One of my best friends happens to be, and identify as, male while I female. We’ve been best friends for years, we were even prom dates in high school, and nothing has changed but time. We always hang out. We will get dinner or see a movie or literally anything, and regardless of where we go we always find people assuming that we are dating.
The last time we hung out, it was his birthday and we went out to this nice Italian restaurant to celebrate him finally turning twenty-one. When we were sat at a circular booth the host said that this was his favorite table because you can “get comfortable and hold hands”. At this point in our friendship, we don’t bother correcting everyone who assumes but instead we laugh when they walk away.
Despite popular belief, it is possible to be extremely close to someone of the opposite gender without anything romantic ever happening. Not only is this belief due to the fact that some platonic friendships do grow into romantic ones in real life but also it is a popular movie trope that is pretty over-done.
Romance is constantly being shoved down our throats by media, so much so, that it can make people uncomfortable with two people of the opposite gender being friends. It can irritate others because they don’t see how a guy and a girl can spend that much time together and just not catch feelings. Here’s the thing: it is possible to just be friend, best friends even, and it’s amazing.
Having a guy best friend is awesome. I can always count on him to answer my FaceTime calls no matter the time of day, send me the dankest memes, make me laugh, and give me advice. Being able to get advice from the opposite gender is not only nice but helpful, as I am sure he also appreciates. We can give each other insight knowledge about the other gender, making for the best dating advice. Not only can we count on each other for dating advice, but I automatically have a wingman and he has a wing-woman.
Besides people automatically assuming that we are dating, the most annoying thing is the stigma around that fact that we can’t show love and affection to the opposite gender without them being our significant other. For starters, not everyone is attracted to the opposite gender. In our case, we both are, however, that attraction has never been for the other. Despite that, I still hold his hand or loop my arm through his when walking sometimes and that should be okay. I do the same things with my girl friends and no one assumes that we are dating. This leads to the argument that straight is the starting point in our society. You are assumed to be straight until you announce that you are not, but that is an issue for another article.
Platonic love is just as important, if not more important, than romantic love. We chose our friends and we should be choosing people who will unconditionally love and support us through everything. Not only this, but they should tell us when we are seriously fucking up if we can’t see it ourselves. Being able to form these types of friendships outside of our gender can be tricky as others may be skeptical, however they are extremely rewarding. It sucks that society has tried (and pretty successfully at that) to deceit what these friendships are all about. Joey is the one person I can always turn to when I need to laugh or get away from the real world. I can always count on him to open my eyes to the wonders of good cinema as well as delicious Italian food. Thanks for being the best friend any girl could ask for!