Is friendship between a man and a woman possible? Can a heterosexual have a best friend of the opposite sex? What is the definition of “friend zone”? These are questions that have been asked over the centuries, but without ever having a concrete explanation.
Men and women think differently, at least when it comes to the anatomy of the brain.
Neither man nor woman thinks of the friend zone the way the other does. This is because the brain is mainly made up of two different types of tissue, called gray matter (which represents the information processing centers) and white matter (which works to connect these processing centers on a network).
Research has revealed that men think more with their gray matter while women think more with their white matter.
Social psychologists have spent a great deal of time researching friendships of the opposite sex. After taking eighty-eight pairs of opposite-sex friends to a lab and asking a series of questions to escalate their romantic feelings toward their opposite-sex friends, the researchers found that while women were generally not attracted to their friends males and viewed the relationship as strictly platonic, men tended to harbor romantic feelings for their female friends.
Other research showed that a good percentage of people end up cheating on their spouses with who they were supposedly their closest friends of the opposite sex.
Consider this. Would it be possible for a man whose best friend is “Adriana Lima” to change next to him before going out to a night party? Would it be possible for him to deviate from sexual attraction and maintain friendship status amid temptation?
Now let’s change the situation. Could a woman contain her instincts if “David Beckham” were her best friend? Even after a drunken night?
According to Wikipedia, the phrase “friend zone” is highly controversial in that it states that one of the two parties wishes to enter into a romantic or sexual relationship with the other.
So, in my opinion, humans were created to love the opposite sex and be friends with people of the same sex, unless they were bisexual or gay.
Sure, men and women can be friends, but not without risk. A conditional friendship tends to be more of a punishment than a relationship.
Having a coffee to talk about what is happening in your life should be done with your partner and not with the friend of the opposite sex.
Hugs to relieve pain and sadness should occur with the person you love and not with the person you respect and care for in a platonic sense.
From a man’s perspective, I can fairly say that no man can agree to his partner spending a great deal of time with a friend of the opposite sex discussing personal secrets, sexuality, and daily problems.
That’s my take on the subject and it just reminds me of the movie When Harry Met Sally. The two leads end up becoming lovers no matter how hard they tried not to.