#7 What he said: A conversation with my guy friend.

T. Woodbury, Photo courtesy of
M. Adams.

Today's Guy:  Tory M. Woodbury, age 32 WSSU and NFL alum
How long I've known him:  About a year, I think.
What he does:  He's a former NFLer, current coach and a dook fan (boooooooo)
Today's topic:  Can men and women be platonic friends?

So Tory and I had an interesting conversation about egos, trust, dating, friendships, etc. But since the conversation was so long, and I am my own transcriber, I decided to limit today's post to platonic relationships between men and women.

Me: Let me get your take on male/female relationships. What do you think about men and women being friends.


T.W.: Hmmm...Honestly my earlier opinion, in my younger days I didn't think men and women could coexist as friends because I assumed that there was always something physical there. Or they were friends for a reason. Somebody was getting something out of the relationship.

Me: What if anything happened to change that?

T.W.: I met a female and we've been nothing but friends since my college years. We've never done anything physical or anything. She's just been a good friend. So that kind of changed my perspective in the way I think now. So I think a male and a female as friends can coexist. It will be on that person and how much they trust them though.

Me: For instance I told you before we started that I have a lot of guy friends. I have as many guy friends as I have female friends. If you met a woman like that, how would you feel about it?

(Tory details a story about being in that situation, that was left out so as not to identify other parties...and continued...)

T.W.: If me and you were dating and you had all of these guy best friends, as long as I know about them, and definitely meet them. I mean we don't need to be in a relationship for 8 months and then you're like "Oh this is my homeboy, Mark."

Me: Haha

T.W.: Or it's 3:15 in the morning, and you're saying "My homeboy, Chris just left."

Me: Hahahaha (I'm laughing again because my upcoming book starts out with a story about my homeboy being at my door 3 a.m.)

T.W.: It's all about a level of respect when it comes to that situation.

Me: It is a respect thing. But I can tell you now, I have had situations where it could be 3 a.m. and my homeboy is leaving, and I didn't think anything about it.

T.W.: daaaaaaaagggg...That's because you aren't looking at it from the other perspective. If me and you are dating and I'm like "Oh my girl Angela is leaving my house," and it's a quarter to four, how would you take that?

Me: I would probably feel some kinda way. But see, I would feel some kinda way partly because you don't have the same perspective on friendships that I do. (Now, if y'all could actually hear me saying this, you would know that I was thinking...'yeah, he's absolutely right...and I'm wrong...' but ummm anyway! LOL)

T.W.: No. But then again, nowadays people's definitions of friendship are different. Somebody could say "oh that's just my homegirl," but they could be having sex. And kickin' it.

Me: That's very true.

T.W.: You could have that label of "homeboy/homegirl" but they could be involved physically.

Me: That's true.

T.W.: It's all about the true perspective of that title. Is it a true friend? Homeboy/homegirl? We grew up together? You never know what people are talking about these days. "Oh we're just cool. That's my homegirl..."

Me: Right.

T.W.: I mean, I've done it. "Oh that's my homegirl, we're cool." But we had a little something going on. But that ain't nobody else's business.

Me: Uh ha... (right now I'm thinking...see..this is why people don't trust male/female friendships...lol)

T.W.: (he continues) Especially in the presence of other guys. Say if we see each other out somewhere, she may be like "This is my homeboy, T. Wood." And I'll think "yeah," but I still know who she's coming home with that night.

Me: Hmmmmm...interesting. So let me ask you this. Have you ever crossed the line with someone you consider a true friend?

T.W.: No that's the thing. I never have.

Me: Mmhmm

T.W.: I don't consider many "friends." Like when I say "friends", I mean "friends", I have associates, and you know homegirls. You know what I mean? But what I consider true friends, it's only about three that I consider friends. And I've never crossed that path with them. I don't even look at them in that way. You know what I mean?

Me: Yeah, I totally understand.

T.W.: It's kinda like you can look at them, like you look at your male friends. I'm sure you look at them as brothers. You don't want to even think about seeing them naked and all that.

Me: Exactly!

T.W.: Yeah, I don't want to think about seeing her naked...That's my girl! Not with the three that I consider my close friends.


Ok, we'll wrap it up here for now. We went into a discussion about trust and all types of other things...but we talked for like an hour. This is just five minutes of that conversation. You'll get the rest at some other time.