“Well, you’re either lovers or you’re wanting to be lovers or you’re trying not to be lovers so you can be friends, but any way you look at it, sex is always looming in the picture like a shadow, like an undertow.”
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Get Real, 1991

So there was a debate in the office…as usual. The men on one side the women on the other and now I come to the wonderful world of the…web…for opinion. I’ve had this discussion several times and I always say the same thing. Before you answer look around and do a tally of your friends…not people you associate or are acquainted with. Your friends. The people you can call from jail that will put effort into trying to get you out. The people you can call from another state and have come and get you. Hell…the people who are down to take you to the airport.

The debate is…can’t men and women just be friends?

I say once in a blue moon when the light hits the water and refracts in a certain way…and half of those were accidents or the parties involved…were already involved. It’s not that men and women can’t be friends, but…well if you find someone of the opposite sex who you want to be around and have accepted their faults and flaws, if at that time neither of you is in a relationship the question becomes…how can you not persue this person. Am I the only one who has realized that 97% of the population is either crazy, stupid or some combination of both? Then you have to realize that within the 3% left over a bunch of those are the same sex as you are. How can you find this person and make the conscious choice to not pursue them. Mind you, even in times when this does happen later on down the road you usually end up in one of those “I think I want my friend” situations…happened to me before. The worse part of it is I ended up feeling all of these things while thinking “how the hell did that happen?” to quote Anthony Kiedis off the Californication album…”Eaaaaaaaasily”. Then we can consider what the married man in the conversation brought up. His wife ain’t trying to hear a whole bunch of friendship with some woman he knows. She knows he knows women, but he can’ t say, “Honey, me and my friend Jane are going to see a movie I’ll be back later”. You can’t do all that. If a friend of his wife comes over and she’s not there he’s not even going to let her in the door. “She be back later give her a call…see you” (shutting door). Some things just don’t fly. I know from experience that a friend of the opposite sex is the biggest threat to relationship. You’ve already put this person in a place where you not only accept them, but actually want to be around them. You value them. You respect them. You enjoy their company. Those are some starting points if I ever saw them. On the reverse end…I never want to be friends with a woman after we break up…something didn’t work right and I’d rather expel you from my universe than attempt to casually converse with a woman I used to want to be around and sleep with who either broke up with me or I left.

THAT DOES NOT COMPUTE

Now I am not saying that men and women CANNOT be friends. They can…under the right conditions. I’m not sure what all of those conditions are. As it stands; if I’m in jail, stuck in another state or need to go to the airport…I’m calling a guy, and not that many guys at that. The only females I would think to call would be girlfriend or my mother…and I wouldn’t want to bother my mother. Right now I can’t think of one woman who I would say is my friend. I can’t think of a woman I would rely on in that manner or who I seek out to talk to. I can think of women I want to flirt with…several. If I should find all of those good qualities in them I would want to go futher. I mean hell we have to keep the species going people how am I going to look with good women as friends running around chasing crazies. While on the other end nothing shows your character as well as your friends…so how could I have a bunch of crazy female friends? IF I had a significant other and I came across a woman who was cool and had an opportunity to get to know than we could possibly be friends. If the woman I was with could accept all of that. It tends to get complicated…besides you don’t pursue a friendship they tend to happen. Then other things happen that verify their credibility. I’d have to find another gauge to measure a true female friend. It couldn’t be her willingness to back me up in a fight. As it stands I think men and women being “real” friends is a rarity. Let me know what you guys think.