A man, a woman, just friends? Yes. Different cultures hold different perspectives toward a relationship between a man and a woman. Some people say that a woman and a man cannot be plainly friends; however, others do believe in the existence of such relationship. In the article written by William Deresiewicz, “A man, a woman, just friends,” some opinions root out in the support of one idea. In the article, William Deresiewicz uses an example of a movie known as When Harry Met Sally to explain his opinion against man-woman friendship.
However, this paper adopts the thesis that a man and a woman can be friends and nothing more. In my opinion, women and men can be just friends without any further relationship. William Deresiewicz states out that friendship between different sexes seem to be a political issue because such relationship has been more or less unknown in the traditional sector. He goes on to say that traditionally, men and women hold different spheres in which women are less powerful in the society.
In this sense, cross-sex relationship has never been in the minds of individuals as it is in the western societies. When feminism sprung out, the idea of women being less powerful diminished. This comes with an example from Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of feminism, who had a child outside wedlock. In this sense, Mary argued out that friendship is just a foundation towards marriage. However, if things would be looked at differently, one would believe that friendship is a social theory to be embraced.
Just as friendship works out on same sexes, friendship can work out between different sexes without any sexual concerns. Take for example a movie known as Jane by Design where Jane and Billy were best friends. The two had known each other since childhood and have done both nasty and good things together. Their friendship works out very well despite some few challenges where Billy dates Lulu who is a big enemy to Jane. Although different feelings might emerge along the way, friendship still lives on.
As argued out by Mary Wollstonecraft who stated out that friendship between different sexes is a foundation to marriage, no marriage can happen without friendship. One should understand that friendship of different sexes lasts longer than same sex friendship. This is because such friends bound to believe in each other, trusts each other, and hide no information from each other. However, same sex friendship holds lies, mischief, and betrayal because they tend to compete against each other’s goal such as a girlfriend. To assume that a man and a woman cannot just be friends is to operate on the flawed assumption.
That is, they are only defined by one primary and primal emotional driver: sex. However, it is wrong because as human beings, we are a complex mix of emotions and we are driven by different motivations. We have not even come close to exploring the full spectrum of emotions that we experienced, we simply classify emotions into a few categories in order to make it easy to identify them during day-to-day interactions. Furthermore, the motivations driving our behavior are numerous, and do not all stem from the sex drive.
These motivations are defined by personal and societal values including family, physical health, emotional health, financial stability, companionship and religion among others. It is inaccurate ro limit the scope of human relationships—more specifically, between a man and a woman —to a mere means of obtaining sexual gratification. As Deresiewicz notes, these are notions that are perpetuated by popular culture not only through movies, but also through other performing and literal arts such as music, theatre, and books among others.
However, it is important that we realize that art and popular culture do not give the full picture of our identity as a society and should certainly not solely dictate the direction of our personal relationships. As individuals, the power to define our personal man-woman relationships resides with us. In the same way Mary Wollstonecraft’s personal vision of the woman’s dentity impacted future generations, our persistence in fulfilling our personal vision for a friendship with the opposite sex can inspire others to not succumb to undue influence from pop culture.
Conclusively, a man and woman can just be friends without any further attachment According to William Deresiewicz, platonic relationships do not happen among the young ages without the notion of sex. However, one should understand that when sex is introduced in a platonic relationship, things take a different formation or characteristic. In the current world, people rust their friends more than they trust their spouses, family members, or even workmates.
In this sense, most of them strive hard not to ruin their friendly relationships. As such, the idea of having sex as friends has been eliminated over the past few years. Women prefer having male friends while men prefer having female friends. In this sense, they are free and safe from deceit, betrayal, and hypocrisy. As to protect such relationships, they shun away from issues such us intimacy, sex, or other issues that may act as destroying factors of their relationship.
