PLATONIC IDEAL
Me & My Best Buds: Sharing Butt Jokes & Dark Beer But No Conjugal Bed
By Avoine Sauvage 
WHY DO PEOPLE AUTOMATICALLY ASSUME that a man and woman -- together at a bar or taking a walk in a park -- are romantically involved, even if their body language says otherwise?
I love women. I love being a woman. That said, I consider myself a guy's girl. Though I cherish my female friends, the majority of my chums are dudes, and it's been that way since middle school.
According to a survey on Match.com, one in five people think that cross-gender friendships are impossible, a sentiment I have encountered in my own conversations. I know that is bullshit.
I often prefer hanging out with men because it tends to be less formal, more relaxed, more likely to incorporate dark beer and jokes about butt sex. It is, of course, possible to achieve this experience with female friends, but it's usually a guarantee with men.
Sometimes it's good to be the only girl in the room. Self-consciousness takes a backseat. Men are not about to judge me for my sloppy bangs or dole out unsolicited advice. C'mon -- they're bros.
I met two guys -- a filmmaker and a visual artist -- on the floor of my college dorm in freshman year. We left our doors unlocked and were in and out of each other's rooms constantly. I cooked; they did dishes. We plotted ways to get our underage paws on a different beer each week for "New Brew Thursdays." We watched movies. We made fun of my female roommates, who sucked miserably.
“But for every male friend I get butterflies for, there is one to whom my clit is numb...
”
Then we got an apartment together and lived as roomies for two years. My boyfriend at the time was totally freaked out. One of the artist's brothers kept asking if he and I were sleeping together. When the filmmaker brought this one girl home, she was concerned. "Oh really, you live with two guys?" was a common inquiry for me.
The artist moved to New York City last fall. The filmmaker and I still live together with his girlfriend and another male friend. Last weekend, he and I drove from Chicago to Brooklyn for a reunion.
I'm a single woman now, and I just wanted to, like, make out with someone on vacation. "You guys cockblock me!" I told them while exploring Manhattan. No guys ever approach me when I'm out with them. "Why would they?" they asked. "I'd never approach a girl who was with two guys -- I’d assume she was with one of them."
This experience works both ways. I've cockblocked the filmmaker when I wasn’t even there! "Where’s [Avoine]?” he was asked at a party one night, and a girl (whom he eventually wound up dating) didn’t approach him because she thought I was his girlfriend.
When in New York, the artist, filmmaker, and I shared a full-size bed. There was nothing -- and I mean nothing -- sexual about it.
A 2001
Psychology Today article tackled this issue. "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," explained psychologist Linda Sapadin of Valley Stream, NY.
Have I had friendships with men that had sexual inclinations? Sure. I've even messed around with one of the dudes in my current circle. There is tension, but no awkwardness.
I have a friend that I've known since elementary school whom I feel a similar tension with, mostly because I saw his dick more times that I can count during middle school Truth-or-Dare games.
I am friends with several ex-flings, and exceedingly flirtatious with acquaintances.
But for every male friend I get butterflies for, there is one to whom my clit is numb. "Blank spots for genitals, like Barbie and Ken,” is how the artist ex-roommate puts it. I’ve never had sexual feelings toward any of the three men with whom I’ve lived, and I have ol’ pals from high school that I would never dream of fucking.
One of my closest friends, whom I've known for over a decade, is extremely handsome and single. Nothin' there. He has spoon-fed me cottage cheese through many breakups and blow-offs, and we bicker at each other's driving styles like a cranky old couple. Yet, this is not enough to convince some that strictly platonic cross-gender friendships are possible. And even I sometimes trip over the assumption that the man and woman out together are romantic.
The
Psychology Today article asserts that cross-sex friendship have been either trivialized or simply ignored: "We have rules for how to act in romantic relationships and even same-sex friendships, but there are so few platonic male-female friendships on display that we're at a loss to even define these relationships.”
I challenged friends, acquaintances, and Facebook compadres to come up with a film or television show that features a man and woman -– both single, both attractive, both straight, and of comparable age – who are friends. Just friends.
One Facebook friend said
The Shield, between Dutch and Claudette. Check it.” Another cited George and Elaine from Seinfeld. I’ve never seen “The Shield,” so I’m taking her word for it. And I take issue with George and Elaine as an example, since the Seinfeld group was packaged as just that, a group, and within the group, Elaine and Jerry did have a sexual relationship.
Any others? Because I sure as hell can’t think of any. Seriously. Help me. (Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place? My Boys?)
Take one of my favorite movies,
The Breakfast Club, which was so desperate to pair its characters off, it matched a prom queen with a troublemaker and a jock with a basket case. Alas, poor Anthony Michael Hall left that fateful library dry-dicked.
And the classic example,
When Harry Met Sally. Men and women can not be friends, Billy Crystal asserts. According to Michael Monsour of the University of Colorado at Denver and author of
Women and Men as Friends, the film “set the potential for male-female friendship back about 25 years."
Almost every time you see a male-female friendship, it winds up turning into romance,” he note.
I'm surrounded by filmmakers who all argue that to make a movie or show with a male-female relationship devoid of sexual tension or romantic inclination would be uninteresting. My thoughts? My life has been made plenty interesting by my purely platonic friendships with men -- cockblocks, jealous significant others, and enough fart humor to last a lifetime. Where's that movie?
What's your pleasure? Got a problem? Write to Avoine at AvoineSauvage@CrabbyGolightly.com
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