Written by: Gene Cole, Opinions Editor
During the end of the summer, a popular video game streamer named Ninja had an interview where he discussed how he avoids streaming with female players in order to avoid things like rumours and attention. This extended surprisingly far, leading to a few discussions and posts on social media about how men and women should be able to be platonic friends without questions of sex or relationships between them, and how dumb it was that people can’t manage it.
In post-secondary, while aversion to opposite-sex friendships can be a common and fairly stupid phenomenon, it isn’t always unreasonable or illogical.
This isn’t to say that it’s not a maddening issue. As one tweet put it, there’s something very hypocritical about straight people having this issue when many LGBTQ+ people make friends constantly with people they’re oriented to. It’s absolutely a problem made entirely by straight people and by heteronormativity, and by most reasonable accounts, it’s nonsensical. Men should be able to be friends with women (and vice-versa) without raising questions of sex and romance every time a new acquaintance is made.
In practice though, there can be a lot of cases where it’s hard to treat this as something dumb and obvious, as dating and sex are deeply ingrained into a lot of student culture. Our movies and friends tell us how a project partner or a coffee shop encounter may lead to true love, making it always conscious in our daily life.
At the same time, we’re enamoured with brief and casual ways to socialize in post-secondary like social apps, clubs, and giant Facebook events. These sorts of quick and regular modes of interaction have gained traction — at the same time, friendships are becoming much more intimate and constant, since we’re expected to maintain them through social media and other methods of instant communication and connection.
With all the cultural influences on us to look for romance, and the intensive ways that friendships can be, the question of sex and/or romance will naturally come up from time to time. Sometimes this can be an internal question of what each person wants from the relationship. It’s normal and fair to abandon a friendship when you can’t change your feelings or opinion of the other.
Other times, it’s because the other party can’t do this — it’s absolutely common to find a person you tried to befriend is solely focused on sex or romance. This situation often happens with men refusing to have a platonic relationship with women, and there’s an unfair amount of pressure (and often danger) that comes with such instances. With risks of opposite-sex friendships leading to anything from tension to extreme concern, it’s hard for me to disagree with someone saying “I can’t do friendships with the opposite sex.” Nobody deserves to spend time with people that may often have only one type of relationship in mind.
Men and women can and should be able to be platonic friends without sex or dating. A lot of the time though, it just can’t or doesn’t happen. There are a lot of ludicrous reasons that some people (like Ninja) avoid them, and it’s important to call out how stupid this aversion is. But there’s a lot of rational reasons people have for it, and it’s important to realize that the reasons that some people avoid opposite-sex relationships don’t all come from an unreasonable place.
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