It was Friday night and I had promised a good friend of mine I would attend his little cousin’s stag and doe to support her engagement. So around 9pm he picks me up, and somewhere along the 45min drive from my house to Niagara Falls I swear we passed through a black hole sending us reeling through time.

On the ride over, I figure perhaps I should ask a little bit about the bride and groom since I’ll be spending the next 3 hours around their closest family and friends. As it turns out, the happy couple are both 19 years old, both attending post-secondary school and somehow they also both thought getting married was a good idea. After discovering this valuable piece of information I think my next question was valid, “So, after they’re married how exactly do they get back to 1964 where they can start working the land and raising cattle?” As I think the last time getting married at 19 was a good idea it probably cost 37 cents to fill up your gas tank.

Now let me make two things crystal clear; Firstly, they seem like two wonderful people, with great families and I wish them all the best and hopefully a very long long life together. However, now that that’s said, I think they’re both out of their minds. Sure, maybe its just me (which is likely) but getting married while you are in university seems insane.

University is typically the time people learn about themselves, their passions and interests, and start realizing…oh shit, this life thing ain’t as easy as I thought. I know I certainly was a different person between my first year of university and my graduation ceremony (and I’m not just saying that because my liver was likely severely damaged after those 4 years). I can’t imagine having to juggle essays, finals, study groups, pub crawls, and homecoming all at the same time as entering into the grand institution of marriage.

And to quickly point out the elephant in the room, yes, being with only ONE person for your entire life… wow. I guess that was cool when life expectancy was 17 or 18, but if you’ve been having sex with the same person since you were 18 years old how do you plan to spice things up after 30 years and you’re both only 50. I think its safe to say for their 40th anniversary there could be some mild bestiality involved. Its hard not to get excited when new species are introduced into the equation.

But to be my own devil’s advocate for a moment, perhaps its not THAT bad of an idea (I’m talking about the early marriage thing again, stop thinking about bestiality everyone). From my personal experiences and those of my single friends, it seems after we’ve dated someone for a significant amount of time and things do not work out, we move onto our next relationship looking for the good things we’ve seen in past partners and sprinting away from the terrible traits we have endured. For example, I will never again date a girl that thinks it is okay to use Ketchup as a suitable replacement for pasta sauce (what a nightmare). Live and Learn.

As my friends and I have been dating, comparing, and sourcing out the perfect mate, the Romeo and Juliet of my story may just effectively grow into one another where us 28 year old singles may have become a touch jaded along the way. I remember the first girl I thought I was in love with in highschool, she was smart, funny, engaging, interesting, and most importantly she felt the same way. But as fate would have it, I broke up with that girl because I was afraid I would be cheating myself out of a great university experience if I spent all my time running back home for “love”. I cannot say I regret that decision because university was indeed the time of my life, but whose to say how life would have turned out if I would have followed my heart.

That’s the reason you never forget your first love, since there was nothing and no one else to compare them to they were truly the best of everything. And that, just can’t happen twice. Just another pure example of ignorance being the ultimate ingredient for bliss.

Well look how that goes, I’ve completely spun my own view around to the point that I’m nearly standing in my room applauding these two pups for taking their puppy love down the aisle. And though current studies show couples that get married at 30 years and older seem to have a lower rate of divorce, I think these two might have a chance at the long haul. A lot of people get married, because they’re simply “ready to settle down”, “its getting time to have kids”, or “I’m sick and tired of the dating scene” and their partners seem to be merely a matter of timing, in the case of these two young star crossed lovers, it appears they’re really only getting married for one thing…. because they’re in love.

To young love.

Well, it appears The When Harry Met Sally Debate is a sensitive issue. Apparently nobody is too keen on their significant other dedicating time to their “platonic” (bullshit) male/female friends.

I think there is one thing people need to understand, for most things, men and women are THE SAME. Say it with me everyone…Men AND women ARE THE SAME. Sure there are the obvious things that set us apart, but when it comes to relationships the similarities are too much to count. There are women that whore around, just as there are men that like to whore around. There are women that think its disgusting to sleep around and there men of the same opinion. All of us operate at all stages of the emotional spectrum and its most important to find someone that exists within the same area of reason and logic as you do.

Having at once been part of the “seriously, we’re just friends, he doesn’t see me like that” delusional argument its rather hard for me to blame the single guy/girl on the outside. Because essentially they’re just doing their job. They’re single, on the hunt, and looking for a mate. In my opinion, its the responsibility of the person IN the relationship that has to clearly draw the boundaries of those “friendships”. Single people for the most part are drones of loneliness looking for validation from the opposite sex. Some are MUCH worse than others of course, and seem to not be able to function as a human being without some sort of attention from the opposite sex. But every single one of us needs validation of some sort. Those in relationships get it from the comfort and affection from their significant other (ideally), where the singles crowd get their sustenance from…well, whoever the hell is giving it away. Its usually a matter of self-worth that determines how much validation you’re typically looking for.

A lot of times it seems to be the naivety of one of the partners that just doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that so-and-so just might be hanging around in hopes that the bottom falls out of your relationship. I’ll take it one step further and give you an example…

I once had a girlfriend that would come home from work and tell me about a certain male co-worker she had that all the other girls at the office adored. She would then proceed to tell me that this guy would constantly tell her how he would break up with his girlfriend for her immediately if she’d break up with me. Cool. And then, this lovely girlfriend I had would proceed to call me too jealous when I would be unimpressed when she would hang out with this guy outside of work hours. Now I don’t think I was outside of my boundaries to have a grievance with this.

