Platonic Friends. What’s wrong with my friendship?

This post is over 1700 words. So if you are running short of time, feel free to exit. But if you think you can give your 5 minutes, you may enlighten us with your views on this.

Who is your best friend? Ahem! My best friend is Shalini/Rita/Priyanka. I suppose this is the most impromptu answer expected to such a question. Why? B’coz in our society being best pals with someone of opposite gender is yet not too acceptable a thing. So Rita (name changed) pushes her best friend Amit to the back of her mind and declares Shalini as her best pal. Strangely, it is to Amit she turns when she is in dire straits or when she needs a shoulder to weep on. It is with Amit who she celebrates her latest A grades. But still these answers come, it happens very regularly. Do these sound familiar to you too?

Even though we declare ourselves from a rapidly developing society which claims to be having a broad minded thinking, the common view still is that friendship can not exist between a boy and a girl b’coz if your best friend is a girl then she is a ‘girlfriend’ and if you are a girl and your best pal is a boy he is your ‘boyfriend’.

And it is so rooted to our culture that a dialogue on this had become the best dialog of the decade years ago. It was as “Ek ladka aur ladki kabhi dost nahi ho sakte” (A boy and a girl can never be friends) from the movie Maine Pyar Kiya (India, year 1989).

Why it is so? Why can’t we think beyond this sick-minded-ness and regard this healthy and pure relationship. Why can’t we just let two people live their own lives? Or why can’t we mind our own business first?

I know reading this post till this point you would be thinking that it is pity that people have such a narrow mind. We are in the 21st century and should think broad now. But time for a self-check, be honest to yourself and think: how many times you have seen a boy and a girl sitting on bench in a park and have not raised your eye-brows? Even when you don’t know any of them and have no ideas what they are talking about. How many times you have seen a boy and a girl talking in the ground floor and have not passed comments when you go up to your colleagues? “You know what, just when I was coming up, I saw Rita with a boy downstairs. They were quarreling. It seems the boy was her boyfriend”. Don’t you do so too? Be honest, b’coz I don’t want to comment on this now b’coz if I do I will add 1000-2000 more words to this post.

I read a verse from Chanakya few days ago, “There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no Friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth.”. I think he is true and I think it is not bitter even it is good that there is some self-interest. Why? B’coz if you don’t have an interest in something you will not think of it, you will not work for it, you will not feel for it.

You breathe b’coz your interest is in your life, you eat b’coz your interest is in your health, you work not for the success of your company but b’coz your interest is in your career and your prestige, you invest b’coz your interest is in a secure future, you love b’coz your interest is in removal of loneliness and you cry that is also b’coz your interest is in letting go off the pain. Are these interests wrong?

You meet some one and befriend her. That is also due to some self-interest and it is that you need someone when you are down, you need someone when you want to shout at, you need someone to talk to when there is no one to listen to your funny stories, you need someone to make a call to when you find your are bored and also you need someone at the time when you see others happy with their own companions.

Are these self-interests wrong as per you my friends? If yes, I tell this to ALL my friends, I am wrong too I am totally wrong. B’coz my friendship with you was, is and will be only and only b’coz of my self-interests. What is that self-interest that may vary for one to the other. For someone it is that I want him to get over the illness immediately so the next time I see him I don’t lose more faith in god (b’coz I don’t want to turn an atheist). For someone I want her to see at the top of her career. What purpose that will serve me? One day, it may make me say, “you see that girl, yes the one with the prize in her hands, she is ‘my’ friend. And I am proud that we are friends”. That will give me immense happiness. But hold on...it is scientifically proved that when you are happy, some useful chemicals are produced in your body that is good for your health. Here also self interest. Justified, isn’t it?

But hold on here again, had that been a boy you would have gone on stage to congratulate him but as she is a girl you will sit silently and wait for the ceremony to get over so that you can meet and congratulate her separately. Why? B’coz if you go on the stage to congratulate her, there would be more people talking of this incident then people talking about her getting a prize.

What is the solution and who is responsible for such mentality? I will talk about the latter first b’coz after that the former will not need much talking.

Responsible…the society, the education and the individual him/her-self.

The society…and by society I mean the people of it. It is they who spread rumors, it is they who talk about these on every nook and corner for hours when their family needs them badly. “You know I saw Amit & Rita sitting in a temple. I suspect something is fishy here”. Or, “This boy comes to Rita’s house very regularly, seems like some thing is cooking here”.

The education, b’coz we from our very young age have been taught rather instructed that as a girl, you should play with girls only and vice versa. Young minds already molded at so early stage, how can we expect them to think differently now?

And The individual…that is YOU. Yes you are responsible too. If you are honest and what you are doing is not wrong, why it bothers you what others ‘may’ or do say. Why can’t Rita go ahead and say that yes Amit is her best friend and he is always there when she need him. Why can’t it happen that when people point fingers on your true & platonic relationship you can’t stand tall to defend it with all your force? If you value your friendships you should, else do one thing my friend, free it off.

I know if this post is being read by an Angel, she would say, “Ro, you are a boy and if a boy says that his best friend is a girl then it might not raise problems but I am a girl. If I say this it will be like calling troubles and lots of questions to self. B’coz in our society girls are known to be in Limits and we can’t ignore those raised eyebrows and snide remarks around ourselves”.

Why do we want to bind ourselves by these taboos? Why can’t we go ahead and break the shackles. Why? B’coz I feel we don’t have courage to do so. It takes great courage to raise a problem but it takes one’s heart to go ahead and fight against it.

I personally also have also gone through a lot of these comments & rumors and that too repeatedly but I don’t care until it comes to me directly. I believe that there is no point calming down barking dogs b’coz they are all around me but when one tries to bite me, it would never be able to bite ever again. Many times it comes directly to me too, multiple times BUT it has never been from the same person. Why? I defend it so strongly that the person listening can never raise the question again. Why do I defend? Simple, b’coz I value that friendship. I want that to grow and I am in no mood to let any one outsider come and cast an evil eye on it. People even come and say dirty things b’coz they envy me sometimes for such a close friendship, but ask me if I care. Why should I? Is what I am doing wrong? Is what I am doing not justifiable? When I know that what I am doing is not wrong I should not care what people say of it and I don’t. And the day I feel that what I am going to do is wrong, I will not do it in the first place.

Now the time for the solution. I will not say much on this b’coz I want the readers to leave solution to this as a comment (please do let me know that is it same at your place too or is it only in India?). Hence, I will stay short. For me the solution relates to the most complex thing in the universe, The Human Mind. Our heart is not bad, it understands the feelings of an individual, but our mind has been so polluted from ages that we can’t think beyond these things. What we need is proper guidance, proper counseling and above all proper education; out-house as well as in-house education. And rather than the toddlers it is the time when grown up people need these more. Even though we have co-education schools today the story has not changed much.

We need to make people feel that it is perfectly alright if a boy and a girl is talking over phones, it is perfectly alright if they are meeting regularly, it is perfectly alright if they are counting on each other, it is perfectly alright if they are friends.

As healthy competition is encouraged among all age groups and all genders, so should friendship.

With a hope that our mind, our mentality will change for the betterment of an individual and friendship flourishes around us.

Straight from the heart of a person who be-live-s in friendship.