So, you step into a restaurant. There are two people at a nearby table. They're laughing and joking, they even reach over and touch each other's hands a little. You assume...?
Most, if not all people, will answer "they're a couple." Including myself. Culturally, we're all guilty of this, because it is what we are brought up with. It is what, in our world, is naturally assumed.
So what ever happened to good, old-fashioned friendship? Like when we were six? (Well, even then, parents and the like said "Oooh, you've got a boy/girlfriend! You like him/her?" But we would all answer "Eww! That's gross! He/she is my best friend!")
The emphasis, no matter where we go, is on the relationship. We, as cultural citizens of not only any specific country, but any country on this planet, are expected to become romantically intimate with anyone we get close to, who suits our sexualities. We are conditioned, indirectly or directly, to believe that a friendship can only go so far or else it will stall out and run flat, that the only answer to deepen a bond further is to become partners.
To further illustrate my point, I'll use popular (mostly children's, the impressionable ages') media. In Disney films, the friends are always comedic, mascot-like side characters (Sebastian/Flounder in The Little Mermaid, Cogsworth/Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast, etc.) and the princess' main bond in the film is the one she makes with the prince. That "true love" is considered the most important thing in the film, and sometimes, as in The Little Mermaid, leaving the best friends is sometimes necessary to be closer to the one the heroine loves.
It's not only Disney that's guilty of minimizing friendship and throwing romantic love into the spotlight. In fact, the very few examples of a strong friendship bond without romance in film that come to mind instantly are only Miyazaki films. (yes, Disney does handle all of Studio Ghibli's America releases, but they don't make the films.) In Princess Mononoke, a "shipping" is hinted at, but never explicitly made true, and one could just take that to be friendship. In Spirited Away, the same goes for Haku and Chihiro/Sen. In Ponyo, a shipping isn't really possible because they're so young...
Anyway, I diverge. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that in this world, the significance of bonds of true friendship are minimized so much that most of us have misconceptions about friends and relationships.
I myself am guilty of making this fallacy, (well, we're not going to count shipping when it's probably just meant to be a deep friendship bond, because...well...that's just too fun) and it took a lot of pain for me to realize that a deep, meaningful bond of friendship can, in fact, exist. It made me look even more like the idiot I was (who am I kidding? am!) when I came to realize the object of this love knew this from the beginning. (What a wise one he is, to ignore every cultural indicator that such a thing should not exist.)
I think, in this society where cases of social anxiety are becoming increasingly common (I can't name a child under 10 I've met recently that didn't hide from me), and where, as statistics say, each person has at most two real friends, that the culture should let everyone within it know that friendship is important, just as much as romantic love, if not more so.
Dreamworks seems to understand this. One of their most popular films, Shrek, shows a deep bond of friendship, even if the entire movie is just comedic relief.
But How to Train Your Dragon is perfect. Here is an example of friendship and romance coexisting, as it should in real life. One should not ditch their friends for their partner, but should also not blow their partner off for their friends. The movie does a good job of placing the friendship and the deepening of that bond between Hiccup and Toothless before the romance between Hiccup and Astrid, which, along with almost everything else about that movie, makes me very happy.
Oh, how great it would be if the next Disney Princess scorned romantic love and found herself a best friend! A prince, at that, just to throw the audience off more.
Now, we all get offended when we're with a friend and people come up to us and say "are you dating?" because we're upset that they're making assumptions and stereotyping taking place. Isn't it fair to think that others feel the same way?
I am going to work on changing my own conditioned reactions to seeing pairs of people in public. I believe that a friendship can exist between a male and a female without being "platonic." And, on top of everything else, I want to write a story about two friends. (For some background, all I ever write is romance!)
A lot of this is thanks to my best friend, who I love unconditionally and know that our bond can deepen without the need to be romantically involved.
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