Lifestyle
Can straight married men and women be friends? I went on a quest to find out
Last fall I met a guy.
He had a thick mustache and was, by my estimate, at least 10 years my junior. We happened to sit next to each other at a dinner event at my social club. I’d recently watched “Wild Wild Country,” a documentary series on a religious cult, and it was all I wanted to talk about. It turned out that he loved documentaries on religious cults too. Soon he was listing others I needed to see. We ended up discussing movies, Buddhism and his home state of Vermont for most of the night. He was funny, enthusiastic, friendly and smart. I felt lucky to have met him.
When the event wrapped up I thought about asking for his number — maybe we could get a drink sometime? But I decided against it. If he’d been a woman or gay I wouldn’t have hesitated, but we are both in committed heterosexual relationships. I in a fulfilling marriage with my awesome husband, he in what seemed like a happy relationship with his girlfriend. I didn’t want to date him, I just wanted to hang out again. But for two people in our situation, is pursuing an independent friendship even allowed?
I’ve always thought of myself as someone who seeks out male and female friends equally, but now that I’m a married mother in my 40s it seems this is no longer the case. In the last decade I’ve befriended hetero and queer women, gay men and non-binary folks. But with a few caveats, I haven’t developed new friendships with straight guys. Had I unconsciously accepted the old adage from “When Harry Met Sally” that men and women can’t be friends because “the sex part always gets in the way”?
After my encounter with the fellow religious cult documentary fan, I began to wonder how I got here and if I was the only married woman who felt this way. Was this evidence of my age, or an instinct that spanned generations? Surely our understanding of relationships has evolved since Meg Ryan faked an orgasm in Katz’s Deli.
After talking with friends and strangers, therapists and a few professors, I’ve found that the answers to my questions vary wildly, depending on who you ask. And also: there is far more at play within platonic relationships than I’d ever thought.
“It’s different for everyone,” said Gaea Woods, a marriage and family therapist who practices in Los Feliz. “It’s up to you to decide based on the relationship if it’s appropriate or not.”
Despite the impact that social connection has on our well-being, research on adult friendships is scant, and even harder to come by when considering friendships between men and women.
“We focused so long on romantic relationships to the exclusion of other relationships that we simply don’t have basic data,” said Jaimie Krems, a social psychologist at UCLA and director of the university’s new Center for Friendship Research.
The few studies that do exist tend to look at male and female friends in their late teens and early 20s when researchers say opposite sex friendships are more common. But in my quest for answers, I did manage to find a study from 2012 published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationship that included a survey of older adults in their 30s and 40s who were asked to list the benefits and challenges of having a friend of the opposite sex.
Overall, people in the study reported more pros than cons. They valued the conversation, emotional support, advice and especially the insights into how members of another gender think, but they also acknowledged significant challenges. Chief among them were navigating the jealousy of a romantic partner and the possibility that the friendship could lead to romantic feelings.
I know from my own life experience that these hurdles can be overcome. I’ve had several platonic male friendships over the years and they’ve never veered into dicey territory. My husband is also remarkably OK with these relationships and has female friends of his own. (Though, speaking with friends and acquaintances, I know this isn’t true for everyone). Even so, my current straight male pals are either friends from my youth or people I’ve met through work. Forging new platonic relationships with straight men outside of these categories feels more fraught.
When I told Krems about my discomfort, she suggested it may be because I’m uncertain about how my overtures of friendship will be received by straight men who I’ve just met. It’s less complicated with old friends, she explained, because those friendships are clearly defined as platonic.
“That relationship has a script already,” she said. “You know what it is and you aren’t negotiating what it could be.”
The same is often true for work friends.
“You have this very tight, well worn schema that we are adult colleagues who are going out to talk,” she said.
But with a new friend of a different sex, the parameters of the relationship have not yet been established. If I suggest going out for a drink, a guy who doesn’t know much about me yet might assume my intentions are romantic. Or even worse, his wife or girlfriend might.
“You don’t know what the great benefits are going to be of the friendship — maybe you guys have chemistry and can be best friends, but immediately the road blocks are apparent,” Krems said.
When I held an informal poll of women in my community, some said they have deliberately eliminated friendships with straight men from their lives.
