Just friends

The riddle of friendship between the sexes

By The Spectator

"Why friendship between men and women has been so fragile," is the heading of one of the chapters of an interesting book I am reading titled, An intimate history of humanity. It contains many more chapters on such issues which have left us confused for hundreds of years but this particular one caught my fancy and made me want to try and make my own analysis on the issue, with a little help from the book!

My closets friends are most definitely women and as I was trying to explain to a younger male friend recently, no matter how close a friend you are with a member of the opposite sex, I think it is only a woman who can completely understand another woman and a man who can completely understand another man. Everyone will agree with me on this one, I believe.

But that does not mean that men and women can't be friends. I think it is possible if we can put aside a lot of the prejudices we have about each other’s sex and can keep it strictly as a friendship. But it's no easy task, I must admit.

There are likely to be certain problems that can crop up in mixed friendships that one does not encounter in our friendships with persons of our own 'kind'. The inevitable question that comes up here is can there be a platonic relationship between males and females who share a close friendship? My narrow interpretation of platonic relationships here would mean a friendship that does not involve romance and the other juicy ingredients that go with 'romantic relationships'.

My assumption is that while it is possible for men and women to be 'just friends', its success largely depends on the two people involved in the relationship because in reality there can be an added physical attraction between male/female 'just friends', which can complicate a friendship. And once you begin to feel uncomfortable in a friendship, I guess that pretty much spoils it unless the people involved decide to elevate it to a more intimate level, or lower the status of their friendship.

I do have several good male friends and they are people I feel completely comfortable with and with whom I can discuss almost anything. When I say "almost anything," I guess I am only underscoring the point that there are certain things that I discuss with only my girlfriends. I assume the fellowship among men is the same and there are things that they only discuss among themselves. Why do you think it is a common sight at many social gathering for all the women to huddle together in a corner and the men to huddle into another? There is always 'women talk' and 'men talk' however hard we may try to overcome the divide.

It's a paradoxical situation because generally men and women are invariably fond of each others company but it is relationships between them that are most difficult to fathom.

The author of the book, Theodore Zeldine, has a wise outlook on how to nourish such friendships. "When friends have differing ideas, when they are of a different sex, when they enjoy their differences, when they become curious about each others uniqueness, curiosity can become the moving force in their relationship," he says.

The riddle of friendship between the sexes is not an easy one to solve. I don't think my analysis has left me much wiser but one thing I can say is, respect for the inherent differences in each of us is the key to any kind of mutually fulfilling friendship. (I hear some of my male friends say, you need to practise what you preach, lady) Well ideally speaking, in the same way in which we need to nurture other kinds of relationships in our lives, we need to do so with friends as well.

Because at the end of the day, nothing can compare to having a good friend around to share a coffee with, go to a movie, listen to your problems even if they are too trivial to be talked about, put up with your eccentricities and just be there for you, and it really doesn't matter whether that special friend is male or female.