BEING FRIENDS WITH BOYS IS HERE!!!

My fourth novel, BEING FRIENDS WITH BOYS, is finally released to the world. So first, to celebrate, here’s the amazing video done by my friend Lily Jurskis:

Second, a lot of people have been asking me –because of the title of the book– whether or not boys and girls can be “just friends.” Here’s what one of my favorite movies ever, “When Harry Met Sally,” has to say about that topic:

Pretty grim, eh?
Well, I happen to be friends with a lot of fantastic boys/men, and so I asked a couple of them what THEY thought. Here’s what they had to say:

What a sad thought that anyone would eliminate half of all human beings as potential friends! Finding those special people in the world who you really get and who really get you, those people who love who you are and help you become more… it’s such a rare and precious thing. Why would anyone make the search for friends twice as hard by eliminating half of all possibilities? I have close friends who are men and close friends who are women. Each one is vital to me in her or his own way. Ask me to give up even one of them, and you’re in for a fight. Give up half of them based on their gender? Not a chance! –Tom Bell, friends with me since 1996

Hmm. Why not?

Friendships develop organically, and guys & girls are just very different… err… organs? That’s an awkward analogy, but girl & guy friends serve different functions in life. (My life, at least.) They’re all still really important.

Most of my friends are guys.  I connect with guys over shared interests and hobbies in a way that I don’t with girls. Professionally as well. I hang out with guys to collaborate or to just kick around. These friendships are  largely simple, casual, and spontaneous. My friendships with girls are quite different, and I hadn’t really given it much thought before now. They are  mostly long-distance, long-term connections to people that I believe know me very well. Phone lines can lay dormant for a long time but conversations can pick up where they left off with very little pretense or formality. I think girls are able to view friendship with a long-view that guys aren’t privy to.

So, yes, absolutely guys and girls can be friends!
–Josh Siegel, friends with me since 2001 

So, what do *I* think?
I think that yes, absolutely, guys and girls can be friends. I think they can be friends for a really long time, and on levels just as deep and complex as with folks of the same gender.

However.

That doesn’t mean that the romance thing doesn’t ever come into the equation. (And, yes, the gay/straight element –and the one-of-you-has-a-significant-other thing– can both make things more simple, and also not.) As I hope I show in Being Friends With Boys, sometimes these things can get complicated.

For me it’s complicated mainly because what we look for in a friend is so similar to what we look for in a romantic interest (gets your jokes, spends lots of time with you, is a good listener, makes you laugh, remembers special things about you, likes your style, teaches you things, etc.), so I think sometimes when you’re friends with someone, it can get confusing. For example, it’s possible to really, really dig someone –just as a friend– and then maybe for a little while think that means you want to be MORE than friends with them. Usually, in my experience –if you are, in fact, good friends– your relationship can absorb this. But it doesn’t mean that things might not get awkward for a little while.

One day, for kicks, you might also mutually try to test it out –see if you make a good couple instead of “just friends.” This could work out great –i.e., you  make an awesome couple– or it could turn out not so great. (I.e., you don’t.) There is always the risk of losing the friendship in this case. But in the best of circumstances, if you are really, truly, honestly good friends, I think your relationship can absorb this part too. It might not be flawless, but eventually your friendship will win in the end.

Mainly, I think any close relationship that has much duration is going to have its ups and downs. There will be times when you are so dead-on happy and grooving with each other, that you can’t imagine ever living without him or her in your life every second of the day. Other times . . . well . . . it isn’t necessarily that way. And maybe romance is a part of this, maybe not. The point, to me, is that the relationships worth keeping are the ones that have room for both the highs and the lows, the flawless and the awkward. Girls, boys, straights, gays, old, young, blind, deaf . . . whomever. It’s better to be friends than not.