I am so bored of the “can boys and girls be friends” debate, there’s no answer and it’s decided depending on who those people are and the way they act. That’s it, surely?
Me with my closest male friend – believe me it doesn’t come more platonic than this
It became an issue of discussion in the first few weeks of the marmite show Love Island. Don’t switch off if you don’t like the show, I’m just using it as a case study. One of the girl, Lucie was in a couple with a lad called Joe and Joe was getting worried and admittedly jealous because she was getting extremely close to another guy called Tommy, someone she had thought of pursuing. Whilst Joe got a lot of hate online for being “controlling” and “jealous” , people were eating their words weeks later when it turned out Lucie still had developing romantic feelings for Tommy, which she admitted to him on national television.
It comes as no surprise that these feelings continued to develop due to Lucie and Tommy’s exclusive, private and seemingly flirty-at-times nature of their relationship. Whilst Tommy made it clear to Lucie multiple times that they were just friends and treated her as such, this didn’t stop Lucie from feeling that way and admitting that in a way that she wasn’t ready to forget those feelings any time soon…
And when I saw this all unfold it really stirred me. Lucie seemed to be trying to develop a friendship into something romantic with a former spark despite Tommy telling her he doesn’t feel that way, no less in front of her other half’s eyes. For me this is the perfect example of why people feel boys and girls can’t be just friends, because of behaviour like Lucies. Overstepping boundries and overstepping those of a a clearly labelled friendship. This all seemed to be reaffirmed as well when Lucie admitted many of her male friendships in the past have turned into romantic relationships. And despite Tommy being clearly signed off in another relationship, it doesn’t stop Lucie from feeling that way about him, it will only manifest until it’s acted upon. That’s what I mean by this debate being dependent on the way people act, it’s how those people choose move within their friendships that decide how it develops.
Another close male friend which is again completely platonic
However this isn’t always the case. There are plenty of male/female relationships that ARE platonic, I have them myself and I can absolutely guarantee that they are. And I can’t tell you how great they are. But I shouldn’t have to because when people question it, it seems to indicate a lack of trust. No one should be questioning it. For the millionth time, let them live.
An unnatural, manmade discourse.
But, why do people question it, why is it so strange for a guy and gal be platonic? There’s a natural allegiance to which we all fall in line. And it’s the unnatural, manmade discourse we’ve created as humans. We love to categorise, separate and call those labels an identity. So naturally, we separate men and women and mixing them by having these friendships is therefore subconscious strange.
Gender fluidity is progressing.
I hope though that this will change and I think there is hope for it. We see this as strange because of our heteronormative perspective but this is changing. Gender fluidity is progressing. No, it wont happen any time soon but I hope to see a future in which, because of gender fluidity, this argument will be, if not totally, at least partly relaxed because our perspectives won’t just think heterosexual relationships are normal but any relationship is.
I want to write a post at some point explaining and exploring discourse and normativity more so I’m gonna leave it there for now. Though, the message of this post is that any and all relationships between all people are valid and it’s no ones place to question it. If they’re friends, they’re friends.