Friends and Lovers

[libby]

This morning it's cold and windy and I'm in my bedroom going through folders of mostly clippings I've saved. One is marked "Good Stuff."  Here's an example:

When Harry Met Sally is an old movie written by Norah Ephron and directed by Rob Reiner.

"Ephron Explains

Last summer's hit film, When Harry Met Sally..., drew general applause but also some grumbling that it never really gave a definitive answer to the question it raised: Can men and women be friends, or does sex always get in the way? In an introduction to the Knopf  paperback of the screen play, Norah Ephron gives the (or at least a) definitive answer:

The truth is, she writes, men don't want to be friends with women....They want women as lovers, as wives, as mothers, but they're not really interested in them as friends. They have friends. Men are their friends."

Women, on the other hand, "are dying to be friends with men. Women know they don't understand men, and it bothers them: they think that if only they could be friends with them, they would understand them and, what's more (and this is their gravest mistake), it would help. Women think if they could just understand men, they could do something. Women are always trying to do something. There are entire industries based on this premise, the most obvious one being the women's magazines..."

I laughed when I read it then and now because, well, because ....

[The Troll]

  Men can't be just friends with women.  First of all their wife or their girlfriend won't let it happen.  Any women knows that.  If you are single and I have had it happen to me, my son and some of my friends.  Women want to use and I do mean use men for their strength, to open a jar, their ability to to fix and build things, and their minds.  Never to be able to return the same.  Never seen one that wanted to go hunting, fishing, who wants to kill a fish or animal and he will have to kill it and clean it and probably cook it.  Ever seen a woman crawling under the house to  help fix a leak or fix a pipe.  A woman under the hood of a car helping get it to run.  How many women have you seen a woman come over to his house and mow his lawn, with these new mowers it can be don.  Let's face it, how many women have you seen a woman come over to her man/friend with a home cooked meal.    I have never seen a man/woman friend situation last very long.  They either marry or go their separate ways.