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Just Friends: Exploring Cross-Gender Friendships

By Niki Naderi

[Relationships]

Boys and girls can play nice in the sandbox! Niki Naderi discusses the potential for platonic friendships between members of opposite sexes.

I don’t know what it is and I can’t quite pinpoint when it happened, but I have the hardest time finding girlfriends that I can stand. Up until and including the first year of high school, I constantly found myself caught up in some sort of stupid drama that usually resulted in a group of females telling me off about something. Girls are like those animals that eat the weak of the clan. I was always insecure and subsequently the one that got picked on the most.

Suddenly, I realized that boys weren’t like that. Sure they made stupid jokes and couldn’t really (nor did they want to) control their bodily functions, but hey, they made me laugh and detested drama as much as I did. It was wonderful! So began my life as one of the boys.

In the last year of high school, my one female friend, Jamie and I started hanging out with a new group of guys and were automatically labelled sluts. It was insane. The concept of platonic friendships between members of the opposite sex was something that we often discussed, but the older we get, the more complicated everything seems to become. As of late, I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue and have come up with a set of pros and cons for myself and my friends that I think might help those who are hesitant to attempt a cross-gender friendship.

Con: One Sided Romance

Let’s start with the negative aspect and get it out of the way. It’s happened before and it will happen again. A once platonic friendship has turned into a one-sided romance, and though things continue normally, there are some hints that there’s more beneath the surface. What to do? Share your feelings with this friend of yours and hope for the best? Or bottle it up because he or she won’t stop talking about the new object of their unrequited affection?

This is a messy situation to be in because opening up means you’re totally putting your friendship on the line, but it could result in something awesome. This is a risk that we all run when we have friends of the opposite sex because there’s always a chance feelings could come up. However, even if this does happen, it doesn’t mean the friendship is dead. Don’t be the deer caught in the headlights if your friend comes to you with more than you may have bargained for. Just talk about it. Be honest, be straightforward and work it out together.

Pro: New Perspectives

Just last night, I was ranting to a guy friend of mine about a problem I’m currently having and he totally opened my eyes to some really unexpected facts about guys. When you are comfortable enough with a member of the opposite sex to discuss whatever happens to be on your mind, from school to romance to family drama, having that different viewpoint is absolutely priceless. It’s true what they say, men and women do think differently. It’s always a good idea to weigh all your options and look at things from different perspectives before making any sort of serious decision and you’d be surprised how much talking to someone with different genitalia can help! Guys are always trying to figure out what their girlfriends are thinking. What better way to figure it out than to talk to a girl? Amazing!

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