Coded green.

Wednesday 19 September 2001

Magazine

Pic of the day: Psychology Today, October 2001.

When Harry didn't meet Sally

On my way home from work I bought the latest issue of Psychology Today. I was thrilled to see an article about men and women being friends.

As I have said so often, I like women. Some of my best friends are women ... actually, most of them. (Not that I have so many friends at all.) And in as much as I need human company at all, it is women's company I need. Not for my body, but for my soul. Not surprisingly, this was also what the researchers had found out. Men need women as friends more than the other way around, but it doesn't hurt for a woman to have a male friend too.

***

[The movie] "When Harry Met Sally set the potential for male- female friendship back about 25 years". Yes! Damned movies and TV! They always do that, don't they? They're so tunnel visioned focused on romance and sex that they just can't allow people to be Just Friends. And the sheep lap it all up.

Some people have the good fortune (or wisdom, or both of the above at the same time) to marry a friend. My brothers seem to have done that, and have had good years for it. Living every day with a good friend is an unmitigated blessing, and doubly so when it is someone who complements yourself, filling in your weak spots and the other way around. It sounds like a really good idea, and I guess if things had been different I would have tried to do that myself. Having to kiss and stuff is a moderate sacrifice if one can have a friend around at all times.

Conversely, there are people who are lackwit enough to latch onto the most sexy person they find, regardless of their potential for friendship. Well, that's your choice; you pay for it. And it should come as no surprise that when you later eventually find a friend - and particularly one of the opposite sex - your dumbass spouse will get violently jealous. That's what you ordered, that's what the waiter brought.

***

But I think it's a tad unfair if some of us should have no other-sex friend, just because we never found a marryable one. So you may look at me with all the suspicion you can project, but I love my female friends. Especially my best friend, of course. She is so wonderful, and I really look forward to seeing her again. I won't say I miss her - that's such a negative approach - but meeting her is definitely a high.

Of course, it helps that she is a lot younger than me, so dating would be kinda ridiculous. In fact, most of my women friends are either much younger than me (or older than me, when I was young) or already married. Or, these days, American. :) The thing they all have in common is that there is no prospect of romance. That's OK by me. You can't get everything ... if you're a pacifist you can't go to war, if you're an atheist you can't pray, and so on. Some life choices exclude others, interesting as they might be in themselves.

But being single shouldn't exclude having friends of the opposite sex. On the contrary, it makes it more important. Even if we discount the very real biological differences of our brains, our culture is based on the idea that men and women shall think differently. We seem to separate automatically in the school yard, and grow up that way for most of our childhood and then some. But exactly this difference makes us more valuable to each other. We can think and feel in different ways, and together we can expand each other's mind.

***

When I left, they were sleeping;
I hope you run into them soon.
Don't turn on the lights,
you can read their address by the moon.
And you won't make me jealous
if I hear that they sweetened your night:
We weren't lovers like that ...
and besides, it would still be allright.

Leonard Cohen, Sisters of Mercy


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