CAN GUYS AND GIRLS BE JUST FRIENDS?

By Mike Hardcastle

A closer look at opposite sex friendships.

Depending on whom you ask the answers to this age-old question range from “absolutely” to “absolutely not” and the fact of the matter is that there is no universal truth on this one. In some cases guys and girls can be the best of friends but in other cases any truly platonic relationship is virtually impossible. It all depends on how the friendship started, whether or not there is a physical attraction involved be it one sided or mutual, and on the personalities of the individuals. There really is no good reason why members of the opposite sex can’t have important and close friendships with one another and the objections of those who think it is impossible stem mostly from a crude cultural belief that all men want any woman they can get their hands on and that they view each and every woman as sexual objects first and real people second.

This is just plain stupid and does a disservice to males and females. While there are situations where physical attraction is a factor to contend with it rarely is so overwhelming that it makes a friendship impossible and when it does happen that physical attraction or lust gets in the way of being friends it isn’t always the guy who is struggling with those feelings. Yes, girls do lust after guys as much as guys lust after girls. It is not something that is exclusive to the male half of the species. Whether or not that lust stifles a budding friendship or destroys an existing one is entirely dependent on the person having the feelings. So bottom line, yes guys and girls can be friends if they really want to be friends. It only gets complicated if there is physical attraction involved and then only if the people involved don’t deal with it properly. What is the proper way to deal with this complication? You have to be up front about things. If you feel an attraction you have to let your friend know and be prepared for an answer you won’t want to hear. You must also be prepared to work through your feelings and make the friendship a priority over your broken dreams of romance. If you are the person being admired you must be prepared to be honest in your rejection, to make it clear you only want a friendship and to show that you mean it by sticking it out through the difficult post-declaration adjustment period. After that a friendship can definitely bloom.

There are some simple rules to make a boy-girl friendship a success:

Don’t cross the line of friendship EVER without realizing it may be a point of no return.

If you know your friend harbors deeper emotions toward you you must NEVER take advantage of those feelings to control your friend or get him/her to do what you want.

NEVER give in to physical attractions without knowing that it could change the friendship forever and in an irreversible way.

Respect that you will have different perspectives on important things because hey, you experience the world culture from two opposing realities.

Know that there will always be people who scoff at the validity of opposite-sex friendships and that they are the ones losing out, not you.


MY PERSONAL TAKE ON THIS IS :

Yes, guys and girls can have strictly platonic friendship. But I have also observed many instances in which two friends of opposite sex become friends due to physical attraction, first, and true friendship, second. Depending on the personalities of the people involved it may be easy to overcome the attraction and become strictly just friends, or it may be a challenge for either or both to overcome the attraction. What makes it more complex is that sometimes the party involved does not realize how intense the attraction is or that they underestimate it. Unwanted deep-seated emotional attachment which is not being reciprocated may result, which leads to a lot of heartache. This can mean long term resentments in the end.

When there is strong attraction between two people, space and time apart need to be allowed. Any kinds of emotions including anger, sadness, happiness, joy, feelings involving attraction are neither right or wrong. These are natural human emotions. When such situation arises, then the reasonable thing to do is to try to minimize the risk of hurt in the end. Though sometimes people cannot help it, because the saying 'love is blind' is sometimes true.

Since attraction often comes with attention and sometimes affection, some do not want to risk losing them. Consequently, either party or both may become hesitant to take steps to withdraw from this situation. To maintain friendship solely based on attraction and make it a point so that one does not lose attention and/or affection from the other person makes the friendship itself less valid. In this game, one realizes there is some sort of attraction from him/her toward the other person and/or vice versa, but no one is willing to take a step back to allow time apart for 'cooling off' period because 'cooling off' period means risk of losing attention and/or affection as the attraction may no longer be there or may become less intense. In this case, unknowingly or not, they have opted to not work through their true feelings and this will likely jeopardize friendship because they have made a choice to not make true friendship a top priority. Awkwardness, sabotage, jealousy, competition may follow.

Sometimes temporary time off from each other becomes a necessary avenue. It is more honorable for one to make a conscious choice to withdraw for some time even with the knowledge that there is a risk of losing friendship alltogether in the end, than to maintain a friendship and knowing that this may cause heartache. And it is definitely far more rewarding if one is upfront about things in the beginning and that after they have worked out their feelings, they maintain that true friendship.