This was the question posed from the back of the Uber as we drove up the PCH on a sunny Saturday in November. What had previously been an idyllic moment in Malibu, my head slightly tilted out the window, blond locks fluttering in the breeze, was now shattered. As I stuttered out a deflection of an answer, I looked in the rear view mirror to see a shit eating grin creep across my neighbor Monica's face.
This was not an offer of course, though had a trip to Malibu wines turned into a daytime foursome this would likely be a much more entertaining blog.
No, it was a philosophical question. Do you perceive your opposite sex friends in THAT way? And although this is one of the most tired romantic comedy tropes, let's get into it...do you low key want to fuck your platonic best friends?
It sets up an existential crisis. Even though it's a trope in 70% of romantic comedies, and even though I've done it dozens of times, it is NOT POLITE CONVERSATION TO TELL YOUR FRIENDS YOU WANT TO BED THEM.
Malcolm Gladwell states in his book Blink that we make thousands of assumptions in the first few seconds we meet a new person. I think it's safe to say that one of the assumptions I make is 'do I find this person physically attractive' and by proxy 'would I be interested in taking this person home?'
Of course there are a million other factors: kindness, humor, intelligence, creativity. But during those first few seconds I'm making a decision purely on the physical product, similar to album art work or a Jackson Pollack painting.
What I'm trying to say in so many words is yes, I've THOUGHT about hooking up with every single one of my female friends even if only for a split second.
While it is natural to have these thoughts; human intellect is what separates me from say an actual lion or Harvey Weinstein. It is also in my nature to show restraint and consider other factors like respect, responsibility and commitment. And though some of that restraint is lowered after I've spent 12 hours drinking, I'm reminded by something my drug education teacher told me in high school. "When you're fucked up you don't do things you would NEVER do, you do things you wouldn't normally do." This is why when drunk I won't start physical fights but I might say something mean or try to make out with you. Being mean and leading with the tongue is just a part of my personality I suppose.
It's easy to make sense of it in my opinion. I generally surround myself with attractive people because I think I'm naturally drawn to them. I have a decent looking crew of both men and women. It's not like I did it intentionally, it just kind of shook out that way. So in a perfect world all things equal I suppose if I find all of my friends attractive, one could assume I want to have sex with all of my friends, yes?
No!
Because all things are not equal and sex makes everything complicated.
The original question was do you WANT to have sex with us, and to answer that we have to get into the messy stuff...the potential fall out.
Let's look at an outcome tree on what can happen if you become romantically involved with one of your friends.
The good:
You realize that you've been in love all along, become a couple, everyone is happy for you and the wedding is off the chain. (The rom-com ending)
The meh:
You guys hook up for a while and mutually decide that it would be best to going back to just friends. (The somewhat unrealistic outcome that everyone thinks will be super attainable)
The bad:
Things go south, it's weird, someone was more into it than the other, jealousy emerges, friend groups fracture, unfriending on Facebook, awkward encounters at parties, rumors spread, total chaos. (The most likely ending)
Anyone with half a brain can see that the risk is very high in attempting this friend to lover conversion. And that doesn't even take into consider other external forces. What if someone else in the group is in love with her, what if someone else in the group is in love with you? It turns into a soap opera much quicker than you would imagine.
But while the risk is astronomical, so too is the reward. It is so difficult to find a partner in this world, there is an app for everything, but dating is hard, people don't say what they mean, wouldn't it be a thousand times easier to take a person you've already spent years vetting, some person whose quirks you are one hundred percent in tune with and just...flip a switch?
I believe it was the great Michael Bolton who said 'How can we be lovers if we can't be friends?' I think a far more poignant question to ask would have been 'How can we be lovers if we CAN be friends?' A break-up with a lover is relatively easy, a break up with a friend is not.
I'm certainly not the first to opine about how men and women relate to one another and I'm sure I'm not alone in that I play with fire far often than I should in playing in the gray area between lover and friend. I'm sure I've shared a dance floor make out with at least 10% of the people reading this as we speak, I just wish it was easier to distinguish between a non-committal make out (NCMO) and real suppressed feelings.
Maybe the answer is to put yourself out there, maybe it's best to take the Royal Tenenbaums approach and just be secretly in love with each other for the rest of your lives. But perhaps just because it's Christmas (and at Christmas you tell the truth) maybe it's time to just go for it and deal with the fall out later.
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