I love how sarah relates on this issue....she hits the nail on the head.
December 4, 2002
I have never seen When Harry Met Sally, but I've seen enough episodes of the Real World and have had enough male friends to know that there is no way a man and a woman, both completely heterosexual, can remain "just friends" for long. It just doesn't happen, not in a world of low rise jeans and men's cologne that smells so, so good. It just doesn't happen in a world like ours where people have evolved to be beautiful and charming and intelligent and witty all at the same time. It used to be a person was beautiful but nothing more. Then people might be charming and intelligent, but never beautiful. Given the advances of medical technology or God's boredom with the human race, we're all just so beautiful and charming and smart, we can't help but be attracted to each other.
The human animal has an appetite for low rise jeans and men's cologne and the twain meet in platonic social gatherings where everyone is assumed to be "just friends." This works for some time, people gather and are social and impress each other with how beautiful and charming and witty they all are. Thongs stick out of low rise jeans, men's cologne is prevelant at gatherings after 8pm and everyone is impressed by everyone. But those two people who spend an awful lot of time together, who call each other on the phone and exchange all that email, who seem to be exceptionally impressed by each other, those two people aren't just friends. They will never admit this to you, but in secret late night conversations after everyone else has gone home, they will flirt incessantly by telling each other they're such good friends.
This works for a while, but it is impossible for a man and a woman, both completely heterosexual, to be "just friends" once one of them begins to develop strange longings for the other. This happens suddenly, after the most intimate of emotional discussion, after a night of bowling or laughing or ice cream consumption. One friend remembers how the other likes her coffee. One friend sees antique books at a trunk sale and buys them for the other. And after their mutual acquaintances have begun to wonder whether "friends" really means "quite interested in each other," the pressure for the two supposed "friends" to define the legitimacy of their platonic status creates tension in base of their platonic union where leaks are filled with platonic lies and platonic blushes and attempts at platonic sincerity.
"Oh, no, really. We're just friends. No, really." Yeah, and the way you look at him is the way I look at my brother, if I were was secretly in love with my brother. "There's nothing going on between us. We just enjoy each other's company." Sure, and I enjoy the company of my roommate when I'm secretly in love with him. "We're affectionate, but we're just friends." Right. You want to sleep together.
I've always had more male friends than female friends and as much as I say "I don't know why that is," I know perfectly well why that is. The truth is that I don't get the same attention from women that I get from men, women don't treat me the way men treat me, no girlfriend of mine has ever pumped my gas or flagged down a waiter. There is just something about being able to go bowling with a guy, to laugh with a guy, to be comfortable with a guy without the need for tri-hourly lipgloss application.
But the burden of having male friends who like to pay attention to you is that one day you'll be together casually, driving around or sitting at a cafe, he'll be talking while you check your make up, and he'll blurt out, "Surely you've noticed this overwhelming attraction I have for you!" And you will catch yourself in your vanity mirror as a look of uneasiness passes across your face, and you will realize you've just lost another good friend, one you may or may not have been secretly in love with.
10:31 PM | © Sarah Hatter 2002
2:10:13 AM 
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