This article is based on a Substack post about the movie “When Harry Met Sally” by sofiaultra
As we adjust to fall, we also tend to rewatch the old fall classics that are staples in this season. Gilmore Girls, To all the Boys I’ve Loved Before and many more. Although they are typical fall watches, they all have something else in common: all of them have the friends-to-lovers trope. Both Jess and Logan demonstrate this for Rory, as well as Peter and Josh for Lara. After taking a close look at all of these films, we recycle the idea of whether men and women can really be friends. Friends-to-lovers is arguably a quite frequent trope in almost every television show and movie, nowadays. This may impact how people view their guy or girl friends, or the relationships they have with one another. So, can men and women really be friends? TV certainly doesn’t think so.Â
Maybe the relationship between Rory and Dean in Gilmore Girls doesn’t qualify as being part of the friends-to-lovers trope, but I believe most people pay attention to Rory’s other love interests. Whether you’re a Jess or a Logan girl, they both started as friends. Jess and Rory were kindred souls bonding over literature, the duo eventually falling in love from their similarity in fast talking banter and books. Rory started off despising Logan, but also learned to appreciate him for his rhetoric and intelligence and became friends with him to write her article on “the Life and Death Brigade”. Eventually, they started a casual dating style and Rory fell in love with Logan’s thrilling lifestyle while Logan loved Rory’s genuineness in who she is enough for him to commit to her. I think both Jess and Logan have their pros and cons, but they both started as friends. Even Marty, Rory’s old best friend from her freshman to sophomore year in college, falls in love with her. Essentially, the friends-to-lovers trope is extremely prevalent in the show.Â
Another layered classic of friends-to-lovers would be To All the Boys I Loved Before. A lot of people think that Lara and Peter are just a part of the fake dating trope, but I would argue that they’re also friends-to-lovers. Their fake relationship made them into fast friends, watching films together at Lara’s house and opening up to each other about their family problems. Even when they weren’t pretending in front of other people, they still hung out and bonded like friends would. The other possible part of this would be Josh, the boy next door that Lara fell in love with. Josh was Lara’s childhood best friend that she had always secretly been in love with, but was never able to pursue because her sister started dating him. Even though they never ended up together and it technically was not a friends to lovers story, Lara was still in love with him their entire friendship.Â
Whether it’s reciprocated or not, on TV it seems that male and female friends always have some sort of attraction for each other. But what about in real life? I believe it can be a bit more complicated than just a yes or no. After recently starting to date my former guy best friend and studying psychology in school, I believe I am somewhat qualified to speak on this topic. My opinion is that you can have a friend of the other gender, but to a certain extent. In other words, a guy best friend is not possible without attraction on one or the other end, or both. A psychology term called the mere exposure effect describes that the familiarity and repeated exposure to another person increases the likeness and emotional attachment you have for that person. Simply, if you continue to see someone of the other gender more and more often, you may form an emotional comfortability and attachment with them. However, if you keep the exposure to someone at a minimum, this effect cannot take place since both sides don’t get “too close”.
Now, I understand that this is not a be-all end-all statement. There are obviously people out there who are successful best friends of different genders and feel absolutely no attraction for each other. Additionally, this only accounts for heterosexual relationships and people of different sexualities may have different experiences with this specific phenomena. I am simply saying, in my opinion, it can be rare. However, during your fall rewatch of comforting films and tv shows, this age old debate might come up in through the commonplace friends-to-lovers trope.