ot - I decided I would go at 4am

[Ben Arown-Awile]

I don’t know whether it’s a curse or a blessing, but I seem to have born gender blind. Discussions of male-female relationship issues make no sense to me and I really can’t relate to them. Of course I am aware of gender differences and their physical and cultural components and implications, but I just can’t understand why it’s such a big problem with so many people.

I have never “dated” and really have no idea what that’s all about, but all my life I have had friends of both sexes. Regardless of the sex of the person, our friendship was based on some common interest. I had fishing buddies, most of whom were male. I had hunting buddies, all of whom were male. I had dancing buddies, all of whom were female. I had friends that I went to the movies with, friends that I played games with, friends that I traveled with, friends that I studied with, and friends that I ate and drank with. Many of my friends fell in several of these categories, but they could be of either sex.

I see my friends as whole human beings. Their gender is not who they are, it is just a part of their total personality. Our relationships were two human beings involved in a mutually pleasing social situation. Sometimes, with my female friends, that would involve sexuality, or even cohabitation or marriage, but that was never the main emphasis. It always developed from the deepening of the relationship. It was never the reason for the relationship.

When I watch “battle of the sexes” type movies, or stories about dating, or singles bars, or any of that kind of stuff I feel that it must happen is some different world, and I am really thankful that I have never had to live there.

 

[Spectre]

Ben,

Thanks for the great post. I want to treat people like people, too, not as a white-gun-owning-democratic-gay-Muslim-man, for instance. No, it's George, and those labels don't capture who he is, anymore than they capture anyone.

John