My Friends' Husbands

In all of my circles of friends, I am now the single girl amongst a bunch of married (or practically married) folks. I don't much mind that. Because I'm not attached to a ball and chain, I have the freedom to take a trip at a moment's notice, move across the country for a job, and hook up with as many men as my self-respect would allow. I also get to learn a lot about relationships by observing how my friends interact with their husbands.

I like all of my friends' husbands. They all have genuinely redeeming qualities-- Some are smart and talented. Some are reliable and responsible. Some are funny. Some are sensitive. Some are fantastic cooks. Some are attentive fathers. I'm really grateful for having friends who have avoided marrying assholes.

Still, as much as I like all of my friends' husbands, I've only been truly impressed with very few. And I think it's due to one quality that most of them seem to be missing: The ability or willingness to make friends with their wives' friends.

For example, I have a good friend who's been with her husband for nearly a decade. He's a very good man. He's loyal and loving to her, is very intelligent and accomplished, has good conversation skills, and has the maturity to treat her as a partner in building their life together. I've known him for almost as long as they've been together, and he's even stayed at my place and eaten meals that I cooked when they've come to visit. But in all the years that I've known him to be an important part of her life, I've never felt that he's regarded me in the same way. When I've stayed with them, I never felt that he bothered to welcome me into their home. He's never offered to, say, take us all out for drinks when I've bought a plane ticket on my grad student budget to fly out to see them. I don't feel that he dislikes me, but I don't feel that he's ever bothered to get to know me, either. He's not necessarily a shy person, so I can only assume that he just doesn't care to know his wife's friends. Granted, all of these things could be the fault of my friend, too. She's not the best hostess herself. And she perhaps doesn't feel the need to get her friends to like her husband, or maybe even prefers to compartmentalize different people in her life.

But I guess that's the lesson I've learned in observing their marriage: It's exceedingly important to me that my significant other gets along with my friends and family. As such, a quality I look for in a man is the ability and willingness to be socially generous. Maybe it has something to do with how my family works. Whenever I've brought home a boyfriend to meet the family, my family immediately tries to welcome him. My dad will joke around with him. My mom will cook him things that he likes to eat. My aunts, uncles, and cousins will include him in their conversations. My family is like this with anyone I bring home, actually. I have an uncle, who currently is also my landlord, who frequently takes me out to dinner. If I happen to be with my friends when he walks over with his invitation, he'll invite all of them out as well. My family does this not because they necessarily like the people I bring home. (In fact, it's safe to say that they've disliked most of my boyfriends.) They welcome these friends and boyfriends because they know that these people are important to me. So it's only natural that I expect these friends and boyfriends to treat my family with the same warmth and generosity.

I've come to realize that out of all of my friends' husbands, one of them in particular has this quality. This friend, who is also a colleague from graduate school, married a man who really acts on the saying, "Mi casa es su casa." I haven't spent a whole lot of time with them, but when I've had, I've always felt that I was being welcomed as their guest, and not just as a guest of my friend. He'll behave as the consummate host, preparing a delicious meal, and even sending me home with the leftovers. He'll open up about his own life and show equal interest in mine. He's perhaps the only husband whom I refer to as "my friend," rather than "my friend's husband."

Perhaps here's the catch: This friend of mine is not a woman, but a man. And his husband is perhaps my favorite of all of my friends' husbands.

I don't know if this says something about gay marriages versus straight ones. Maybe I can't really be friends with my girlfriends' husbands because, as a single girl, I pose as a potential threat. Or maybe this says something about the particular friends that I have. Maybe my girlfriends simply prefer to be with shy and socially awkward men. Maybe their preference is guided by some gender dynamic or social norm that doesn't govern gay men.

Or maybe it says something about me that my ideal husband is a gay man.