Hey Bollywood, Can A Guy And Girl Never Be Friends?

Back in 1989, Sooraj Barjatya's 'Maine Pyar Kiya' that starred baby-faced Salman Khan and Bhagyashree entered our lives to deliver some pertinent lessons. It showed us the other side of the oft-hated pigeons and encouraged us to use them as carriers for all the love-letters we wanted to pen to our crushes. It also taught us the importance of having caps with “FRIEND” written on them as part of our wardrobe. © Rajshri Productions But, most importantly, the film reinforced one lie in our heads that we find hard to not believe almost three decades later. All it took was one dialogue from Mohnish Behl. 'Ek ladka aur ladki kabhi dost nahi ban sakte,” he proclaimed to over a billion Indians watching and rewatching 'Maine Pyar Kiya', who blindly believed him just like Salman Khan did in the film. Coincidentally, in Hollywood in the same year, protagonists in 'When Harry Met Sally' also seemed to agree with Barjatya's sanskari logic. In the film, Harry tells Sally how men and women can never friends because the *** part always gets in the way. He further justified his logic, saying, “No man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have *** with her.” © Columbia Pictures And, thus, as the leads in these two vastly different yet obviously similar films ended up together, convinced that love > friendship, the rest of us remained eternally convinced of the full-proof logic and started applying it in our personal lives. Unknowingly, we ended up screwing over numerous love lives, and friendships, only because we kept repeating to ourselves that a boy and a girl can never be friends. Friendships, apparently, are only limited to people within the same ***. Then came best friends Rahul and Anjali in 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai' who were so dedicated about falling in love that they defeated time, a dead wife, called off a marriage, and used an eight-year-old girl as their matchmaker. After Rahul and Anjali found their happily-ever-after, life was never the same. Suddenly, it was cool to initiate friendships with relatives you can't stand, but not with a guy. It's as if the simple thought that a guy and a girl can have a friendship while dating completely different people had never occurred to us. It turned out to be a Eureka moment that most of our earliest relationships had to do without. © Dharma Productions When I turned 15, I became friends with a guy at my English tuitions. I studied at a girl's convent school and he at a neighbouring boys school, so our bi-weekly tuitions every Tuesday and Thursday was the only place we met, besides sending each other unending scraps on Orkut. A year on, we were as thick as thieves, raiding Monginis after our tuitions got over, and bullying one another to buy each other an ice-cream with our pocket money. Our friendship was further strengthened by the fact that we had similar interests: he loved reading 'Harry Potter' as much as I did, and I loved watching 'Mission Impossible' as much as he did. Just when it seemed like I had found a friend for life, did the unthinkable happen. My girlfriends from school kept telling me how odd it is that I had a close guy friend, instead of making him my boyfriend. They indicated that it was the next natural step, and at that time, Rahul and Anjali were my Jodi No 1, so I did what any 16-year-old should definitely not do. I randomly sent him a scrap telling him that I loved him. Understandably perplexed, he said I love you back, hoping that there could be nothing better than dating a close friend. Except, both of us were gloriously wrong. © Dharma Productions Soon enough, fights started being the order of the day. I accused him of not sending me enough scraps, and he accused me of being very clingy. Anyway, after an unhappy two-month of courtship where neither of us had any idea of what we were doing, where we spent the last two weeks not talking to each other, we decided to call it quits. I had seen enough Bollywood to know that the pain of the first heartbreak would be excruciating, but what I hadn't been ready for was the pain of my first broken friendship. He was my closest friend at that time, and yet I couldn't go confide in him about my heartbreak, because society forced us to be each other's heartbreaks. That day, I learnt a crucial lesson: The worst bit about dating your friend is that you will not have anyone to bitch about him with. It was like when we decided to date, he and I knew that watching a horror film would give us sleepless nights, and yet we watched it anyway. It was also the day that I decided that this whole thing about a girl and a guy not being friends is utter bullshit. I'm pretty sure I wasn't alone. Think of your first couple of heartbreaks; at least one of them would have been the result of you forcing friendship into something it shouldn't have been only because you were told that was the only way. © 20th Century Fox Television Well, here's me telling you, 'ek ladka aur ek ladki dost ho sakte hai'. And, even Harry was wrong, *** doesn't come in the way unless if you're really attracted to your friend. In that case, you have my, Rahul and Anjali's blessings to turn it into a relationship. But, if that's not the case, then relax; it's possible to have a guy friend and be in a platonic relationship with him. There's so much to friendship with the opposite *** than just attraction. Having a guy friend can open up your mind in so many ways than one. You can go shopping, watch movies, and go to the parlour with your girlfriends, but you'll need a guy friend to watch and enjoy football with, and play the latest video games. Even years later, most of us fall into the trap of mistaking a friendship as a potential relationship. If there's anything worse than forcing a relationship on someone who doesn't want it, it's forcing a relationship on a friend. Things are bound to get awkward, because we become friends with some people for a reason and date some people for a reason. It's because we share different wavelengths and comfort with them, and in no universe, could they be interchangeable or remain the same. Just because Ted may have gone through seven seasons only to end up with his best friend Robin in 'How I Met Your Mother' doesn't mean it's not possible for two people to have a friendship like Marshall and Robin's. So, the next time you think about making a choice between having a guy as a best friend, and as a boyfriend, don't be stupid. Just stick to being best friends. After all, who's gonna teach you how to hold your drink down otherwise?