Yesterday Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman discussed the age-old When Harry Met Sally question: can men and women be platonic friends? The typical answer (no) doesn’t give men enough credit.
Aniston told PopEater men and women could be buddies, but Bateman disagreed, saying,
I don’t want to make a horrible generalization. But a lot of the guys I’ve met will sleep with pretty much any girl that they meet. And if they are actually good friends with that girl that’s a home run. How can you resist that?
The idea that guys will bang anything with tits is ancient, and maybe it’s just the kind of cliche you trot out when you’re promoting your rom-com (in this case, The Switch, thankfully no longer known as The Baster) on gossip sites. But it’s not actually true of most guys, and it does both men (who are assumed to have no standards) and women (who are assumed to be too choosy if they aren’t getting laid every second) a disservice. In my experience, there are three reasons not to bone a friend (assuming neither of you is in a relationship that would prohibit said boning):
1) You’re not attracted to him/her.
2) You’ve gotten to know him/her well, and you understand why you work way better as friends than you would as a couple.
3) You value the friendship too much to risk hooking up and/or dating, which, while it could be awesome, could also irreparably damage said friendship.
No. 1 is usually the most likely to prevent friend-sex, and no. 3 is the least, but all three are valid — and to say that men never consider things like compatibility and consequences, or that they will screw any woman they encounter, regardless of actual attraction, is pretty silly. So let’s do everybody a favor and quit pretending that women have a monopoly on pickiness — or prudence.
Jennifer Aniston Vs. Jason Bateman: Can Men And Women Be Best Friends (With No Sex)? [PopEater]