Saturday, November 20, 2004

intergender friendships

This morning I watched the first 90% of When Harry Met Sally in the cardio cinema while I ran my last intense run before the race on Thursday. What a great movie that is!!! Of course, when watching movies at the YMCA, one is forced to watch them through the editing lenses of "Clean Flicks" which in this case meant that the entire *faking it* scene was cut out. Bummer.

But I disagree with the main premise of the movie that men and women can't be *just friends*. What is the deal with that? Working in the software world, there's not a whole lot of female friend options, so basically I have two options:

1) Be friends with men
2) Have very few friends

I choose the first option. People can say what they want, but it's very possible to be *just friends* - I do it every day.

There you have it.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Funny thing is I was talking about just this subject tonight with a guy friend of mine.

There's two directions to friendship. I can guarantee you that there are some of your guy friends out there who have it in the back of their head "if only..."

I've become convinced that almost all male-female relationships that are strong enough to become sustained friendships, even loose friendships, pass through a phase where there is some attraction in one or both directions.

Maybe you have the "sorry, but I just want to be friends" conversation almost immediately. Maybe you actually date and come to the same conclusion. Maybe one of you is patently unavailable (married, seriously dating, disparate age), and that's that. Maybe the attractee never even clues into the attracted's attraction. Or maybe the attraction's suspected, but it's smothered by ignoring it. Maybe you marry.

You know me, and clearly I believe men and women can be friends. But that male-female mojo is just there. It must be dispatched, embraced, unnoticed or ignored.

(Damn, I'm good at this blogging! Maybe I got to get me one!)

Anonymous David

Author said...

Fluffy be nice.

Tabita said...

Thank you Rebecka. :)

Balaji said...

I agree with anonymous David (nice post btw). I think guys value their friendships just as much as women do, but I can not imagine a guy not having at the least a short duration crush on his female friends that he would consider attractive. But eventually guys will get past that phase and will cherish the friendship.
I wonder what women think though. Because I don't catch women looking at men as many times I have caught men looking at women! I would hate to learn that women are better people than men.

Tabita said...

I don't know about other women (since I don't really have to many women friends), but I like to naively assume that guys want to be friends with me because of my great personality rather than because of how I look... ;)

I know this is not always the case, but I give everybody the benefit of the doubt until they prove me wrong.

Balaji said...

There is nothing naive about your assumption. I don't think anybody would be friends for long with a looker who has no personality. However, the only relationship that is possibly not affected by looks is the one between a mother and her child. Every other relationship's dynamic is definitely influenced by physical appearance at some level.
And why did you post your comment on my Oct 25th post?! I have FIVE posts after that one.

Tabita said...

Oh - oops - I just clicked on your name and those were my options... :) I'll check the other ones out as soon as I get out of work hell.

Balaji said...

You are married? YOU ARE MARRIED!! Oh GOSH! So all I can aspire is to be "just friends"?! Boo Hoo to that!

Tabita said...

Ok - wait - let me guess... Now you will never return to my blog and move on to blogs where the prospects are more favorable?? ;)

Friendship is a beautiful thing.