Guys and girls CANNOT be friends.
-- Everybody
Well, okay. This is confusing for me because I have platonic male friends. Plenty of them. Enough to spare. Need a platonic male friend? Come ask me. I’ll loan you one.
But I see the point being made. There is obviously a chance that an awkward dynamic will develop between a straight guy and a straight girl. One of you may fall in love, and it may be painfully awkward if both of you don't have feelings for each other.
However, every single one of your friends of the opposite gender is not going to fall in love with you. Like, sorry, but NOBODY IS THAT HOT AND IRRESISTIBLE.
There is also obviously a chance that one of you would be down to have sex if given the opportunity. Now, your guy friends may be down to f*ck you if given the opportunity, but you know who else was down to f*ck you when given the opportunity? Your one-night stand from last weekend -- the one you haven't heard from since.
In other words, “being down to f*ck you” is no indication of a deep and profound love that will alter your friendship forever.
At the end of the day, whether you would be down to have sex with each other or not doesn’t matter because YOU AREN’T HAVING SEX. What you ARE doing, instead, is drinking together, hanging out, watching TV and getting advice on the relationships you have with people you are not "just friends" with. You know -- normal friend stuff.
So is your entire friendship completely discounted just because he would stick his dong inside of you if he was horny, and you were down? No. That’s ridiculous.
Physical attraction has nothing to do with friendship's emotional bond.
Friendships are not based on anything physical. They are based on emotions. They are a result of a deep connection felt between two people, whatever their gender or sexuality.
Being physically attracted to someone has nothing to do with your emotional connection to that person. Physical attraction exists completely outside of friendship.
And even if the physical attraction is there, there’s a difference between actively wanting to have sex and just being down to do it.
Sure, I’m physically attracted to some of my guy friends. And if the right opportunity presented itself, I might hook up with some of them.
But is this all I think about? Do I spend the entire time we’re hanging out thinking about how and when I’m going to jump their bones? No. At most, the fact that I would be down to hook up with my guy friend is simply a side note to the conversation that is our friendship.
I think this is the point that is most lost on people. If you were so incredibly interested in your friend that your desire to sleep with him or her dominated every single one of your interactions, then of course that would probably harm your friendship.
But if your willingness to sleep with someone is nothing more than marking them as a hard one on a zero-to-one scale, that little factoid is in no way dominating your entire friendship.
You can think to yourself, "John is my friend. John is hot. John is a f*ckable human being." But these three sentences are merely facts. They do not dominate your friendship. The emotional bond you and John share is completely separate from these facts.
Your shared love for all of the same TV shows -- coupled with the times you've let each other cry like maniacs -- is a connection felt completely outside of any sort of physical attraction.
Physical attraction is NEVER the priority.
I may be down to sleep with him. And he may even be down to sleep with me! But WHO CARES? How does that affect our friendship? I mean logistically, like when we're getting smoothies, and he's talking about the girl he’s currently dating, and I’m complaining about my fight with my mom, how does this element change the dynamics of our friendship? The answer is that it doesn’t.
When my male friend talks about his girlfriend, I don't feel pangs of jealousy. And his goal in talking about his girlfriend isn't to convince me to hop into bed with him. The purpose of this particular hangout is to capitalize on the emotional -- not physical -- aspect of our relationship.
When we made smoothie plans, neither of us were thinking, “Oh, let’s get smoothies and HOPEFULLY f*ck in the bathroom!” No, we knew what we were getting ourselves into.
He was thinking, “I’m annoyed with my girlfriend. Who can I complain to? Candice.” I was thinking, “I’m his friend, so I’ll listen, and also, ugh, I need to vent about my mom to someone who actually knows her.” That was it. No weird sexual innuendos. Just two friends wanting to vent about minor annoyances over a couple of smoothies.
If the physical attraction becomes the priority, the friendship simply ends.
It’s true that our desire to f*ck may affect our friendship if one of us ACTS on this desire. But the minute that happens, the friendship is over. Simple as that. Nothing can be the same after that threshold is crossed.
If you care enough about your friendship to make sure that never happens, the emotional bond will win out over the sexual desire.
Neither of us are going to even try to go there. We VALUE our friendship too much. We would never want anything else coming in the way of that. And, that, my friends, is TRUE friendship. In fact, it may be an even truer friendship than the ones you have with your friends of the same gender.
As a straight girl, my friendships with my girlfriends are easy. There are no obstacles standing in our way. But a friendship with someone who may be attracted to me from time to time? That's different. There's an obstacle there that the two of us are forced to overcome for the sake of our friendship. And we do just that.
