Are platonic relationships even plausible?

Are platonic relationships even plausible?

We've all got that friend we secretly want to sleep with

We’ve all seen When Harry Met Sally. True to every rom-com ever, they end up together. It’s inevitable from the beginning and Harry’s theory prevails: men and women cannot be friends....at least, they couldn’t. This theory puzzles my adolescent brain as I try to work out how the world works and what’s expected of me. Undeniably, when I bring the topic up in search of answers, debate is triggered and defensiveness ensues. People are paranoid as they look around the room at their friends, silently re-assuring themselves ‘no, I have never and will never want to have sex with you’. Before you worry, let me remind you of one thing: we are human.

Want to delve deeper? We’re primates. We’ve attempted to elevate ourselves above this primal truth; survival of the fittest, if you will. Huts have become houses and legs have become engines. Our libidos seem to be one of the only immutable parts of us; something being embraced with wider arms as millenials attempt to rebrand and destigmatize sex...no one saves it for marriage anymore, basically.  

As I have observed in my time at university, where classroom flirtation still very much dominates, young adulthood in particular is a prime time to put this question of nature to the test, as sitting ‘boy, girl’ really isn’t a punishment anymore.

In theory, psychology suggests that heterosexual men and women conflict in values too much to exist in harmony and satisfaction as close friends. Studies have shown that women value the protection of male friends- sounds rather like the benefit of a boyfriend to me. On the other side of the gender binary, men enjoy intergender friendships for the sexual potential they hold. Any of this sounding platonic to you yet? Guys aren’t friends with gals with the expectation of a gaming partner and women aren’t holding their breath for a man to go shopping with.

However, an Instagram poll suggested otherwise. When asked  ‘are platonic friendships (aged 18-25) possible?’ 65% of people responded ‘yes’, the remaining 35%, ‘no’. Problem solved, the people have spoken; men and women can coexist without any sexual interference whatsoever. So thought Katie until the question specified that neither side can ever have considered the other sexually. Katie changed her mind after having formerly voted ‘yes’, the realisation dawning that she had pictured all of her male friends naked. She confided via Insta DM (where all the most profound of 21st Century truths are laid low) that ‘you cannot help but consider literally every person of the opposite sex (or same sex, if preferred, or both!) you ever meet.’ She confessed that she only voted ‘yes’ in the poll because the truth of her sexual appetite ‘makes me sound like some kind of sex maniac.’

 

Well don’t worry, Katie, you’re certainly not alone. Others confessed to a certain moral expectation in keeping friends a bed’s length away, with men particularly worried about being branded a 'perv' if they admit they fancy most of their female friends. This in mind, would the results be different if polled anonymously? I think so. 

If you ask me, of course men and women can be friends, it’s one of life’s greatest pleasures, but the question of sex is always there. Will they? Won’t they? It’s a tale as old as time.