He Wasn't My Friend

When I lived in Fargo at 25, I decided it was finally time to make my first male friend. My old roommate Leidy made guy friendships seem easy, a concept completely alien to me. I’d had deep friendships all my life—just never with anyone who owned cargo shorts.

Leidy and I met at 22 through AmeriCorps. We were assigned to a town in rural Wisconsin we’d never heard of and had never met before signing the lease. Rent was only manageable because we split it, and volunteering on the nearby reservation paid in character growth more than cash.

Main Street had the essentials: a diner where the coffee tasted like someone had whispered "coffee" into a pot of hot water, an Italian-American joint called Luigi’s where you could order veal marsala in sweatpants, and a handful of shops full of items for women named Trish who own multiple lake homes. And the fudge-and-gift shop—run by a cult, naturally.

The cult was something of a local secret. No one talked about it, but everyone knew about it. Rumors swirled: hit lists, child abuse, tax evasion. It was like living inside a slow-burning true crime documentary.

One time, my boyfriend and I ventured into the shop. The woman behind the counter wore a bonnet and a prairie dress. The air was still. She cut our fudge slightly crooked, then apologized profusely while refusing to meet our eyes. We overcompensated with chirpy reassurances like, “In one end, out the other!” and left wondering if her mistake had just cost her a finger.

The fudge, disturbingly, was delicious.

That year, Leidy and I entertained ourselves with thrifted velvet pants, cracked leather jackets, and giant sweaters that fell past our knees. Our furniture looked like it had been curated by someone who had only heard of furniture secondhand. We didn’t have a TV, but we had two Goodwill armchairs, a wobbly coffee table, and a framed photo of a bald eagle mid-screech.

"Friendships with men are easier sometimes," Leidy once said, blonde hair slipping from a messy bun, glasses perched halfway down her nose. "Less emotional labor. It’s freeing."

I nodded, as if I knew what that felt like.

My own history with men fell into two categories: boyfriends of friends (required to hate them by group chat law) and romantic flops so repetitive they bordered on avant-garde. But I tucked her comment away, like something useful for later.

Years after this conversation, in Fargo, I was escaping both rural Minnesota and my long-term relationship. I still saw Zach on weekends, but I needed space. Applying to grad school was more about exit strategy than intellectual curiosity.

My studio apartment had once been a hotel room, probably back when people traveled by train and smoked indoors. It was 325 square feet, with no oven and a painted-shut window. I microwaved everything. By March, I was 80% graduate student, 20% Lean Cuisine.

By spring 2021, I had no friends in Fargo. Blame the pandemic. Or Zoom classes. Or the fact that I’d rather eat a napkin than attend a networking event.

One January afternoon, I sat at my tiny desk before Zoom class, makeup done, braid draped neatly over my shoulder. Behind me, a tapestry of a library helped create the illusion that I wasn’t living in a walk-in closet with a sink.

Our class was small—just six of us, including the professor. I knew Majalisa and Joe vaguely. Sydney talked too much. But Luke stood out. He had a very large, very symmetrical Norwegian face and looked like a Viking who'd wandered into grad school by accident.

Then the professor asked, “What does a lesbian sound like?”

Everyone froze. I was eventually called on.

“My aunt Mary is a lesbian,” I offered, like that gave me expertise. “She sounds like... my mom and me?”

“Do lesbians sound more masculine than straight women?” he pressed.

“Some, maybe?”

I glanced around. Everyone was stifling laughter. Then we moved on to gay men. Is this Academia? I wondered.

The next week, Luke sent me a private Zoom message: "Hey! You seem really smart. Want to study together sometime?"

What did that mean? Did he need tutoring? A friend? Was he enchanted by my digital braid?

I did what any rational person would do and looked him up on Facebook.

Married. Phew. I had a boyfriend too. That meant we could be friends. Real, platonic, boundary-honoring friends.

I replied, “Sure! Here’s my email.” I felt hopeful. Brave. Possibly delusional.

He emailed the next day: want to walk at Island Park after class? Not studying. But that was fine. I walked there daily.

“Meet you by the tennis courts,” I said.

It was twelve degrees and snowing. He wasn’t at the first set, so I trudged to the second. There he was: tall, burly, ginger beard, layered in hiking gear like he expected to cross a mountain.

He smiled. “Your braid is beautiful.”

“You’re taller than I thought. I imagine everyone on Zoom is three feet tall.”

We walked. Talked about books. I mentioned Dubliners. He wanted to borrow it. I ran up to my apartment, grabbed it, and gave it to him.

“Wait here,” he said, and disappeared into his nicer building.

He returned with Heart of Darkness, which I despised but accepted like it was a gift from a foreign diplomat.

“Want to walk again after our next class?”

“Sure,” I said, like this wasn’t potentially the prologue to something weird.

I texted Leidy: I think I made my first guy friend!

Our next walk felt familiar. He asked if I’d read Heart of Darkness. I lied. He said Dubliners was dense. Accurate. Rude.

We passed frozen geese muttering dark secrets to themselves.

“Do you ever think about leaving academia?” he asked.

“Constantly.”

He asked more questions about me—my hobbies, writing, family.

I asked, casually: “Do you have a partner?”

He ignored the question.

Then came the moment. A gust of wind launched my birth control from my purse.

Luke sprinted after it. Olympic form. Caught it. Handed it back like a receipt.

“Wow,” I laughed. “That’s never happened before.”

He smiled. Politely. No joke. Just silence. Mortifying.

Then he said, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

Here it came.

“I’m married,” he said. “But I have a bigger appetite than my wife.”

He said appetite like it was a dirty word. Like he should’ve whispered it in a confessional booth.

I stared ahead, willing the sidewalk to swallow me whole.

“I just thought... you’re new here, and not really in my friend groups... so maybe this could be a chance to get to know each other more... intimately.”

I smiled that tight, Midwestern smile that says, I’m experiencing terror but still want to be polite.

Inside, I was screaming.

“I’m in a relationship,” I said. “Does your wife know about this?”

“She doesn’t ask. Doesn’t want to know.”

That line had been practiced. I could hear it. I felt slimy just listening.

Back at my building, he said, “I can walk you up. The basement’s haunted, you know? Want to check it out?”

“No thanks,” I said. “I’m good on ghosts. Bye!”

Then I walked away—fast. Boots slapping the ice like a one-woman stampede.

Back in my apartment, I locked the door, collapsed on my twin bed, and called Leidy, breathless.

“Luke propositioned me.”

“What kind?”

“The ‘appetite’ kind.”

She groaned. “Let me guess—he thinks you’re a full-course meal.”

“Apparently.”

“Meg, this is how you die. He was about to lead you into the haunted basement.”

“Yeah. Lifetime already optioned it: Betrayed in the Basement: The Meg Perry Story.”

“Well,” she said, “he wasn’t the male friend for you.”

“Correct.”

After that, I ignored his messages. Kept my braid out of frame. Zoom, I realized, was a beautiful thing. A digital shield. A wall of buttons and muting functions. My virtual sanctuary.

So no, Luke wasn’t the male friend for me. But thanks to a haunted basement, a rogue birth control pack, and one too many uses of the word appetite, I finally understood what Leidy meant: male friendships really are freeing—especially when you don’t have to have them.