Can Men and Women be just friends?

As a single man I get lots of women that want to be my friend, but don't want any romance. Most people know what it means for a man to be in the "friend zone", you never get out of it. Most men hate that zone and many women look for a man to be in that zone with. I think it is a trap! It is ironic that women want to be in this zone, but they don't want their boyfriend to be in this zone with another woman. So, men don't like this zone! If they have a woman friend then other women don't want a relationship, but the woman that is "just a friend" doesn't want a relationship either. Does this sound like a relationship trap to anyone else? I hear many women say they wish they had male friends like they used to in high school or maybe even college. But, they don't want their boyfriend to have female friends like the guy used to in college or high school. A few months ago I had a friend that was a female and she kept saying she didn't want to be my girlfriend. She introduced me to people as her "mentor".

I wanted to hear that I was more than just a friend and she didn't want to say it that way. I had other female friends that this woman didn't know about. Well, she knew about it, but she had never met any of them. One weekend another women came to my house to use my scanner and while she was working in my house I was outside trimming my trees. Well, you know what I am going to say (or why would I be talking about this), the woman that called me her mentor drove up and saw me working outside. She wondered why I didn't invite her inside so she went in and saw the other woman.

She took everything she had left in my house and didn't say anything, just walked out. She no longer called me her mentor. She still needs my helps sometimes, but that is all. We don't hang around any more and she doesn't consider me her friend. Since that weekend she has asked me about that girl and mentions her sometimes. It makes me roll my eyes  when women say they want to be friends or have a male friend. I don't think it is possible to be normal friends. I have some female friends and am happy to meet them or help them. But, they are different than my male friends. I don't hang out with them.

I sometimes see some women from high school or college. I don't mind meeting a woman with her husband or a group of women. That is different than a friendship with a man. With a guy I would go out to a bar and get drunk. With a woman I would go to Starbucks and get a coffee. After the drink we might spend the night talking about everything. After the coffee we would go home and talk to other friends.

Just HELP

Today I'm at the San Jose library helping with a MeetUp group I'm in. I often teach this group English classes, but today I came to help a couple of my former students while they teach. When I sit in the back of class I realize I am the worst kind of student and I wonder how my teachers put up with me. I am very disruptive when I'm bored! When other people teach ESL I'm always bored. I like class activities and it seems no one else does. They stand in front of the class and tell students how to speak English rather than have them actually speak English.

On my way here I walked through downtown. Even on Sundays they have city workers cleaning the streets, emptying trash, and making everything look good. As I was walking I saw one of the workers engaging a homeless person. This man was looking in trash cans and taking out plastic and aluminum containers to recycle and make a few bucks. The city worker was emptying trash into the cart he was wheeling around. The homeless man looked apologetic that he was going through the trash when he saw the city worker. The city worker smiled at him and called him over. The homeless guy, and I, were thinking this city worker was going to chastise the homeless guy for going through the trash.

I couldn't hear what was going on, but the homeless guy got this smile on his face all of a sudden. The city worker opened a "secret compartment" on his cart and the homeless guy started taking out a bunch of crushed cans. I smiled at the city worker and gave him a thumbs up as I walked by. We fist bumped as the homeless guy was digging into the secret compartment taking his new found loot. It made me feel good to see everyone pulling together to help each other. We all need to do that. I don't care about race or religion or anything else that people feel is a barrier between each other. We need to help each other because everyone has problems. No one's life is as smooth as others think and we can all use a boost sometimes.
(If it matters ... the city worker was Hispanic and the homeless guy was white)

20,000 push ups and 500 miles

2014 Turkey Trot

Variety, variety, variety ... variety is important in all things. I have lived in many different places, I have had different jobs, and I have had many different experiences. Three years I lost weight and then started running to keep the weight off.

2014 Moonlight Run

When I started this grand idea I couldn't run to the end of the block with my daughter. I went to the gym every day and ran on the treadmill for 20 - 30 minutes. Started at 1 mile and worked my way up to 3.5 miles. The first month I hated it. Even now every time I run I keep saying, "I hate running, I hate running, I hate running!". It was no easy to drag myself to the gym every day. Even when I didn't go to the gym I would run outside and I forced myself to run every day.

2014San Jose Giants 5K

2014 San Francisco Giants 5K

I wasn't sure of the motivation after a while. Was I running to lose weight or to stay in shape?

2014 Burlingame 5K L

I have been running for 3 years and now I don't keep up with it so much. I don't go to the gym very often and run outside only a few times a week. I have known for some time that I needed to do something else.

2013 10K Turkey Trot

2013 Moonlight 5K

Last month my niece's husband put a challenge on Facebook. He wanted to know if anyone else would do 55 pushups a day every day for 2015.

2013 San Jose Giants 10K

Over 20,000 pushups if I can do it every day. I was thinking of practicing before the new year and figured it would be good to work up to it. I couldn't convince myself to do that. I know I want to do it, but I didn't. I will do 55 push ups if possible every day this year.

2013 SF Giants 10K

2013 Burlingame 10K

Just like my promise the I made to myself 3 years ago I WILL do this. I'm going to try to combine the pushups with running 1.5 miles every day and keep running 5K and 10K races.

2012 Burlingame 5K

When I decided to run 2 5K races a month I did it. I will do this. But, then again I will do what I can do. The first day I was able to do the 55 pushups and I walked 1.5 miles since my foot is hurting. The next day I could only do 30 pushups, my arms literally wouldn't move any more. On the 3rd of January I didn't do any pushups and then the 4th I am back to 55 pushups. Running will catch up. As of today I am at 140 pushups and 1.5 miles. I WILL do this!!

2012 SJ Earthquake 5K

2011 Turkey Trot (1st)

2012 MS 5K

2012 Morgan Hill 5K w/ Lindsey

2012 5K Santa Cruz

2012 Monterey 5K