Just friends

Last month Slate
ran a series by Juliet Lapidos called Strictly
Platonic. Lapidos and her friend Jeffrey were born in 1983. They've been
friends since meeting at summer camp as teenagers. There were a few forays into
romantic experimentation, but today they're more like brother and sister;
they're friends.

What's interesting here are the historical and cultural forces that shape our most intimate personal relationships. "If Jeff and I had been born in, say, 1923 instead of 1983," Lapidos muses, "we might never have had the chance to develop a nonromantic attachment." They would not have attended the same camp, she would not have been admitted to the college she attended, and they would not have lived as post-college roommates.

I'm a couple years older than Jeff and Juliet, but
my peers and I are just as comfortable with friendships between the sexes. This
has periodically led to confusion or ambiguity. The idea has met with some
surprising resistance and has raised broader questions about gender, friendship
and intimacy.