It's Thursday. Thursday is my boyfriend's favorite night of the week, because it's guys night out --whatever that means. To him, it basically means a night-without-my-girlfriend-and-I-don't-have-to-justify-it. To me, it says: my boyfriend needs to set in the ground rules of our relationship (if there is such a thing) that there should be a night where he gets to get drunk with the guys (a part I'm willing to admit is necessary for the sanity of the male species) and a night where he doesn't have to worry about his girlfriend (the part that confuses me). Correct me if I'm wrong, but girlfriends aren't supposed to be the thing you worry about and need to schedule a night away from... Although in man-language, Thursday nights are about spending quality time with friends, in my language, it also means trouble. For the sake of defining "guys night out" for the greater good of 21st relationships, let's try and talk about this.
I for one, love girls' night out --but I don't feel the need to mark it down in the calendar for months and years to come. I enjoy spending time with my friends without my man because it's nice to have your own life and space. Which is why I completely understand the concept of guy's night out.
Here's where I get lost: my boyfriend will have guys night out no matter what, even if he's dead tired, and even if his friends don't want to be out. He will stubbornly get drunk, go home at no less than 2.30 in the morning, and never ask me to join him. Because it's Thursday, and in order for him to keep feeling good about his youth and his manhood, he needs to this (my words, not his).
Other guys, I've noticed, do guys night out almost every night --just after they finished the first part of the evening with their girlfriends. We may naively think that they do this just to go out and flirt (maybe cheat) but the truth is, more than 90% of the time, they don't do that. They just get really really drunk, between guys, and sometimes end-up with really fantastically-plausible stories the next morning. I know this because I have a bunch of Rat friends with all kinds of stories that will make you wonder why men dare to ever get drunk at all.
A friend of mine used to feel like when she didn't come out with her boyfriend, she could detect a sound of happiness coming from him --a sort of "I love you but I'm so happy I get to spend the night being an idiot with my friends rather than with you." And her man did love her. He just loved feeling like he was one was the guys more. And eventually, she decided it would better if she let him be one of the guys 24/7. She left.
I'm not trying to minimize the importance that men and women both need their space and time with their own friends --because really, in a long term relationship, you can't expect to always do everything together. That would be almost unhealthy. But guys, at least agree not to make your girlfriend feel like spending the night without them is like winning a first class trip to Vegas.
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