In my childhood, I did what every other kid did in the summertime- went outside and played with my friends. We were at the age that we didn’t have cell phones to call each other, so I usually had to call a house phone or I would tag along with my brother and his friends to see what was going on that day. My little group of friends could only be described as a motley crew. It was a culmination of all of my older brother’s friends that lived in our neighborhood, accompanied by any younger siblings that usually fell closer in age to me. When we were young and naive, the idea of gender never even popped up into our heads. We were all just neighborhood kids with one goal: to make the most of our summer days together and have fun all the way into the night. Sometimes I wish everyone could still have this mindset, but eventually we’re all forced to grow up and things become complicated.

When I was around 10 years old, I remember being frustrated that I couldn’t have one of my friends, who just so happened to be a boy, sleep over my house. It made me so angry and jealous that my brother was always allowed to have his guy friends stay over, but I couldn’t have mine. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if I actually had girl friends at the time, they were allowed to sleepover, but just because my friend was a boy, he wasn’t allowed. This is when I started to realize the massive role that gender played in friendships and the overall power it had to create a rift in some of the times that should have been the happiest times of my life.

So what did this realization do to me? It created more harm in my young adult life than I ever should have allowed. These “norms” that I was supposed to abide by when it came to guy and girl friendships had enough authority to make me think that I had to act in certain ways, because after all, it was just expected of me. But I can’t fully put the blame on myself for this one, for it was the changes in the guys around me that forced me to change myself. Things never had to be the way they turned out to be, but I wasn’t the only player in this game for two.

When I started high school, I found myself at a point of frustration focused around boys, yet again. This time things were different, though. Most of my friends had launched themselves into the dating scene, something I was far less experienced with and not ready for yet. Somehow they always managed to swarm themselves with groups of boys, most of them they ended up just becoming friends with in the end. But nevertheless, I was jealous of their abilities to interact with boys and maintain relationships with them. They never had to start a conversation with a boy, text them first, or ask them to hang out, whereas if I wanted to maintain a relationship with a boy, I always had to do all of the heavy lifting. After a certain point, trying to form any kind of relationship with a boy seemed nearly impossible, and it made me feel so inadequate that I had initiated things and there was never any reciprocation. For the longest time I blamed myself for the way I looked, rather than who I actually was, because that’s what boys tended to judge me by anyways.

Allowing time to take its toll usually has a lot of faults, but sometimes there’s good things that come out of growing up - one of them being maturity. We all grow up, we experience things, we change from our experiences, and we’re able to do a lot more than just skim the surface of the people around us. Maturity allows us to find out who we really are or aspire to be, along with the tools we need to find out the same things about the people around us. So I waited a very long time, but yes, eventually I was able to meet some pretty incredible guys that liked me for who I am and who weren’t afraid to be apart of my life.

So now it’s time to pose my ultimate question: is it possible for a boy and a girl to just remain friends? Some people with strong opinions will tell you no, that it’s not possible, things always eventually get too complicated. But why worry about the future of your relationship with someone, when there’s so many wonderful things to focus on in the present? I think presently speaking, that it is definitely possible to maintain a strong friendship with a person of a different gender than your own. Life’s what YOU make it, so why should you let anyone else tell you that things won’t work out for you and your specific situation with someone?

In some boy-girl friendships, you can tell right from the start, although it is not explicitly stated, that you genuinely just enjoy each other’s company and there’s no kind of sexual tension between you. The benefits of boy-girl friendships have the ability to offer insights and different kinds of support that you wouldn’t be able to get from your friends of the same gender. With this being said, I firmly believe that boys and girls not only have the ability to be friends but can also end up being BEST friends too.

There’s always the lingering questions of: what if we end up catching feelings for each other? What if we both don’t feel the same way about each other in the end? Some boy-girl friendships have the potential to turn into something more from the start. There’s nothing wrong with that either. Some people feel more comfortable when their significant other is someone they were best friends with at first, because now they are able to understand them on a deeper level. There tends to be a lot of happiness and openness in those kinds of relationships too.

Then there’s always the more complex situation of: what if I like my friend and they don’t like me back? Honesty is always important in these situations if it’s something you feel strongly enough to tell your friend about. If you let things build up inside and never tell them how you feel, that in itself can make your friendship with them turn into something you don’t want to be a part of anymore and can ultimately destroy your relationship in the end. It’s always good to have the courage to be honest with your friend, but in doing that you must also be able to handle their honesty also. Friendships, no matter if they’re boy-boy, girl-girl, or boy-girl, are always a two way street when it comes to communication. Worst comes to worst, your friend doesn’t like you back and you might feel embarrassed about what you said, but that doesn’t mean it has to be the end of things. If they’re really your friend, they’ll do everything they can to not make you feel embarrassed about the way you feel and they’ll want to keep you in their life no matter the cost.

So what are my actual feelings in all of this? Well, I personally believe that a boy and a girl can end up having an amazing friendship without things getting weird. Presently speaking, I have a lot of those friendships right now that I cherish so much and wouldn’t trade the world for. But you never truly know what the future holds for you and the people you care about. There’s endless possibilities and circumstances that have the power to bring two people together in ways they never could have imagined.

I just want “you” to know that I have found myself so many times being stifled from my own growth because I let myself get into relationships with boys that did nothing good or constructive for me. I am still learning, I am growing, I am healing, and I’m trying to be the best person I can possibly be. I am able to recognize the people I want in my life now, the ones who will raise me up, rather than bring me down. If you’re one of those people, all I want right now is for you to be able to grow too- I want you to figure out who you are, what makes you happy, what makes you, you. Most of all, I want you to believe in yourself, love yourself, and recognize how amazing you are all by yourself, without me doing it for you. So yes, I think a boy and a girl can just be friends, and for this reason I am so lucky to have some amazing ones in my life right now, present tense.