Anja Ahkile, a doula and mother of three young girls who lives in Beverlywood said most of her romantic relationships started as friendships — including her relationship with her husband. (They were in the friend zone for a year before they got together.) Because of that she’s developed strict boundaries around her interactions with men. When she and her husband go out with another hetero couple she’ll shake the male partner’s hand rather than offering a hug, and she’s always careful to greet the woman first. She’s also told her husband she’s not comfortable with him developing close friendships with women.
“I could be friends with someone of the opposite sex, but what happens when me and my husband are in a rough patch and there’s this other dude who is easy going and we have a bond?” she said. “There is too much potential and fertile soil for the lines to get blurred.”
Akhile says she loves her husband, but she also acknowledges that there are other men in the world who she could have fun with. Falling for one of them is a risk she doesn’t want to take.
“I don’t want to ruin my marriage, especially when overall I’m happy in my marriage,” she said.
Like Akhile, I’m in a fulfilling marriage and certainly don’t want to risk messing it up. But is total abstinence from male friendship really necessary? The friendship researchers I spoke to say they don’t yet have enough data to draw conclusions.
“We know that most friendships across cultures and across eras have really been within sex, making mixed sex friendships a little less normative,” Krems said.
There is also some evidence that opposite sex relationships become more challenging as we age. April Bleske-Rechek, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and lead author of the 2012 study that looked at the pros and cons of opposite sex friendships said there is a difference between the dynamics of having a friend of another sex in early adulthood, when we are more likely to be seeking a romantic partner, and later in life when we are more likely to be in partnerships we don’t want to jeopardize.
“As people get older they are more likely to settle down with somebody and more likely to have kids, so the nature of their friendships changes,” Bleske-Rechek said. “Women in particular tend to make mom friends, and it’s just safer to go out with other couples.”
But then there’s Kendra Schussel, an environmental consultant in Burbank, and one of the few women I talked to who had developed an independent friendship with a straight married guy while in her 40s.
They started chatting while picking their kids up from an after school theater program and hit it off. The kids liked each other and the guy wasn’t working at the time, so he was able to do all the extra-curricular activities that his partner couldn’t. Over time they discovered that they both liked raunchy fart jokes and whiskey. Soon they were texting regularly. When Schussel started dating again after her divorce she talked to him about the men she was going out with. Eventually, Schussel became good friends with his wife, too.
“She never indicated to me directly or indirectly that it was a problem for her and she’s a therapist so I think she would have said something,” Schussel said. “I realize this is wildly unusual and I’m so grateful for this friendship.”
Schussel is proof that hetero opposite sex relationships are possible, but she has boundaries too. She’s touchy-feely with her female friends — linking arms, sitting close — but she doesn’t do that with her married male friends. She’s also promised herself that if she thinks she might want more from a friendship with a married man she has to end it.
“I trust myself,” she said. “I would never want to be the person who broke up a marriage or got in the way of someone else’s relationship.”
As for me, I’ve decided that while I really liked my dinner companion from the other night, I’m not going to pursue an independent friendship with him. Like Schussel, I’m confident I can keep the friendship platonic, but I don’t want to make him feel awkward by asking for his number, and I certainly don’t want to make his girlfriend suspicious that I have ulterior motives, especially when I liked her so much too.
Maybe if he and I had met in college or at a work event we would be great friends. But for now, I’ll just enjoy seeing him — and his girlfriend — together at my local social club.
She likes religious documentaries too.
Britney Spears
Open to Treatment Plan After DUI Arrest, Source Says
Published
Britney Spears‘ team is hoping the judge mandates treatment for the pop star over jail time following her Wednesday DUI arrest … and Britney isn’t fighting them on that, TMZ has learned.
Sources familiar with the situation tell TMZ … Britney is willing to comply with a treatment and support plan.
We’re told her team is in the early stages of developing a plan and they’re exploring multiple options, including mental health services, detox, and dual-diagnosis programs.
It’s unclear whether she would do inpatient or outpatient treatment, and it’s also unclear whether she would enter treatment before her May 4 court date.
Broadcastify.com
We broke the story … Britney was pulled over by California Highway Patrol officers around 9:30 PM Wednesday in Westlake Village, CA, not far from her home. She was later taken to a hospital — not for any injuries, because we’re told she didn’t sustain any — but to draw her blood to determine her blood alcohol content.
