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how very 'when harry met sally' of me

Like many fellow millennials (don’t worry, you’re a millennial in my book, erica) I don’t really know how to date. Or, should I say, I am still in this stage where I would meet someone in class, text with him a bunch, add a little drunken make out session and Poof! I have a boyfriend (yes, making out with me is just THAT good). I would then joyously frolic around campus with said boyfriend until something dramatic happened. Like coming to the sad realization that the boy is. actually. from. new. jersey.

Now, as an “adult” I have come to new realizations about men and dating. Including the following:

• Dating people from New Jersey is just asking to get oil stains on your pillowcase (to be fair, I learned that in college)
• You’re not supposed to make out with someone on the first date. Or even, like, kiss them (lame)
• You really should be afraid of the over-communicating boy
• It is impossible for single men and women of the same sexual orientation to be friends without sexual tension.

Now, I feel as though you might be thinking to yourself that the second rule is bullshit (its not. I took a survey of my “adult” friends and they agree) and that I HAD TO have learned the last lesson in college. But, alas, no, I did not. I had these amazing male friends in college and I honestly don’t think they were just being friends with me because they wanted to bang me. (shut up, Spencer, I like being naïve.)

So now, post-college, and at the maybe start of a maybe relationship, all of my single male friends are being strange to me. Like, they meet my maybe boyfriend and they get all weird and start trying to get him to wrestle with them (seriously). This course of behavior has prompted me to wonder if men and women can ever really be friends. For my part, I am starting to think that its impossible. That in one form or another, there will always be this sexual tension coming between you and your friend of the other gender.

Is this a sign that I’m (shudder) growing up?