Being Honest - Boys & Girls Can Be Friends.

In this installment on WhatLexySaid, I’ll be taking the age-old and long-pondered question of whether the lads and the ladies can be, oh-so-simply, just friends.

Before I elaborate entirely, I should give a small disclaimer that yes, I do believe we can all be friends without wanting to jump each other’s bones. If you disagree, this is your stop on the train of this discussion. Time to hop off; you’re the reason that eleven year olds don’t think they can be friends with the girls in their class because of the ridicule and teasing that their mere friendship can bring.

Anyway, now that we’re left with all the open-minded folk, let’s get down to it. 

Since I started secondary school, earlier than that... since primary school, I’ve had a predominance of male friends. I remember far more of the boys names from primary school than I do the girls. Does that make seven year old me a little sauce-pot? No, it doesn’t. 

Obviously, in Secondary School there came a time when I realised maybe I wanted to spend a little more time with certain guys, but that didn’t mean that I had to feel like that about all of my male friends. I understood that, it’s the people who don’t who seem to be the problem.

My first year at University, I ended up living with a boy as well as four girls. Nothing romantic has ever happened between us, and we’re still good friends to this day. Gasp-shock-horror? What? How is that even possible? This is just the way it is.  As with most of my male friends, we never made the conscious decision to inform the other person that we weren’t attracted to each other, it was unspoken yet known. For the predominance of my third year at University, there were usually more men in my house than there were ladies and my one female housemate and I would often find ourselves coughing and spluttering in a cloud of testosterone and Lynx Africa, among other things.
We weren’t attracted to them and they weren’t either. It was that easy.

My friend Grace reminds me however “if there is a hint of something more on the table it can get messy...” and of course, in true Gracie-fashion, she’s right. But that’s okay too. As long as you’re honest with each other, there doesn’t have to be any drama. As soon as you bring sex and all those feelings into the equation, a million more questions pop up and sometimes, like Rachel says - it’s never off the table but it’s always best to keep communication lines open and talk about it.

Once I’ve been with someone romantically, can we go back to being purely-platonic friends again?
I’m going to go with yes, on this one. Yes you can go back to being friends. Whether you’ve moved on to dating someone new or not, if you want that other person in your life but not in a romantic sense then tell them. Make it happen as best you can, but don’t push it.
Obviously, I understand that if you’re coming out of serious relationship, flipping back into being good friends may be difficult; no one is saying you have to be friends immediately, if at all. Sometimes it’s too hard to get over that person and what they mean/meant to you.

What if I want something more/less than he/she does?
Respect is of utmost importance – to quote another song, you can’t make someone love you if they don’t. But you also can’t make someone not love you. Be respectful of the other person’s feelings if they differ from your own; you might be ready to be friends again, but they might need more time.
Or, if you’ve never been together romantically and one person wants to progress into that and the other doesn’t, then just be honest. Let them hide away for a week and lick their wounds, if that’s what they need, but remind them at the end of the day you’re still friends.

Does being jealous of my friend spending time with their other half mean that I’m attracted to them?
Not at all. You can miss someone’s company and their attention and not be attracted to them. If you used to get Pizza every two-for-Tuesday night, and now Tuesday night has been reallocated to their other half as date night, you’re allowed to miss that time together.

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With 2015 just around the corner and hurtling towards us like a freight train, I encourage more people to take on the honesty philosophy...

If you want to see someone, tell them.
If you like someone, tell them.
What’s the worst that could happen?
 They don’t feel that way? At least you know.
If you miss someone, tell them.
If you want to call, call.
If you want to chat, then chat.
In the same sense...
If you don’t want to see someone, tell them.
If you don’t miss someone, don’t say it.

If I’ve learned anything recently, it’s to not say something if you don’t mean it.
Don’t say things for the sake of it, people will only get hurt and read into things that don’t mean what they want them to.

After graduating in October, it’s been hard enough entering the big bad world without picking and choosing who you’re going to be friends with based on their sex/sexual preferences. My friends all went back to their parent’s towns after University, I stayed in Winchester, so when it comes to new friends I’ve taken what I can and I’m ever-grateful for them all. I wouldn’t be without them.

Maybe I’m not the best person to be giving out relationship advice, but there’s so much chatter about how there is absolutely no possible way that people of the opposite sex could every be purely friends and it bugs me.

Rant over J the floor is now open to discussion...