The Question

Shakespeare once wrote, "To be or not to be? That is the question." I think he should have also written, "Can a man and a woman be friends? That is THE question." It was established in When Harry Met Sally that it was impossible for a man and a woman to be friends without sex getting in the way. For those who have never watched that film, do yourself a favour, rent the DVD and watch it.

Anyway, I personally think its very much possible for that to happen. Most of my best and closest friends are girls. And most of us have been friends for many years and like I always said, if anything were to happen, it would have happened long ago.

So why is it so hard for people around, especially girls if I have to be honest, find it so hard to accept that 2 people (a guy and a girl) can be close friends without having any other forms of attraction between them? I think its because those people have either been to hurt by someone they once cared (and probably still care about) and thus have become bitter to the thought that someone else can be nice to them without wanting anything else or they are just simply cynical.

I have in my short life time seen many friendship and have had many friendships destroyed by people like this. They go around and whisper their own bitterness and cynicism into the ears of their friends (sadly to say, in most of my experiences, its always seems to be girls who do this but as I said, this is written from personal experiences). It almost seems as thought just because they cannot have a guy or a girl for a friend that no one else can. I mean, get over yourself. Its not your life anyway. What gives you the right to know everyone's intentions anyway? Just because you've been hurt by someone or been played by someone does not mean everyone else's intentions are the same! And just because you yourself cannot make friends with the opposite sex (friends who aren't trying to sleep with you - true friends - and if you don't know what a true friend is, this is directed at YOU!), it doesn't mean that other people have to share in your failures! As I said it before...GET OVER YOURSELF!

I have to say that the few years that I have spent living in Australia, I never had that problem with most of my Aussie friends. It always seems when I am back amongst my Singaporean friends that all this kind of bullshit happens. I don't know why. Maybe its our upbringing? Maybe we just need to get involved in other people's lives? But this isn't the first time I've experienced things like this and honestly, I think those people who do such things should simply be shot dead. I am down right sick of it. It happens everywhere and honestly, it's childish and stupid. Grow up people...grow up.

But why do people do this? I think it because we are becoming more cynical with every passing day and if you ask me, the world could do with a lot less cynicism. We have already embrace ignorance and apathy as "moralistic pillars" of our life. We embrace it and we take pride in it. We walk around comparing whose life is more miserable. I honestly hope that we do not do the same with cynicism. The world is already a painful and difficult place to live in. And we ourselves are part of what makes it worse. Semper fi.

Nemo nisi per amicitiam cognoscitur.