We all know the importance of friends in our lives. I won’t go into that. How friendship is affected by love is what I want to capture here. Can “a girl and a boy” be just good friends? This theme has been done to death in Hindi movies. More often than not, friends end up being lovers. Let’s explore.
The friendship of a male and female during college is quite different from that of work life. How? During college we hang out in groups. Hostellers have no life beyond college and friends. They become family. If feelings develop, it’s fine. But most of times, love does not develop, and friendship remains. Coz its family. Beyond the college, during the work life, we make new friends at office and outside. However we are in the college mindset. This is where the problem starts.
Most of the college love stories end with college itself. People go on to take jobs in different cities and that is where the romance stops. But with work life, it’s a new start altogether. People want to settle down and are looking for commitments. More often than not, love comes in between friendship, and if it is one sided, the friendship goes for a toss. It becomes uncomfortable, especially for the one who had feelings.
Let me relate a point. It might sound crude but is very practical. In India, girls who talk comfortably and openly with guys are very less. Look around your office for evidence. It is true for guys also. Such is the society in which we have grown up.
At office when a girl and guy become friends, they are seen talking together a lot, rumor mills start working. “Bhai, yeh ladki toh us ladke ki setting hai. Maine dekha hai dono ko kai baar saath”. They are assumed to be having an affair by the kill-time junta. The guy will try and react to rumors as if they are true, that’s how Dog we men are! We like to be stud. Now if the girl falls in love with someone in the same office. What happens to the friendship?
The friend-guy now becomes the ex in the eyes of the same junta. “Bhai, us ladki ne ladke ko laat maar di. Woh kisi aur ke saath ghoom rahi hai aajkal”. The guy now tries to justify that they are just friends; he had no feelings. But given his silent validation earlier, he becomes a laughing matter. He stops interacting with the girl suddenly under various pretexts. Also since they have spent so much time together, there is a feeble feeling somewhere deep down, which does not let him see her in love with someone else.
This now takes me to the movie, “Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam”. Madhuri’s friendship with Salman creates unrest in Shahrukh’s mind to the extent of breaking up their marriage. This is also true in real life. Ditto is the reason why guys can’t stand their girlfriend/wife in contact with her ex. Guys are possessive. Period! It’s not as if they doubt the commitment/character. Had it been the case, the relationship would have ended then and there. No. It’s just that guys are possessive about their girl.
Girls can go/shop/spend with her female friends; she can set the house on fire with her silliness; she can do all sorts of unreasonable things, and the guy will laugh it off. But the idea of another guy having even a bit of importance in her life, he will not be able to deal with it.
Depending on the level of love and level of maturity, the guy might relay his feelings to her and talk it out OR fight when he loves her too much to leave her but also is angry with her OR if love is not so strong, move away.
Girl may demand millions of things from his hubby. He will try and fulfill each and everything happily. Guys just demand one thing; Girl should have no place for any other guy at physical or emotional level in her life.
Courtesy: A Mad Kitten
