It Isn’t Necessary to Call Me “Friend”

/ Richard R. Barron
Abby hugs Hawken in an image made this time last year. We love our dogs to pieces, and we are responsible for taking care of them.

Something I have observed since the death of my wife in March 2022: women who lead our interactions with a sentence that refers to me as “friend.”

“Leena” did that to me recently, and I’m sure it was because she knew I was single and might be interested in scoping her out, so she closed that door by saying, “Hello friend! How are you doing?”

Relax, Leena, I’m not hitting on you.

But I also understand how tiresome and annoying it must be to fight off a constant phalanx of passes from what my college newspaper editor called “a bunch of hard d!cks.”

Honestly, I don’t really even date. I had the best for 18 years, and I’m happy now, so don’t let it concern you. I am a safe space.

Touching a woman's hands is, in my view, among the simplest, most intimate ways we can communicate. In the image by Mackenzee Crosby, Abby and I hold hands.
Touching a woman’s hands is, in my view, among the simplest, most intimate ways we can communicate. In the image by Mackenzee Crosby, Abby and I hold hands.