Until I was in my late teens, pretty much the only boys I’d encountered were my cousin and a couple of family friends. I went to two all-girls schools and had two sisters, which meant that the opposite sex wasn’t just a mystery in a romantic sense, but totally unknowable in friendship terms, too.
Most of my cultural references suggested that there would always be the possibility of sex simmering below the surface. Blame Dawson’s Creek. Or The OC. Every time Joey hugged Rachel or Phoebe in Friends… was there the potential for something more?
But it seems strange to me now, as a grown-up, that so many of us still think this way. Take the video of Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri at a recent baseball game in Chicago, which they were attending with their The Bear co-stars. White was seen briefly massaging the base of Edebiri’s neck and stretching his arm along the back of her seat—and so the world has decided that they must be dating (never mind that he’s supposedly in a relationship with singer Rosalía). Hey, perhaps they are involved. But is it also possible that their relationship is platonic and a bit tactile? That months of filming together has led to a trusting and meaningful friendship? Why do we find that such an unlikely scenario?
Of course, the cliché is that men and women can’t be “just friends.” But that’s not something that has played out in my own life, and probably not in yours either. I have dear male pals from my teenage years, university days, and professional career. There is no unrequited anything to speak of between us, and I find it sad that we place such limits on the idea of friendship—clinging to the Hollywood narrative that there must be an undercurrent of lust, or love, between a straight man and woman. That their partners have cause for suspicion. Which says a lot about girls being taught that sexual attractiveness is their main currency when it comes to men.
Let’s be real: Most of us realize, deep down, if we like someone as more than a friend. Someone I know who ended up dating one of her male pals after many years of friendship admits that all those times they shared the same bed and linked arms on nights out weren’t as platonic as they professed at the time, that they both knew they actually fancied each other. Another acquaintance of mine recalls a male friend regularly holding her hand after a few drinks, something that never felt totally comfortable since she wasn’t attracted to him. If you know, you know.
