Can men and women just be friends?

For most of human history, men and women lived in homosocial worlds until they got married. Meaning, that men only hung out with men and women hung out with women. Even after marriage, men and women continued to have distinct and separate social lives- men would hang out with their guys all day and women hung out with their gal pals. 

 

It wasn’t until the late 19th century and early 20th Century that cross-sex friendships became a thing. As more women enter the predominantly male workforce and university system, men and women had to figure out how to have relationships with each other that weren’t romantic or sexual. 

 

Personally, cross-sex friendships have been a huge part of my secondary years. I remember during Secondary 1, there weren’t any cross-sex friendships in my grade. I looked around and saw girls eating with girls and boys eating with boys. A Lot of things were running through my mind- like why aren’t boys and girls friends? Do people think it's weird? Do they simply just not like each other? It used to frustrate me alot. And when I want to sit with a boy or just be friends with, I feel myself being opened to a lot of judgement. I mean, can’t a girl sit with a guy without assuming that they're a couple? Have you considered the fact that maybe they're just friends?

 

I asked a couple of my friends, who are no longer attending school, what they thought about cross-sex friendships. Amabel, who was a student in Raffles Christian School, said that she thinks men and women can be just friends but not best friends.  I asked her why she thinks boy and girl friendships are very rare? She said it’s because of the level of intensity. Especially, in a case where the guys ever had feelings for the girl and the girl finds out.. It just gets awkward.

 

Secondly, I asked my former english tutor (who I still keep in touch with) what she thinks about cross- sex friendships. ‘It is possible’. I do have a man's friend, and we remain friends and that's totally okay.’ I also asked her why she thinks men and women friendships are very rare, and she said ‘because sometimes both can't control the feeling of love when the other party treats the other one with something that usually couples do.  And we need to normalise treating someone so special that only couples can do that.’ 

 

Thirdly, I asked a classmate of mine if he thinks men and women can be just friends. ‘Yupp’. He says even though a close friend of his and a girl from his class are dating, he still remains close friends with the girl. I asked him why he thinks boy and girl friendships are very rare. ‘It’s sort of like a common stereotype to assume when a girl and a guy are together they are in a romantic relationship, and are seen by both boys and girls since most of the time they have something like segregation happening. That I mean like boys hang out with boys while girls hang out with girls.

This in return makes it hard for some guys and girls to become normal friends.  Sometimes we would think it’s like an actual romantic date.’ 

 

So can men and women be friends or not?

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I think it just depends on the situation. Every person’s situation is different. I mean, with cross-sex friendships, there are a lot of things that could threaten to end the friendship. Like if a guy has feelings for the girl, what would it do to their friendship? Would it end the friendship or create a full romantic relationship? Basically, a lot is at stake. 

 

I think men and women can be friends, with warnings. The warnings are what make this complicated issue so interesting.