My girlfriends and I know about each others pain, joy, families, broken hearts, moments of bliss, happiness, sadness, and inquire about each other's well being just about every day. A lot of times I joke about being a guy, however, in this aspect of my life, I'm so happy and proud to be a woman.
And of course, when something happens with a guy in our lives, each of us knows about it. If I ever even contemplate getting serious with a guy, he knows that it's a package deal. He has to win over my girlfriends first and foremost to really be in 'the club', and not just a passing novelty.
Today, in particular, I confided to my best friend about a guy that has been in and out of my life for a couple of years now, and cannot deal with his emotions in any sort of heathly manner whatsoever. Somewhere in the time line of his life, he learned that having strong emotions is weak. I feel sad for him, yet cannot help him in this journey of emotional growth/ maturity that he must go through. When he recently contacted me to finally tell me something about his feelings, after a year of silence, I felt rather tender towards him, and wanted to help him through his feelings because I've always cared for him. Then my girlfriend said "Oh Jesus Kelly, I want off of this ride and I want my money back! He wasn't there for you in your time of emotional need, why should you be there for his?!" And she is so very right! As women, our first instinct is to comfort those that we care about, but, for example, as most parents know, this is not always the right thing to do. It is one of the most difficult challenges that we, as women face, to allow someone we care about, to hurt, and leave them alone. However, over and over again, I see men do it, so easily, it seems.
I think that all of our brains are like houses. Each emotion has a room, and men seem to just be able to walk out of the room and shut the door. As women, we find ourselves trapped in the room, with the door locked from the outside, not able to get out, until everything in the room is in order first. In other words, dealing with our emotions first, then going on about our lives secondly, but with new found wisdom of what we have dealt with. And sometimes, right when we find ourselves able to walk out of that room and leave it behind, a man will just then be reopening the same door, to the same room, in his own house.