Imagine a boy, an extremely young shy boy, trying to initiate a conversation with a girl, with the only motive to initiate a conversation, when he does so, he's teased around, implicating that he's making a move on her or something is brewing between them, when he doesn't even know what "making a move" actually means. Now the teasers must be thinking they were just pulling his leg or having fun at his expense, but what if it scared the boy, what if this incident influences him so deep that he refuses to talk to any girl, he was shy at first and now he's intimidated to initiate a conversation with any girl and vice-versa, because they will always be misunderstood by the rest and maybe by each other too, leading to consequences as boys and girls are quite impressionable.
Now I know some of you must be wondering "Isn't he stretching it too far??","Isn't he overthinking or over-analyzing too much??", "Isn't he being oversensitive and taking it too personally??", I don't blame them to think that way, because that's how this society is constructed, to influence us to think this way. Today in the times of 2020, we talk about gender equality, yet we are not adept to deal with the sub-conscious sexism not visible to the naked mind in our everyday lives. Don't worry this is not about sexism or chauvinism, it's about that by-product of the same that like a crab pulls us down when we want to think ahead. Oh, did I really go too far?? then let me give you another example.
Let's imagine another young boy who is having a good conversation with a girl and sharing a young bond that may germinate into a friendship, but what happens, he is teased by his peers, his boyhood is questioned, he is threatened with isolation, unnerved, he feeds his mind with the theories that boys don't sit besides girls, such boys aren't fit to be called men. Now do you see what I'm talking about?
Not yet? let me elaborate a little more, the above two examples don't really encourage a platonic, friendly conversation with someone of the opposite sex, because in our minds a man and a woman can have only one non platonic relationship, actually 2 non platonic relationships (romantic or sexual), unless they consider each other as siblings but trust me I've met people who have an incestuous mindset too. We have spoken enough about how the boys of today need to be reined in and be taught about respecting women, but for the boys of today and tomorrow, if we want them to respect women another need of the hour is to create an environment where it is acceptable of boys and girls to interact with each other, it needs to be perceived as an act of normalcy.
Like in every case, even this case doesn't revolve around only the male specimen. It's about how we have brought up our girls too. It's understood that given the environment and given our concern we are too possessive about the girls around us, but why is it that whenever they interact with a boy, they are made to feel as if they have committed a sin, sure their girlhood isn't questioned or challenged but is sub-consciously and in-deliberately dampened, by reminding them that they are the "weaker sex", vulnerable and prone to harm and exploitation by the other sex.
Thus, after disrobing these draconian societal garments, the naked truth is that one section of this human society lives under insecurity regarding its own gender pride and attention of the other gender it knows not how to handle, and the other section, well, they are empowered and encouraged yet made to live under fear of harm and exploitation by their counterparts, in situations and environment as such, how does one expect this world to have relationships that are based on love, true, pure love?
You know what's the one of the major root causes of this issue?, the fact that we still perceive friendship as a seed of a relationship, not as a tree with its own roots. I agree relationships are at times like a living organism, they evolve from one stage or phase to another but that doesn't mean, that the stage, the phase isn't in itself a relationship. The ultimate stage of a bond, its final destination indeed determines the nature of a relationship, but that doesn't mean the stages lose their relevance.
When a man and a woman declare themselves as just friends, there is a certain unrest amongst people, the society in particular, they are so concerned that what will this friendship lead to?, will it lead to a romantic relationship? will it be a physical relationship? or will it lead to a sibling-like relationship?, what if it was a bond that has lead to this relationship called friendship, which in its nature is purely platonic??.
Let's even forget the scope of romantic or sexual relationships, why they have to lead to sibling like too? can't they be just friends?. To be safe, it's time we check how much we are letting the regressive society and the regressive section of media (films and series) affect our mindset. It eventually is leading to glorification of male domination and the objectification of the female.
Friendship has somewhere lost its value too, at times some of us have also in order to pursue someone romantically went on to forge friendships, now thinking about it, don't you think we have degraded friendship to something as a mere tool? people are mocked for getting what is called "Friendzoned" but then again, if we think about it, what's so wrong with it?
The environment of being friends and being platonic was never really created, because we chose to see things through the prism of doubt, convention and convenience, when the prism wasn't even needed. Doesn't it seem stupid that the whole world was there for us to watch and we chose to see it with a narrow viewpoint?
I feel sorry for this society who thinks so low of friendship. They forget that if relationship, and I mean any relationship is a body, friendship is the soul. Without friendship any relationship is lifeless. Such is the importance of friendship, so imagine how powerful friendship really is, as a bond, as a relationship.
This is not just about men and women being perceived rightly in their respective beings, it is also about bringing them up together in environment that needs more friendship than friction among them, an environment which functions with their synergy.
Thus, every relationship to exist and grow into something beautiful needs friendship, sometimes a friendship that initially might look platonic may lead to a relationship that's non platonic, but at the same time a friendship that's platonic, needs to be respected and identified as in itself a relationship. Let this world be open to the idea of being platonic, let this planet be a bit more platonic.
