The fortitude challenges of industry-originating friendships (I)

Voyager and I appear to be on a bout of mutual stalking lately and a recent post of his has really struck a chord with me. I think it's worth repeating a few words he wrote about industry-originating friendships. Here goes:

"And I'd like to dispel a few false perceptions about friendships and sexual connections with sex workers. It isn't the wild sex fest so many seem to imagine. It involves true friendship & emotional sharing including listening & answering their "why" questions about their working day. It also involves extended periods of their needs being for conversation, companionship, compassion, cuddles and definitely not sex. I like it like that. The  emotional rewards are high & sex has always been second to intimacy for me but I don't think too many men get that subtlety."

...

"Friendships can & do happen within the industry & mostly they're good if sometimes more challenging than most. Living with the lies & deceit is part of the fabric of being involved. Some handle it, some strangle themselves in it others crash in burn."

A couple of quick responses

As for the first paragraph,  in terms of my friendships with L and Erin, those two ladies operate by a fairly firm personal ethical code/choice to not engage in any casual sex with people that they consider to be friends. This plus my being in a long term relationship and my own version of separation of sex from intimacy (i.e. I actually have very little sexual connections with my partner and sex acts that are pursued outside of my relationship are generally fairly physically-oriented in nature with little emotions attached) means that I am entirely comfortable with the expectation that I shut my sexual side when I am with L and/or Erin.

Erin obviously no longer works whilst L remains active. Whilst I've made clear to L that I am always available to hear any grumbling re: the industry/working day-related issues, our discussions in this regard tend to be more philosophical in nature. I suspect part of this comes from the fact that L genuinely has it pretty together and can handle things and also that there remain doors inside her mind that she is not yet prepared to open for me at the early stages of our friendship.

As for the second paragraph, I am hoping to show through the rest of this post and posts coming up the fairly substantial challenges that the three of us have experienced in developing and maintaining our friendships. And Voyager is right about the need to be able to handle the deceit necessary.....

Societal disapproval or lack of understanding be damned?

Maybe I was too quick to declare this in my last post, especially vis-à-vis my friendship with Erin and especially from her POV. That post to an extent explained why I pursued our friendship - another factor is simply the fact that when she turned up at my work place, I learnt through the grapevine the challenges she went through to get to where she is today and simply didn't want her to have to give all that up because of some concern that I was no different to some of the horrible men she had previously run into when working. Putting it another way, I didn't want to be responsible for effectively f**king up someone's life again. Even after we sat down and explained to one another that we'll keep our past a secret and that Erin could work with the knowledge that she won't be bothered by her new colleague, a cowardly part of me really wasn't that keen when she started inviting me out to lunch and so forth.

As Erin explained to me, that we overcame our Mutually Assured Destruction (i.e. were we to crazily spill our guts re: how we met to others) and managed to be comfortable enough to see each other daily at work meant that she kind of wanted to see what kind of person I was really like. Although I soon reciprocated those feelings, I have to confess that she tended to drive our friendship bus more.

This is the opposite to my situation with L, where there is relatively little "real life" background/grounding to our friendship, except for shared values and genuine desire to pursue it. So I think there's still some wariness of her part and I am content with slowly proving myself over time to her. But back to the heading of this part of the post...

Erin and I have just had an argument. A fairly heated argument. And on reflection I was undoubtedly in the wrong in a few respects. She has been fairly upset over various bits of office gossip by a few about how as new colleagues who don't really work together too often, we nonetheless appear to be spending a lot of time together for lunches and so forth at work. Part of this sort of gossip reflects the absolutely pathetic inability of many contemporary people to look beyond the stereotype that men and women can't have serious platonic friendships.

But of course, on one level the gossipers are right. We aren't so "together" just because we happen to be colleagues. We've cried on each other's shoulders, I have taken her child to 24/7 doctors after E's car broke down at the worst moment, and we have shared a lot. All this is inextricably connected with our collective background and what overcoming that meant for us emotionally. And our inability to be honest to others about why and also my own choice (which she admittedly also appreciates) to keep her identity absolutely secret (for example even L has no idea who Erin is/was in terms of real life and working identity) sometimes feel like a damper on our friendship.

She reflected some of those concerns in a recent conversation and perhaps due to a lack of sleep and my own stress, I rather unwisely replied to the effect that she should be less dramatic. That got me hung up on and a subsequent attempt to ring up and apologise has netted me a deliberate "direct-to-voicemail" click on the hang up button on her phone. I am sure in time we can address this issue and things will be fine. But on reflection I can see why having to be like this feels so annoying or even painful to her - I am generally fairly reserved and even a bit taciturn in the eyes of some, whereas she fully values emotional honesty and openness.

To borrow Voyager's phrase, we won't let this "crash and burn" us but anyone liable to easily assert friendships with others from the industry should take some note: maintaining this stuff ain't easy.