According to CHP, she was arrested for “driving under the influence of a combination of drugs and alcohol.”
Sources familiar with the investigation told us an unknown substance was found in Britney’s car, which was sent to be tested.
Britney’s manager, Cade Hudson, previously told TMZ … “This was an unfortunate and inexcusable incident. Britney will take the right steps, comply with the law, and we hope this marks the start of long-overdue change in her life. She needs help and support during this difficult time. Her boys will be spending time with her, and her loved ones are putting a plan in place to set her up for success and well-being.”
Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers Smoke and Stack in Sinners.
Warner Bros. Pictures
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Warner Bros. Pictures
Ryan Coogler’s supernatural horror stars Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers who open a 1930s juke joint in Mississippi. Opening night does not go as planned when vampires appear outside. “In a straightforward metaphor for all the ways Black culture has been co-opted by whiteness, the raucous pleasures and sonic beauty of the juke joint attract the interest of a trio of demons … they wish to literally leech off of the talents and energy of Black folks,” writes critic Aisha Harris. The film made history with a record 16 Academy Award nominations.
We asked our NPR audience: What movie would you recommend to someone who loved Sinners? Here’s what you told us:
Near Dark (1987)
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow; starring Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen
If you want another cool vampire movie with Western kind of vibes, check out Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark — super underseen and kind of hard to find, but really gritty and sexy and another very different take on what you might think is a genre that had been wrung dry. – Maggie Grossman, Chicago, Ill.
30 Days of Night (2007)
Directed by David Slade; starring Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston
It follows a group of people in a small Alaskan town as they struggle to survive an invasion of vampires who have taken advantage of the month-long absence of the sun. Both this and Sinners revolve around a vampire takeover and the people’s fight to outlast the “night.” – Nathan Strzelewicz, DeWitt, Mich.
The Wailing (2016)
Directed by Na Hong-jin; starring Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Chun Woo-hee, Jun Kunimura
In this South Korean supernatural horror film, a mysterious illness causes people in a quiet rural village to become violent and murderous. A local police officer investigates while trying to save his daughter, who begins showing the same disturbing symptoms. The film blends folk horror, religion, and psychological dread, exploring themes of faith, evil, and moral weakness. Like Sinners, it centers on a supernatural force corrupting a close-knit community, builds slow-burning tension, and examines spiritual conflict and human frailty. – Amy Merke, Bronx, N.Y.
Fréwaka (2024)
Directed by Aislinn Clarke; starring Bríd Ní Neachtain, Clare Monnelly, Aleksandra Bystrzhitskaya
In this Irish folk horror film, a home care worker, Shoo, is assigned to stay with an elderly woman who’s convinced she’s under siege by malevolent fairies. Like Sinners, Fréwaka blends folk traditions and social commentary with horror. The social failures Shoo copes with (untreated mental health issues, religious abuse) are just as frightening as the supernatural forces. – Kerrin Smith, Baltimore, Md.
And a bonus pick from our critic:
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
Directed by George C. Wolfe; starring Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Glynn Turman
This is an adaptation of August Wilson’s play about a legendary blues singer (Viola Davis) muscling through a recording session with white producers who want to control her music. Chadwick Boseman’s blistering in his final role. – Bob Mondello, NPR movie critic
Carly Rubin and Ivy Buck contributed to this project. It was edited by Clare Lombardo.
The tiny town of West Goshen, Calif., was exactly the kind of place that community solar was designed for.
Near Visalia, most of its 500 residents live in mobile homes, where companies won’t install rooftop panels without a solid foundation. And until recently, they used propane for heating and cooking, with price fluctuations in the winter posing hardships for low-income families.
Community solar, in which residents get a discount on their bills for subscribing as a group to small solar arrays nearby, was designed to help low-income residents, apartment dwellers, renters and others who can’t put panels on their own roofs.
Over the last 11 years, New York, Maine, Minnesota, Massachusetts and other states have built thriving community solar programs. But California has built, at most, only 34 projects since 2015, and experts say that’s a generous accounting.
