Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Should your wife have guy-friends?

Harry Burns: You realize of course that we could never be friends.
Sally Albright: Why not?
Harry Burns: What I'm saying is - and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form - is that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.

Are platonic relationships between men and women possible? That is was the subject of an article I read the other day on CNN.com. The article references one of the greatest movies of all time (When Harry Met Sally) - and of course focuses on Harry's disbelief that men and women can be friends. I would argue that it is possible, but then again I think it depends on what your definition of "friends" is. How close can a man and woman be before they do have feelings for each other? I say this because since getting married, I would say that my female friendships have all dropped to "acquaintance" status. That doesn't mean I don't like those people - but I'm not spending late nights on the phone talking with them or discussing my personal life with them either. The same is true for my wife - she isn't exactly investing into male friendships right now. Maybe it would be different if I were single, but even then I still think that if a guy and girl are investing serious time into their "friendship" - one or both probably has feelings that stretch beyond the friend status categroy. As the article quotes one woman, "When we first met, I wasn't attracted to him at all, but we had such a natural connection that we became really close," she says. "And then one day it hit me: I was in love." Anyway, the article was interesting and I wonder how other people feel on this particular topic.

1 comments:

natesgirl3 said...

Not that my opinion necessarily matters, but I dated someone once who felt that it was completely appropriate to have friends that were girls. And not "aquaintence" type friends. He would have lunch with them, call them, go out to the mall and such with them. It caused me a lot of pain and insecurity. Of course all of the females he was friends with thought I was crazy. Then he met a "friend" that was a girl that he connected with greatly. It hurt my heart so much becuase he was sharing a part of himself with her that should have been for me. Though it was promised to me that it was strictly a friendship, they are now married. I felt that I had been cheated on and lied to. When Nathan and I started dating and felt that it was time to be serious with eachother we promised that there would be no opposite sex friendships, he too had been hurt by the "just a friend" excuse. So in my opinion it is impossible to be just friends, especially if you are in a relationship. Its an affair of the emotions, and it has the potentional to be immensely hurtful.