Back in my college days, when 90% of my closest friends were male, I never felt that my guy friends were not open with me. We talked about everything. Some of them told me way too much. But I don't remember feeling like they were holding back or keeping a certain emotional distance from me.
Out in the real world, the opposite seems true. While my guy friends from college are still open and honest with me, guy friends that I have made since them don't seem to be. I haven't quite figured out why this is. Is it that we were spending time together around the clock in college, making emotional distance more difficult? Have I changed? Do my newer guy friends think of me differently than my college friends? Is there something that I'm missing.
When a friend continues to keep you at an emotional distance, you start to wonder 1)whether you really know this person at all, and 2)why they won't let you in. At what point do you say, "Hey, we've been friends for [insert period of time]. If he's not opening up to me by now, he never will"?
This isn't a question of romantic involvement. There is a particular friend I have in mind while writing this, but there is nothing romantic between us. Besides, if there ever had been potential, it's been completely starved to death by lack of emotional sustenance. I just can't sustain an interest in a guy who shuts me out. This is a question of friendship and communication, and what you do when you start to wonder how much is really there after all.
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