Pare!

I am, what most of my friends call, a guy-girl. No, I’m not bisexual, but I’m usually the only estrogen-carrier in a table full of testosterone-laden humans, the sounding board for musings on the female psyche, the convenient no-strings-attached date if a friend needs to present someone at some family dinner or high school/college reunion, the one who gets slapped as hard on the back as any other member of the barkada, the noisy drunk everyone tries to render senseless with copious amounts of beer. I am the stereotypical “one of the boys”.

As far back as I can remember, I tended to gravitate towards groups composed of the opposite sex than girls. These boys always welcomed me with open arms. They never saw me as the other; I was always one of them. As a seven-year-old, I played patintero, sha-to, ta-ching, tex with the six dusty little boys of our truck mechanic who lived in a shanty just a few blocks from our house. In high school I was always horsing around with my male classmates who also sometimes treated me as a Dear Abby of sorts for their first attempts at dating (the “datee”s being the more popular girls in school, of course). In college, I was the non-sorority-member ka-barkada of one whole fraternity—that was when I learned to play pusoy, tong-its, and billiards; drink until the wee hours; and to sober up before class at different places around the university.

It’s not because I look like or dress like a boy. All right, so I’ve always sported short hair and I do have a stubborn, square jaw but I do have the less angular, softer features of a female. That I was really female became more obvious during puberty when my boobs started growing up to their present large size. I like wearing short skirts and I do put on make-up (I never leave home without my kikay kit).

Males just naturally feel comfortable when they’re with me. Maybe it’s because I don’t see them as potential flirt-material or boyfriends, or the way I can slug it out with the best of them when it comes to those raunchy jokes, possibly also the way I threaten them with bodily harm when they’ve gone a step too far. Or maybe it’s the way I feel happy and comfortable with them, too. I like being with these sweaty, odd, not-so-sweet-smelling creatures. The fact that they can relax and act like their natural selves when they’re with me is probably the reason why we get along so well.

But, as with everything, there are certain disadvantages to playing the guy-girl role, of course, and what follows are a few of them.

Males who are not members of your group, or who don’t know you that well, think you’re easy. I don’t know what it is exactly that makes people think that you’ve done the dirty deed with every guy you hang out with, but they just do. This is especially apparent when you meet the person at your favorite watering hole and he has seen you being surrounded by members of his species. There are two ways to handle this: cut him down to size yourself with a few intelligent, classy, go-away-you-are-a-sexist-idiot letdowns or put one of your barkadas to good use by asking him to give the jerk menacing looks. It helps a lot if said barkada is a big, brawny jock who looks like a killer.

Girlfriends and potential girlfriends see you as a threat. One of my few female friends, Dang, is almost always the object of hate by the significant others of her guy friends. She has gotten anonymous hate-mail, prank phone calls, and has even experienced one a la tele-novela confrontation scene. She’s pretty but not teeth-achingly so—unlike some of the girlfriends or dates of her friends. But it makes no difference. She is always considered a serious threat by these girls. Dang, in a fit of exasperation, once blurted out to a friend whose girlfriend was giving her grief, “If I wanted to sleep or get into a relationship with any of you, I would have made my move by now. You guys are so desperate anyway!” Of course, the last was a joke, but still. One guy friend explained it to me once when I asked him about the seeming irrationality of it and he said, “Well, think of it this way—which would make you more miserable: Your guy having had a one-night stand and then forgetting all about it or not having sex but actually forming a connection with someone?” The solution to this problem? Try befriending the girlfriend/nililigawan to show that she has nothing to fear from you. If that doesn’t work just ask your friend not to bring his girlfriend on your gimmicks anymore to save you both from possible drama.

The temptation to actually get into relationship with one of your friends. Gurl, this is a really bad idea. The idea can sometimes be really tempting but you have to think about this many, many times before you jump into anything. It has the potential to: actually ruin your reputation, thus reinforcing the above disadvantage I mentioned; break-up the group, especially if one or both of you are not mature enough to not force your friends to take sides; set a precedent—“tusok-tusok/tuhog of the barkada” is a big no-no. There are many fish out there in the dating ocean—take your pick. Do not piss where you eat. Okay, enough of the clichés and mixed metaphors—you get my point.

In spite of these possible setbacks, I am happy being a guy-girl. One of the greatest advantages is you get glimpses into the otherwise-murky male psyche and this helps a lot—most specially when you date (again, someone outside your group though). Of course, most of the time, it requires intestinal fortitude, great patience, the willingness to compromise and to weather a lot of problems, but what friendship doesn’t?