Nah, I understand what you meant. It’s just not an African or African American thing to have beta orbiters, so male friends are a special situation. I have male friends, and I’m sure that there’s some very remote sexual tension, but it’s remote on the level that it would take a freudian psychologist to find the sex in it.

If we have a beta orbiter, we are very conscious of his sexuality, and try not to push him too far. So we can say “friends”, but there is no illusion on either side about him being an admirer waiting for that emergency to break the glass. So we do have our way of playing our options, it’s just done in a less deceptive way.

An actual male friend…that’s like falling in love. It takes an African woman who loves men and feels safe with men to make that. That’s not many African women. The ones who can do that are usually actual warrior types, not just chicks with an attitude. They’ve been through things that make them able to identify with men and participate in friendship similarly to how men do with each other.

A woman who has a healthy respect for masculinity also has a healthy respect for men’s strength and a fear of pushing their limits. So there are going to be lines of intimacy that a woman will be afraid to blur, even if there may be some practical benefits.