Even though I had many the dream of stabbing this man in the neck with a rusty fork, ultimately I can’t blame him. He’s the wolf and I’m just the guy guarding the chicken coop. I can understand this guy coming after my girlfriend, after all, if I thought she was great (at the time) why shouldn’t other people? But what irked me, is that if this guy had been properly put in his place from the beginning there shouldn’t be an issue. End of story.

This debate I’m sure will rage on long after we’re all dead and buried. People will be riding around in their flying cars arguing over why Jill keeps using Bobby’s teleporter instead of her own. At the end of the day, I think its very important to have respect for the person you’re with. And if you happen to find yourself in a situation that you wouldn’t like to see your girlfriend/boyfriend involved in, then you need to reevaluate  yourself and your motives, or perhaps your relationship.

This is a little off from the topic, but take a look at this hysterical Chris Rock clip about Love and Relationships. I’ve seen it a 1001 times and I still find it funny.

Hello there ladies, gentleman, and people that enjoy wasting time at work,

Do I have a doozie for you today?

Yesterday I realized that I hadn’t heard from Nora, a good friend of mine for quite some time so I decided to write her an email. That email said exactly the following, “Hey, how’s the sexiest girl in __________ doing? ”

Now, I’m a friendly playful person by nature, I enjoy complimenting people, joking around, and when I’m single I have no clue where the line is drawn between being friendly and flirty. That’s simply how I communicate, usually its fine, sometimes its not, life goes on. I was originally going to go with something more inappropriate and suggestive for the email as I normally would with Nora, something like; “Hey, how’s the sexiest ass in all the free world doing?” You know, something subtle, but I remembered that Nora now has a boyfriend, so I respectfully toned it down to “sexiest girl” and waited for a reply.

Now before I give you a little taste of her unexpected reply, let me toss some backstory at you;

Nora lives a fair distance away and over a period of about 14 years, we’ve met three times; once in Virgina Beach when we were 15 (that young puppy love), once in 2000 for a couple hours, and another time for a weekend last June. All other communication has been over instant messenging services, email, and a few snail mails (she used to enjoy sending me cute thoughtful trinkets).

Nora and I, despite our geographical handicap became very close friends. We’d often discuss personal issues and every so often one of us would throw out a clearly non-platonic statement towards the other. It was a fun dynamic. We had both been in long term relationships starting and ending roughly around the same time, ’04- April ’07. So last June, as we realized we were both single we decided to meet up for a weekend in a neutral location. At the time we both needed a clearer perspective outside our narrow vision of a post breakup world. Long story short, we had a fantastic time. No stress, no expectations, just two friends hanging out and listening to “The Collection of Bobby Brown” (it was her CD, but I loved it like it were my own).

On our last evening together there happened to be a bit of wine consumed and well, yada yada yada… and we haven’t seen one another since. Relax out there all you Penthouse Letter enthusiasts, not like that. Yada yada yada doesn’t always mean sex you filthy bastards.

So back to her email. This is a partial excerpt of what I received, I found it very interesting (see: funny)and I wanted to share it with all my faithful (see: limited) readers:

“Well, as awkward as this is… I need to tell you that my boyfriend is extremely uncomfortable with you and I communicating.

Dennis stumbled across a text message you sent me around the weekend of “the tryst” and was less than thrilled. Although , honestly, I can’t say I blame him. He asked me who you were and I blew it off and said you were just a platonic friend (which, in theory, you are).

In case you’re wondering why he was looking through my phone… my ex was still text-stalking me and Dennis was worried that he might actually show up at my apartment and do something rash. Dennis didn’t say anything at first, but brought it up about 5 months into our relationship during an argument. I have a great deal of love and respect for this man and knowing how deeply he was hurt by this just kills me”

Just to first set the record straight, they were not together during “the tryst” (I had to look up what that word meant), they got together a few months after.

The rest of the email goes into suggestions of changing our harmless friendship, which in my opinion think we’re better off just not talking, period, if that’s what’s best for her. One great idea from the email though, was she did recommend I post something on Perfectly Turbulent about the delusion most people have that men and women can be friends. And so here we are, mind you I doubt she thought I’d post her email…SURPRISE!! (j/k i asked first).

The simple fact is that women can be friends, men however, if we find the girl attractive we will, at any time hand in our friendship passport for a one-way ticket to an awkward morning. Its my belief that even if two people somehow remain friends, there either IS or WAS at some point feelings had, be it one-sided or mutual.

But surprisingly, for some reason most woman just CANNOT wrap their heads around this concept.

Its always, “No, no, we’re just friends, Billy would never think of me like that.” THAT IS WRONG. Billy has, and does think of you like that many times a day. In fact, he’s thinking of you like that RIGHT NOW as you’ve just dragged him through SIX different clothing stores trying on bikinis.”

In movie history, no one has put this debate better than Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally. (thanks for the clip Nora).

As for Nora and I’s friendship, it’ll always be there and we both know it. I totally understand her position and commend anyone that is willing to put all of themselves into a relationship because not enough people do. If I never hear from her again I wish her nothing but happiness with her boyfriend, but all I ask is that I’m notified about the wedding so I know where to send the flowers… as well as an inappropriate Wedding Card to get the newlywed’s first fight out of the way.

So what does everyone else think? Can women and men be friends with no sexual tension or feelings involved….ever?