As I get older, it seems I'm increasingly collecting a higher ratio of male friends. Ex-boyfriends resurface, one-date wonders lacking physical chemistry congeal into friendships, or I meet a guy and like him as an older brother type. These male friendships are sometimes my only saving grace to sanity when it seems my female friends only help make a bad situation worse by being, well, girls. Men have a way of being very blunt and factual. Sometimes that is exactly what we need—a mental slap to the brainstem. Men also drink with more finesse than women, at least the ones I know.
Either way, I have found myself splitting my social time almost equally between male and female friends, and I thoroughly enjoy it. However, I've also noticed a problem. As I usually seek the company of a male friend for concerts, baseball games and drinking on the town, I seem to be cock-blocking myself from meeting men at these events.
This article appears in Apr 5-11, 2012.