Ranking up there as one of the top topics on the internet… behind sex, dating and marriage is the simple question:
“Can Men and Women just be friends?”
“when Harry met Sally” the underlying theme is exactly that… “Can two friends sleep together and still love each other in the morning?”.
The movie provides their own sort of answer… but people tend to respond to this question based on what they bring into the situation.
Here’s a few ‘answers’ to the question I found on the internet… but search the net for yourself… some of the solutions are very amusing:
1) I told him/her that I just ‘wanted to be friends’ because I definitely don’t want to go farther with this person.
2) I told him/her that I wanted to be ‘friends’… because then I would have more access to them … and could bump the relationship up in the future.
3) I told him/her I wanted to be friends because that’s like saying,”let’s do lunch’, then I would never call.
I think the following is the best lines of the ‘When Harry met Sally”:
Harry Burns: You realize of course that we could never be friends.
Sally Albright: Why not?
Harry Burns: What I’m saying is – and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form – is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
Sally Albright: That’s not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.
Harry Burns: No you don’t.
Sally Albright: Yes I do.
Harry Burns: No you don’t.
Sally Albright: Yes I do.
Harry Burns: You only think you do.
Sally Albright: You say I’m having sex with these men without my knowledge?
Harry Burns: No, what I’m saying is they all WANT to have sex with you.
Sally Albright: They do not.
Harry Burns: Do too.
Sally Albright: They do not.
Harry Burns: Do too.
Sally Albright: How do you know?
Harry Burns: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally Albright: So, you’re saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?
Harry Burns: No. You pretty much want to nail ’em too.
Sally Albright: What if THEY don’t want to have sex with YOU?
Harry Burns: Doesn’t matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story.
Sally Albright: Well, I guess we’re not going to be friends then.
Harry Burns: I guess not.
Sally Albright: That’s too bad. You were the only person I knew in New York.
Well, this all is a bit over the top, but for those of you who BELIEVE that men and women COULD BE friends… think of it this way, scientists have shown that men think about sex every 51 seconds… so some of the spare time could be used to think about making friends…
However, all is not lost, there are some environments where men and women work together and it appears that a good working relationship or ‘friendship’ evolves… such as in the army. However, it is important to remember that the penalties for crossing the friendship line in the military are severe… you can get kicked out for adultery alone.
So it really depends on what efforts are in place to support workplace discipline. To make this point clear my wife (and friend) Laura in her psychology class will say that almost any behavior can be modified or changed with the right reward and punishment scheme. Imagine — she says — that it is determined that illegal parking warrants capital punishment… students will respond saying,’well …. it’s only 25 miles…. and it’s a good day for a walk!’
‘Platonic friendships’ can also work bnetween men and women… but it requires more effort than most realize…. and usually the right environment.
Here’s what other folks are saying on this very popular issue:
MedicineNet.com
Psychology Today
from a Christian Perspective
Confused
from Cosmo
There’s literally a ton of stuff on the net… Google showed over 36 million entries… I don’t have quite enough time to view them all… but from my observation, it could be summarized that a woman would be fortunate to have the following real male friends in her life… 1) her husband 2) her father 3) her brothers and possibly 4) other related men. Outside of this small universe, I haven’t seen it happen.
So, for now, let’s just be friends.
Roger Freberg
