Harry’s Hypothesis: We Can Never Be Friends

Harry: You realize, of course, that we can never be friends.

Sally: Why not?

Harry: What I’m saying is — and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form — is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.

Sally: That’s not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.

Harry: No you don’t.

Sally: Yes I do.

Harry: No you don’t.

Sally: Yes I do.

Harry: You only think you do.

Sally: You say I’m having sex with these men without my knowledge?

Harry: No, what I’m saying is they all want to have sex with you.

Sally: They do not.

Harry: Do too.

Sally: They do not.

Harry: Do too.

Sally: How do you know?

Harry: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.

Sally: So you’re saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?

Harry: No, you pretty much want to nail ’em too.

Sally: What if they don’t want to have sex with you?

Harry: Doesn’t matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story.

Sally: Well, I guess we’re not going to be friends then.

Harry: Guess not.

Sally: That’s too bad. You were the only person that I knew in New York.

My current hypothesis is that men and women can be friends, provided the whole sexual tension thing is sorted out. Like, I could be attracted to you, but if there is absolutely no question at all that it is a mere idle thought, sure, we could be friends.  That is sorted out.

So the reason I can’t be friends with an ex, is because if there is any lingering feeling there, it isn’t. Because I know what it’s like and it isn’t an idle thought. If there is even a smidge of a possibility of hooking up (thus calling in to question that whole are we together or what?) then it is definitely NOT sorted out.

What happens when it’s sorted out for one person, but not the other?

Pain. Heartache. All that nonsense. (Affairs of the heart are by their nature not sense). Pretty much all of the movies that aren’t about blowing up people and things, although sometimes it’s those too.

So I guess I was faking it when I said we could be friends because I have not sorted it out. But I will. Eventually. And in the meantime, we are not friends.

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