As a girl who has always had a lot of close guy friends, I often wondered when I was younger how it would all shake out when they each started dating someone. Would their new/eventual girlfriends like me? Would we have things in common? Will they think I’m secretly out to steal their boys?! From the moment my friendships with these guys began, I simply feared them fading gradually – because of distance, and because of life, and because of gender norms, with the likelihood of straight men and women maintaining friendships once one of them starts dating someone seeming slimmer than some other forms of friendships. One by one, they started dating and meeting their eventual girlfriends – and one by one, I gained some really amazing new female friends. I am pretty fortunate to know all of these people and their kiddos and their dogs, and days like this one with them are some of my very favorites.