Men as friends vs Men as Potential Mates

B"H

I've been a tomboy all my life. When I was in first grade, we moved and I started a new school. When I entered the classroom for the first time, the 3 boys and 3 girls in the class asked me if I wanted to be in the "girls' group" or the "boys' group" and I answered without hesitation "boys' group". We used to make paper airplanes. We also played punch ball (a playground variation of baseball played with a pink rubber ball).

I did sometimes play with the other girls (I really liked jumping rope and wish I still had the stamina to jump rope like I did when I was 6). But for the most part, I played with boys (including my brother).

I've always been a baseball fan, well, at least since I was about 7 years old and went to my first baseball game, a father's day bat day double header (I got sick the next day -- I spent 15 or so innings in "standing room only" areas and finally got a seat in the 7th inning of the second game). Somewhere in my pre-teens, I got interested in Football when one of the local channels started showing Canadian Football (I'm a big fan of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats). Eventually, I got "into" NFL Football (I still love CFL football, but I don't get to see it too often).

I also love learning Gemara. Most of the time when I learn Gemara, I'm the only woman in the class.

I also sing with a community choir. Just in case you haven't discovered a pattern here by now, the voice I sing with is Tenor. When I first started singing in a choir, I was one of 3 or 4 women in the Tenor section. When I started with this choir, I was one of 3 women in the Tenor section. Right now, I'm the only women in the Tenor section.

So, as you might have gleaned, I spend a lot of time with men. And, I get along quite well with men, too. Most of the time......

Of course, I get along with men quite nicely until the subject turns to romance. It's almost as though I suddenly have "cooties". Suddenly, I can't seem to understand men and they don't understand me.

It's funny, actually, ironic funny that is. Men will come over and talk to me, tell me I'm interesting, attractive, intelligent, all sorts of nice things. But the second I express any interest in them, BAM! Suddenly, they have an appointment, or I misunderstood, they only want to be friends.

So I'm waiting for someone to give me a road map to the male brain. I guess I'm only invited into the non-romance, non-marriage part of the male brain. I guess men aren't capable of being friends and "more than friends", so to speak. I guess when you live in a world where sex is at least supposed to not be part of the pre-marital experience, friends are compartmentalized separately from potential lovers.

So where does that leave me? I guess out in the cold, romance wise. Men don't seem to be interested in a relationship with me. Men see me in that same compartment where they put other men. And that, apparently, is where I will stay.