Just good friends

It's long been touted that men and women can't ever just be mates. Rubbish, says one Handbagger, friendships with men are some of the best a girl can ever have - with not even a hint of hanky panky involved.

By Catherine Jarvie

I blame Harry and Sally. When they met on the silver screen, a couple of decades of good work in encouraging men and women to lay down their weapons in the battle of the sexes was wiped out in the 90-odd minutes it took the pair to conclusively prove that men and women couldn't - ever - just be friends.

Of course, 'When Harry Met Sally' was a movie written and filmed in the '80s, a decade remembered for power suits and power struggles and it's easy to write off its never-the-twain-shall-meet hostilities between men and women as just another one of them. But somehow the idea that two members of the opposite sex can't engage emotionally without being overcome by animal lust stuck and, as any glance around the TV schedules from '90s 'Friends' to Noughties 'Desperate Housewives' will confirm, looks set to stay.

Old habits die hard

Exactly why that's the case isn't clear, and it certainly doesn't bear any relationship to everyday reality. Even as you read this, members of the opposite sex are sitting in homes, cafés, offices and bars the length and breadth of the land, swapping jokes, advice and dating dilemmas. No sexual tension involved, they're just hanging with a mate they like and trust.

But still the notion persists: when Denise Van Outen went on holiday to the Caribbean with David Walliams earlier this year, for example, the romance rumour mill churned on, despite her long-running protestations to the contrary. The only way they couldn't be getting it on, it has been implied, would be if either of them were gay.

According to these arcane authorities, it's like sexual equality never happened; we're all still stuck in an era when men only want one thing and nice girls daren't do so much as look at a boy for fear that they'd both be overcome by insurmountable lust.

Getting it together

No one's denying the power of sexual attraction or that it has a delicious habit of sneaking up on us without warning from time to time, but surely it's a little insulting to be expected to concede that it is the guiding principle behind all interactions between sexually available members of the opposite sex? (Almost as insulting as the idea that men and women who are otherwise engaged, sexually speaking, CAN be friends; as if we've all got a little button that is automatically turned on or switched off depending on whether or not we have a human hot water bottle keeping us warm at night.)

For the first time in our history both men and women have the opportunity to be educated equally. Both sexes are working hard and settling down later than they ever have before. And in the face of this new social order men and women are proving themselves to be pretty good at having long-term, serious friendships with nary a puff of sexual energy between them. And why not? Friends, we are constantly being told, are the new family and it would be a pretty strange family these days if it was divided solely down sexual lines.

Even as you read this, members of the opposite sex are sitting in homes, cafés, offices and bars - no sexual tension involved.

Opposites attract

So forget all that Mars and Venus nonsense, men only become unfathomable once they're sharing your bed. As a mate they offer you a perspective you wouldn't otherwise have, just as you do for them. Your girlfriends can always be relied upon to be there for you, armed with a bucket or three of chardonnay, ready to dissect the minutiae of your latest work/relationship/bad hair crisis. A bloke, meanwhile, is more likely to let you have your say, agree that the world is, sometimes, only too closely related to doggy doo and then gently but firmly move the conversation on. The overwhelming message is, 'Ach well, what can you do?' and it's an approach the ever-analytical, self-criticising fairer sex can all benefit from at times.

Sure men and women are opposites in many things, but instead of fearing it or fighting against it, those very differences are what make friendships between the sexes work. It's not deeply repressed flirting or a prelude to 'inevitable' sex but a healthy, knock-about meeting of two minds, whatever sex those grey cells may be. It's time for so-called popular culture to lay down the clichés and start depicting the world of mixed-sex friendships for the joy they really are. After all, real men and women have been managing to do it for years.