The False Brotherhood of ‘Just Friends’

I don't have male friends.

A few months ago, I told a man, "Straight men don't want to be friends with me unless there's the idea of something romantic in it for them eventually."

I said it not as a judgment—
but as a pattern I kept experiencing.

He told me he could understand why I felt that way, but that it wasn’t inherently true.
He used himself as an example.

Soon, he sexualized his access to me—just as he had with his other female 'friends'.

Every fear I had been vulnerable about
manifested through the very person I was vulnerable with.

I’ve been reclaiming myself from that situation since.

Part of that healing has been looking at the beliefs in me that resonated with the experience.

But today, I came up against the one I stated earlier and found myself asking something different:

Do I actually want to let this go?

Because this belief, thorny as it is, makes sense pragmatically.

If I expect a certain dynamic,
I move differently.
I stay aware.
I stay discerning.

Letting it go doesn’t just mean releasing—it means opening up to the unknown again.

So tentatively, I chose to go inward.
Not to transmute the belief, but to understand it more deeply.

What I found wasn’t defensiveness.
It was grief.

A part of me that had been holding the loss of innocence.

She was a wise, elegant protector with her power confined to a small space.

What I did next was different:
I didn't change her mind

I gave her truth a sovereign place to exist.

Tears flowed down my face as she transformed into a black-veiled Madonna.
To those with hidden intentions, she is a terror. But to the innocent, she is a sanctuary.

So the story I've been telling myself
isn’t necessarily less true now.

I’m just not a victim inside of it anymore.

And because of that,
it no longer needs to be so absolute.

I still don’t have male friends.
And I can honestly be at peace with that for as long as that's true.

But I am curious—

~For people who are attracted to the opposite sex, have those friendships supported you…
or disappointed you?