn't want her to think that she was so special and that there's a chance for something else. Maybe it sounds harsh, but it's either that or you define your relationship at the outset and you kill any chance of a romantic relationship. In that case, you bring the sexual tension in at the beginning, so instead of waiting for things to get weird, you make things weird. It's like this: there are hetero-, bi-, and homo-social relationships and "lifestyles." I'm homosocial. I only hang out with guys. I don't care to mingle with the opposite sex because whatever possible gain is there is outweighed by possible problems. Plus, I understand guys, and they understand me without any work. Girls are too complicated and problematic to deal with.

K: No, I don't think "it's like that." I think the "gains" are abundant, and different with each relationship of individuals. Sure, things get weird sometimes. You either deal with it and move on, or the relationship isn't right. Every relationship takes work. I think that in everything, there must be balance--in friendships between both sexes, sexual and non-sexual social interaction, the list goes on. Also, I think that on some level, I'm attracted to each of my friends in a very chemical, physical way. Being around certain of my female friends has a euphoric affect on me that could compare with the way I feel around a male to whom I'm attracted. And intimacy is a natural response to my feelings about a person whom I trust, admire, and want to be around--a natural response to someone I love.

A: I agree. I'll say that I'm attracted to something in my friends. I'd have to be, or else I wouldn't be friends with them; it's the definition of attraction, but I don't think it's physical. It's intellectual and personal, or experiential. The physical is what makes things so different with girls. But since that's not an issue with guys, I can be very close with them--as intimate as I'd care to be with someone without getting it on. There's a tacit understanding we have with each other about what we need and what we can give. We all recognize that there's something more that each of us wants or needs that we can't provide each other. So we don't expect any kind of physical or emotional gratification from each other, only this intellectual and personal stuff, and maybe emotional to an extent.

K: Definitely. My friends and I recognize that we can't meet each other's every need. Love manifests itself in different ways for different folks. It's beautiful, really. But there is the bosom factor . . . Too bad for you.

A: There is that. So . . .

K: So?

A: Wanna make out?