Boy and girl meet at Houghton. Boy and girl become friends and spend years together, laughing and enjoying each other’s company. Boy and girl do not date or get married or fall madly in love.
Wait, what? How is that possible? This is Houghton. Couple Capital of the North East, where hopeful romantics come searching for the love of their lives, and in special cases, even walk away with a degree.
We have all experienced the constant pressure small, Christian school culture places on students to be in a serious relationship. Think about how quickly assumptions are made when a guy and girl establish a friendship: they are constantly required to defend the innocence of their relationship and claim, “No! We are just friends.” “ Just friends” implying that there is something more to achieve, beyond the understanding, compassion, sacrifice, joy, sadness, and beauty present in every healthy, long-standing friendship, something that involves walking around the Quad four times, a wedding band, and lots of babies.
But, what if instead of believing that dating/marriage is the highest friendship, we starting believing that friendship is the highest form of friendship? Within the bonds of deep, genuine friendship, men and women can learn respect, honor, compassion and forgiveness for people so different from themselves, and we can learn to want the absolute best for someone, whether they are a stranger or a partner.
Of course, I am not asking us to disregard the unique intimacy present in romantic relationship or how they provide a distinctive view into the Love of Christ. But romance is not the only context in which guys and girls can interact, and we cannot forget that.
There are two major problems that arise when we idolize romantic relationships over strong friendships.
First, those who do not desire or are unable to date often become ostracized at worst and pressured to change at best. Whenever two single people chat or have lunch, their friends start prodding and winking. It is as if being single or not wanting to date is a curse we must overcome to reach complete humanness. But we are not made complete by the romantic addition of another human being.
We would agree that if a dating relationship exists only for physical touch and contained zero friendship, it would be rather unhealthy. So why do we consider a guy-girl friendship that does not involve physical intimacy unhealthy? Is not friendship the part that makes it so wonderful and valuable?
But the second, more problematic issue is that if we see every person of the opposite gender as a potential spouse or date, then we stop seeing him or her as a human being and lose the ability to foster positive co-ed interactions. We are afraid to grab a coffee or strike up an unexpected conversation with the opposite gender because it will look like a date. Seriously, if you saw a guy and girl eat lunch alone together twice in one week, what would you think?
The stigma and pressure surrounding guy-girl interactions prevents us from learning more about the opposite gender. We need to learn how to understand and serve those different from us without the fear that a friendly conversation is actually a date. We need to see those around us as brothers and sisters in Christ, as people we want to demonstrate sacrificial love to. Communication and empathy are crucial to displaying Christ’s Love, real, genuine, selfless love , to those around us. Besides, Jesus loves you more deeply, fully and completely than any human ever could, and you don’t see him trying to go out with you.
Chivalry is not dead at Houghton. Let us hope friendship is not either.