Women and men can be friends. FACT.

I was scrolling through TikTok the other day and saw this video of two friends. One was a woman, the other a man. They were showing clips of them together and saying they were the last ones to realise how they truly felt about each other. They are now in a relationship. I was bored so decided to have a look at the comments. Pretty much all of them said the same things. “This is why I don’t trust a boy’s girl best friend”. “You see, girls and boys can’t be friends”.

These comments annoyed me.

I have male friends. In fact some of my closest friends are males, but and no offence to them as I know they would agree, I will never see them as anything more than that. I go to them with my boy problems, they have seen me at my lowest and drunkest. At the same time, I get excited if I hear one of them is going on a date, I want all the gossip after it! I met these two specific guys at uni and lived with both. This means I argued with them about taking the bins out, I moaned when they left their dishes in the sink or played Fortnite too loud. Yes, these might sound like coupley things but aren’t they the things that make you frustrated with your partner and not fall deeper in love with them?

Despite this I have had people assume I fancy them. Assume that I couldn’t just be their friend, but honestly this is all I am. They know it, and I know it. I don’t think it’s fair to pit women against each other, make it out as if they are always going to stab each other in the back and steal their men. This isn’t the case, yes there are some instances where friends fall for each other, but this isn’t going to happen every time. You should be able to trust your boyfriend enough not to fall for every girl he is close to.

There are so many instances where girls and women are made to feel as if they can’t trust each other, and this isn’t fair. Women need to support women and just because some make bad choices or go after a taken man, it doesn’t mean every woman will.As above, these are the exception and not the rule. 

I think teen dramas have a lot to blame for this and they are also part of the inspiration for this article. I started Dawson’s Creek recently. At the time of writing this I am only on Season 1 so I have no idea how things will play out, but so far Joey is in love with her best friend Dawson. She’s the female best friend we are all warned about. The one sat on the side lines hoping he breaks up with his girlfriend. So many shows and especially teen dramas are like this too. When I sat down to write this article, I made a list of shows I have watched and nearly all of them have moments where friends fall for each other or sleep together. The only stand out show I could think of where a girl and a boy are close friends and nothing more is One Tree Hill. The couple I am referring to is Hayley and Lucas. I re-watched the first episode the other day and Hayley makes a joke about how she isn’t obsessed with Lucas in some “Joey and Dawson” way.

Going back to TikTok for a moment, I saw another one which said straight men are only friends with girls they are attracted to which is why you can’t trust a man with female friends. I just don’t see how this is the case! My male friends definitely don’t fancy me, and I know for a fact that I am not most of their types. Even in the case where I might be their type, I’m their friend. They would never fancy me because they just don’t put me in that category. They want what’s best for me and get annoyed when I fancy men they think aren’t good enough for me. We annoy each other like siblings and look at each other like family. I have two perfect examples of this too. One of my male friends even jokes about giving me away at my wedding because I don’t know my dad. We decided our father-daughter dance would be to Tinie Tempah! We wouldn’t do that if we were secretly waiting until the day we could finally be together. Mostly because it would be weird for a potential husband to also walk me down the aisle. 

Again, I am not denying that this never happens. There are cases where friends fall for each other or one of them secretly fancies the other, but if your partner has chosen you, it shouldn’t matter if their friend fancies them. You should be able to trust that they will put you first regardless.