Being Allergic to the Opposite Sex

Growing up in Ottawa the general progression of the events in the sand box were throwing dirt in Nick’s face. Scaling the hedges of my mother’s well-kept garden before dinner to pick snow peas and uproot carrots to ruin my dinner – with Nick. To trade Pogs ® and stickers and smacked the pinnata’s at my birthday parties with Nick and friends. To chase garter snakes on the playground with Nick and his buddies.

My discovery of the terrible chemicals that make up the fine specimen of JELL-O were discovered on the back stoop of my house as Nicholas went home with a tummy ache, broke out in hives from head-to-toe immediately upon return to his house and the simple but confusing explanation from his mother that he could no longer come out to play etches itself in the memories of my mind. I stood there with a blank stare and thought, "Was it something I said?" More or less it was something I served.

Similarly I had a difficult time running with the girls while Nick was on bed rest. From an early age, I was informed that boys had cooties. I didn’t understand that. Nick didn’t have cooties. If anything the snakes we chased did. I couldn’t get along with the girls in my circle. I remember distinctly punching one of them in the face in front of my mother. Not my best moment in life – but it happened and she was being incredibly annoying. It didn’t justify my ridiculous reaction. I have since repented from this dirty deed of mine, spent a long hard night that night without dinner in my bedroom wondering why I didn’t wait two blocks to be out of sight of my mother before I made a connection with her nose.

It’s probably was best she saw it. I never hit a girl again and I didn’t have to go through the explanation of two sins rather than one. Punching is one thing, breaking my mother’s trust for lying about it just digs a bigger hole.

Fast forward a couple years and I’m sitting in my Communications Theory course at Trinity. I was studying the gap between communication between men and women. This subject fascinates me. Because no matter how we slice and dice it, there are differences. Our textbook even went over the whole theory that the movie, When Harry Met Sally covers. The premise is this:

That men and women can’t be friends because the sex factor always gets in the way.

Now is this true? I spent the latter half of my university career pondering this message and starting to believe it. Granted I was surrounded by a ratio that did not lean in my favour to securing any male friends. They had all paired off while I was busy at rowing practice. And since there were 4 girls for every guy, they secured what they thought was the cream of the crop as “friends”. Conveniently the vast majority of those people got married or dumped one another. Who knew friends would dump one another. Oh, right, they must have dated while I had my nose stuck in a book. Alternately the less than stellar with the ladies ran the other direction screaming. Incensed by the fact that a girl called to “hang out.” Happened a couple of times to me. Was it something I said?

I remember this one time when someone that I grew up with, forgot that we had grown up together. We had him and his roomies over for dinner because his roommate had suggested it in the first place. As usual, I somehow planned the event. And thus, at the dinner party, I simply asked how things were at their church and the guy literally was hanging from the rafters with fright.

“How d-d-do you know that I go to CAC?”

His roommate just looked at him, rolled his eyes and said, “Dude, she grew up with us.”

And I sat there and thought, had I changed that much? Was I giving off a desperate vibe by asking how church was going? I wasn't even interested in this guy. Should I be? He was constantly playing the banjo until like 4 in the morning on the other side of the wall that we shared. Was I insane in thinking this situation odd?

Fast forward a couple of months. I’m in Ottawa. Where I had met Nick growing up. I’m back in the sandbox of memories. I meet up with my friends that I grew up with. It’s fabulous. I hung out with guys and it truly restored my trust in the fact that I could in fact befriend guys and we didn’t have to go through an awkward Define The Relationship (DTR) moment. And I’m sorry, those moments are stupid because if you’re questioning every person in your life, you can’t actually get to know them.

Similarly, if you DTR and you fall for them later, it’s just all the more complicated on your end. In Ottawa they don’t really know what DTR is. In fact, I went out with a lot of them in what by BC standards are questionable circumstances but because no one questioned, it was just normal. Coffee wasn’t seen as a date. It was just an avenue for people to better get to know one another in good company.

In fact when I do go out with a guy, he usually has to stop me in my tracks and smack a frying pan over my head and say, Kelsey, I like you. I want to get to know you better. And then I go, Oh. Imagine that. Why on earth would you want to do something like that?

So I came back to BC. –Coquitlam rather. And I am back at square one. I’ve been banished to the same stupid mentality that everyone shares around here. Which baffles me because how do you truly get to know who someone is and befriend them when you’re constantly in a huge group of people?

I made a wrong move in asking someone out for coffee last year because I made an incorrect assumption of their character and wanted to remedy that assumption that ultimately made an @$$ out of me. I’m back to that stupid theory that men and women can’t be friends because the sex factor always gets in the way.

I know this is a gross exaggeration and that there are a lot of individuals that can think beyond the box. Not every guy is suffering from having eaten green JELL-O. Nick took that excuse years ago.

Now I know every theory has holes. So the guys that I am friends with? Well? If you’re going based on the theory, I think you can fill in the blanks. That's why I’m at square one. Just as soon as I think I’ve figured out the opposite sex, they change the rules -- even in regards to friendship. Which is why I think that stupid movie, He's Just Not That Into You is a testimony of how there are no rules. Because the rule becomes the exception and the exception becomes the rule. At the end of the day, I just think to simplify the theories, differences and complexities, the boys are just allergic to girls instead of lime green JELL-O. There. They somehow make sense.