Despite What TV Shows Tell You, You Don’t Have To Hook Up With All Your Friends

In a world where the media is constantly consummating friendships, you don’t have to. You can make a friend of any gender, of any age, anywhere you go, whether you are single or swinging or anything, and never even kiss them. You can fall in love with them at first sight. You can feel your love grow over time with every interaction. The smallest gesture can make your heart leap.

Maybe you are in a relationship or are married. Maybe you’re just not looking. For any number of reasons, sometimes it’s just not the right time or the right place to get physically intimate. Maybe it will never be the right time or the right place and you know this already. Nevertheless, we are love machines made to love, but sex isn’t always necessary or appropriate or even desirable.

The media doesn’t seem to know this yet. Any time a protagonist meets somebody new, our minds seem to make a beeline to wondering when they’re going to do it. It’s the first day of school and a boy sits next to a girl. When are they going to do it? Sometimes this even includes cheating, unfortunately. A lonely housewife has a new landscaper. When are they going to do it? 

In the past season of And Just Like That, Miranda is very attracted to Che, but Miranda is married. Maybe this whole thing could qualify for being artistic in Hollywood, because their first interaction is negative. But soon enough, we’re all wondering, when are they going to do it? And then they did. But they didn’t have to. And it was cheating. Would a blossoming, loving friendship between the two characters really be so boring?

In the past season of Jersey Shore Family Vacation, and for many seasons now, Vinny and Angelina seem ever closer to consummating their friendship again. They’re sitting next to each other at times when it’s otherwise all couples. The editors show flashbacks to the castmates having romantic moments in the past. Is the prospect of these two Staten Island natives “getting it in” or “making it official” more entertaining than seeing them just get along as friends in a seemingly sustainable way? Would a blossoming, loving friendship between the two castmates really be so boring?

In a recent episode of The Kardashians, Kendall is seen with a TV attractive man who seems to be her age. Fai Khadra is labeled as being her friend. Immediately we all thought, have they hooked up yet? When are they going to do it? 

Why did we have to think that about them or about any of these Hollywood situations? It is this kind of automatic thinking which makes it so hard for all of us to be just friends with anybody. What is life without friends? Don’t we need to not be doing it with somebody, anybody? Wouldn’t our therapists be so proud? And who besides our therapists are we going to talk to neutrally about our sex lives?