Are You Secretly in Love with Your Best Friend?

Author: Alexa Paley 

Twenty-five years after the release of the famous Nora Ephron movie, When Harry Met Sally, we still ponder the same age-old enigma: Can girls and guys truly be just friends? The takeaway from the 1989 classic–spoiler alert–is that men and women simply cannot be “just friends.” Harry and Sally inevitably end up together, happy as ever, although they wasted 10 years apart.

What’s up with that? As Michael Monsour noted in Psychology Today, “Almost every time you see a male-female friendship, it winds up turning into romance.” Is this really true? Is that what we really want?

The concept of men and women being unable to simply be friends is a dying ideology. Psychologist Linda Sapadin explored this when she noted, “The belief that men and women can’t be friends comes from another era in which women were at home and men were in the workplace, and the only way they could get together was for romance.”

Obviously, this conservative concept is no longer true. Men and women share the workforce, share hobbies, and so on. This is not the 1950s, women are no longer solely home-makers belonging to the “sacred” cult of domesticity.  Take a look at Sheryl Sandberg, Hillary Clinton–obviously this traditional and sexist idea is extinct. Today, men and women can relate to each other on common ground, exploring mutual interests that are by no means sexual.

In the movie, the main character, Harry, played by Billy Crystal, tells Meg Ryan’s Sally, “What I’m saying is [...] that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.”

Sorry, Harry, but we have to respectfully disagree. Sure, some platonic friendships can turn into crushes and eventually into a romantic relationship, but this does not, by any means, signify that all do. Strong friendships have moral boundaries that are always respected. In fact, the respect for moral boundaries is what allowed for the friendship to start in the first place. Of course, friendships based on superficial factors like sexual attraction are not likely to last. But, if the friendship is based on more than just pure attraction, on mutual interests and common ground, there is no reason that anything sexual will disrupt that.

 

 

Of course, jealousies can arise. If, at any point, either partner in the friendship is jealous of the other for partaking in certain social activities or even having a significant other, it is clear that a true friendship is not in their cards.

Some researchers argue that men’s friendships with members of the opposite sex are always driven by sexual desire, regardless of their relationship status. But, how can such a broad and stereotypical statement encapsulate the more than 3 billion men that live on this planet? It may just be that Harry was a man who sought out relationships based on his sexual desires, but this does not mean that all men, or all women, do.

Now, what about here on campus? To be clear, of the many Cornell students interviewed, most believe that in the majority of circumstances, girls and guys can truly be friends. One student remarked, “Just because you may find the other person attractive does not mean that you necessarily have feelings for him or her.” Most contended that it was actually pretty easy to just be friends with members of the opposite sex. These students spoke of events like parties, class projects, and other campus events that made it easy to socialize with people without feeling the pressure to necessarily have feelings for them.

Speaking to this, a lot of girl-guy friendships are built in the classroom. One student said, “Even though I work on all major assignments with [him] and he’s attractive, he is really just my partner in the class and that’s it.” Here at Cornell, the consensus has it–it is enough to just be friends.

While When Harry Met Sally tells the tale of romantic love stemming from a friendship, there is no guarantee that this is true of all friendships. Workplace friendships and friendships truly based on mutual interests, hobbies, and likeness can genuinely exist. Maybe we have to work at it, especially if we consider the friend attractive. Nevertheless, genuine, cross-gender friendships are real.

 

friendship, love, platonic, relationships, When Harry Met Sally