Kanisa George
MAN AND woman cannot be friends!
During my short time navigating this complex life, I may have heard this position more than a dozen times. For those who fiercely advocate this narrative, there might be some truth to their reluctance. After all, men are from Mars and women are from Venus.
By way of real-life examples, it is undoubtedly possible to coexist outside of a sexual, intimate relationship with a member of the opposite sex. But when I think about the vast number of opponents to this arrangement, it leads me to believe that a clean, platonic relationship between two heterosexual members of the opposite sex might not be the easiest thing to pilot.
Especially when a romantic relationship is in play, most people are resolved to keep their interactions with friends of the opposite sex to a minimum, even if this friendship predates their romantic endeavour.
Is the idea of a wholesome, purely platonic relationship between a heterosexual man and woman so blasphemous that we automatically avoid engaging? Or can two mature adults of opposing sexes hold the same space for each other as they do in their same-sex friendships?
Do you believe the supposition that a man and a woman can't be friends holds any weight?
A healthy human existence depends on thriving social interaction. Enduring relationships, such as kinship, mateship, and even the sometimes-puzzling nature of friendships, are crucial to our development and survival.
Friendship, in particular, can support our well-being and emotional state far better than some familial relationships and anchor us when romantic relationships fall apart.
No relationship exists without drawbacks, for a betraying friend can have fatal consequences. Still, studies show that the complexities of friendships are far more nuanced when they involve parties of the opposite sex.
Kaplan and Keys's study on sexuality and relationships found that more than half of men and some women report sexual attraction to their opposite-sex friends. Both sexes admitted to experiencing ambiguity about the sexual boundaries in their opposite-sex friendships, which, according to them, influenced their behaviour if the possibility arose of a perceived benefit. And this benefits/cost ratio is one of the complexities of this friendship dynamic.
Because of this, cross-sex friendships are more complex than both same-sex friendships and romantic partnerships, as the latter relationships have a clear demarcation in heterosexist societies. The primary and perhaps most undisputed danger in cross-sex friendship is the existence of an unspoken attraction. And while your intentions might be to foster a genuine, wholesome interaction, the other party might have something else in mind.
Bleske-Rechek & Buss highlighted that sexual attraction is one of the most important reasons for initiating a cross-sex friendship.
It is this frightening reality that empowers us to reject the opposite-sex friendship possibility, especially when one of the parties is in a committed sexual rel
