Can guys and girls ever just be friends?

Uni doesn’t help the issue.

It’s a common saying that guys and girls can never really just be friends. The fine line between friendship and something more can often be blurred, especially on a drunken night.

Uni is a catalyst for such mixed emotions and the aforementioned lines aren’t even blurred anymore. Instead they’re morphed and bent into a shape resembling something similar to a child trying to draw a smiley face and producing a dick instead. It’s just unfortunate and difficult to explain.

Emotions are a thing.

Now, when I say friends, I’m talking about best friends. Like the kind of friendship you share with your girls, potentially minus the period talk. The kind of friendship where you delve deep, metaphorically, into each other’s secrets and share jokes and all that jazz that friends do. But this dick line I’m talking about is oh so apparent.

In a recent survey taken, 15% of people outright said that boys and girls can never just be friends. When asked why- aside from the ‘men are trash’ verdict- responses ranged from the belief that there will ‘always be some sexual tension’ to ‘in the back of your mind you’re always thinking about doing the ting’. Is this true or are these people just super horny?

Well I think it’s fair to say that sometimes you can’t help attraction. But what about the emotional side of a friendship? In one response, someone stated that as long as there is no emotional investment, then the friendship between a guy and a girl is safe from any confusion – but the dichotomy arose when they went on to say – what is the point of friendship if there is no emotional investment? Stress.

Let’s be real – in the movies, the girl always ends up going for her childhood best friend after a series of unsuccessful relationships with men who lack that intimate emotional connection established in her childhood friendship.

What if you’re just horny?

What about friends with benefits? Does that not solve the whole ‘you’re attractive but I just want to be friends but also bang you and hope that no emotions get involved’ kinda thing we’re going for? The problem of emotions arises again. Having talked to a few people who have had a friends with benefits relationship, there was an overwhelming consensus that they tend to be unsuccessful on the ‘friends’ front, because either person begins to develop feelings.

Overthinking sucks

Nonetheless, I don’t think the problem arises with the emotional connections that are made themselves, but rather it’s the confusion of what exactly ‘something more’ entails. 80% of people surveyed believed that sharing a kiss crosses the line of ‘friendship’ and ‘something more’, whilst 25% believed texting everyday was an indication. But ‘something more’ may be no more than mutual friskiness.

There is also the issue of social pressure. If your friends are questioning your relationship with someone, you’re bound to wonder if it’s something else and wonder if the other person is thinking it too. People love to speculate, and once a certain idea is rooted in your head you may end up convincing yourself that it’s something more – only to find that, yeah, you have a great bond with someone, but that’s entirely different to the prospect of starting a relationship with them. Getting on with a guy does not immediately entail marriage. Most of the time.

Nonetheless, 53% of people confirmed that a friendship of theirs had ended due to romantic feelings getting involved. At the core of this, it seems that lack of communication is what seems to hold relationships hostage to this idea of ‘something more’. It’s always awkward to discuss, but I genuinely think that all these ‘playing hard to get’ shennanigans cock the whole thing up. There’s a stigma attached to actually being open and honest about our feelings, and it’s inhibiting our ability to deal with situations such as these when they arise.

Is there a solution?

How about we just be the mature young adults that uni has taught us to be 🙂 that smiley face is sarcastic. If you know, you know. But on a real, I think at the end of the day, attraction is a natural thing – it’s bound to occur. Girls and guys can be friends. Personally, I think it’s about being emotionally mature enough to consider the consequences of your actions. If you want to take it further – take it further, but it’s about being considerate of this lil dick line I spoke about earlier.

As for friends with benefits, once sexual feelings get involved it seems that everything tends to get messy, so I suppose it’s all about knowing that this is entirely a possibility.