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© 2000 by Missteenindia. All rights reserved.
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Can Men & Women be 'Just Friends?'
Many people describe their romantic partners as their best friends. Is it possible for romantic partners to be best friends? No, because we do not make ourselves as available to best friends as we do to our romantic partners.
Consider two teachers who were friends at the small Midwestern college, but who were unfairly suspected of having an affair by the college community. Despite the appearances and rumors about their friendship, they limited their availability to each other. When they were away from work, they spent most of their time with their families. Their spouses were fully aware of their close friendship and had no problem with it, even though the college community did have problems understanding it.
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Differences between best friends and lovers.
1. Do not depend on best friends for emotional support or physical survival on a daily basis as done with family or as some might with romantic partners.
2. Since we are not as dependent on best friends, they can give a more objective viewpoint about ourselves.
3. Romantic partners have a hard time being objective about differences of opinion since there is much more at stake emotionally with them. Because of the differences in availability and objectivity between best friends and lovers, it is unrealistic to expect lovers to be best friends.
One comedian explained it well. "My wife keeps telling me I am her best friend. But all she does is complain about her husband." Opposite-sex friendships are difficult because people, especially men, confuse intimacy with sex.
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Can men and women be friends without people, particularly men, confusing sex and intimacy? Yes, if we understand how the ideology of romantic love has helped confuse sex and intimacy.
Take seriously many songs, movies and novels devoted to romantic love, a major purpose of life is for people to find their one true love. Whether it is the movies Titanic or The Bridges of Madison County, it is told that happiness is ours if we can only find our proper romantic partner. In particular, if we believe that our romantic partner will give us the meaning and happiness we lack in life, opposite-sex friendships will become very difficult to maintain.
Being a male one often struggle with separating the expectations of romance and happiness from the more simple expectations of friendship regarding women.
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Growing up with the expectation that romance and happiness is the primary purpose of male-female relationships makes it difficult to view male-female relationships as anything less than romantic.
One of the troublesome by-products of the ideology of romantic love is the belief that sex is the only way men and women can be intimate with one another. Intimacy is the ability to share your fears, pains, hopes and joys with others and to receive the same from others. When intimacy is understood this way, sex becomes only one of many possible ways for men and women to be intimate. If there are other ways to be intimate with women besides romance and sex, males do not have to behave as though future happiness is riding on the outcome of any or all relationships they have with women.
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