“We’ve had community solar for a dozen years, and it simply has not produced anything of scale and anything of note,” said Derek Chernow, director of Californians for Local, Affordable Solar and Storage, a developer trade group that’s pushing to get a more robust program off the ground. “Projects don’t pencil out.”
The West Goshen residents were among the lucky few, becoming part of a community solar project in 2024.
“It has kind of allowed us to kind of breathe a little bit,” said resident and community organizer Melinda Metheney. Her bill has dropped by about $300 in the summer months, thanks to the 20% community solar discount, stacked with other low-income discounts and clean energy incentives, she said.
West Goshen’s panels sit about 10 miles out of town, in a field surrounded by farms. Energy and climate experts agree California must add much more clean energy to its grid, some 6 gigawatts by 2032, the California Public Utilities Commission said in a new plan last week.
Assemblymember Christopher M. Ward (D-San Diego), who in 2022 authored a bill to create a more effective community solar program, said the state needs to double its annual solar installation rate to reach that goal and is not on track to do that using only large utility-scale solar farms and individual rooftop arrays.
“We need mid-scale community solar,” he said.
Energy and climate experts agree California must add much more clean energy to its grid, some 6 gigawatts by 2032, the California Public Utilities Commission said in a new plan last week. Above, solar panels at Extra Space Storage in Pico Rivera.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
He and a coalition of environmental groups, solar developers and the Utility Reform Network, a ratepayer advocacy group, worked to put his 2022 law into effect. They coalesced around requiring utilities to pay community solar developers and customers for the electricity they feed to the grid using the same formula they use for people who install rooftop solar.
But in May 2024, the California Public Utilities Commission decided to go with a late-in-the-game proposal backed by the state’s investor-owned utilities to pay community solar at a lower rate.
The agency, along with its public advocate’s office, argued that crediting solar developers at the higher rate would raise bills for customers who don’t have solar, who would still have to shoulder the cost of grid maintenance. It’s similar to the argument they’ve made to cut incentives for rooftop solar.
The new program relied on federal money, including the Biden administration’s Solar for All, to sweeten the deal for developers. But the utilities commission spent very little of the $250 million available under that grant before the Trump administration tried to claw it back last summer, and now it is held up in litigation.
At a legislative oversight hearing last week, Kerry Fleisher, the commission’s director of distributed energy resources, blamed the loss for the new program’s failure to launch.
“There’s been a tremendous amount of uncertainty in terms of the Solar for All funding that was intended to supplement this program,” Fleisher said. “That’s part of the reason why this has taken longer than normal.” She said the commission still plans to release a program in the next several months.
Ward, the San Diego lawmaker who wrote the community solar bill, called the program “fatally flawed” in an interview.
He’s now considering a bill to bring the community solar program more in line with what he initially envisioned — higher incentives, requirements for battery storage, and compliance with state law that mandates new houses be built with solar.
A study last year funded by a solar trade group found that could save California’s electric system $6.5 billion over 20 years. But Ward’s effort to revive his program last year failed to pass the Assembly appropriations committee.
“All the other states in our country that have adopted similar community solar program models, they are working,” said Ward, adding that 22 states have programs comparable to the one solar advocates want in California. “The writing on the wall suggests that, exactly as we feared years ago, this was not the way to go.”
California Public Utilities Commission spokesperson Terrie Prosper called California “a leader in cost-effective, least-cost solar deployment overall compared to any other state,” in an emailed statement.
Under the commission’s definition, the state has brought on 34 projects, representing 235 megawatts of community solar. But studies from groups such as the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Wood Mackenzie use different definitions for community solar, and they show California far behind at least 10 other states.
Meanwhile, advocates and developers involved in successful community solar projects in California say they were difficult to get off the ground.
Homes in the Avocado Heights area of Los Angeles County are part of a community solar project.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
One that came online in May in the unincorporated communities of Bassett and Avocado Heights in the San Gabriel Valley provides solar electricity to about 400 low-income residents. They get 20% discounts on their electric bills for subscribing to panels installed on two Extra Space Storage building rooftops in Pico Rivera.
Organizers said it took nearly five years to find the right location and comply with utility requirements. They also got a grant in addition to funding provided by the state utilities commission’s solar program.
It “would not have happened if it hadn’t been for the grant,” said Genaro Bugarin, a director at the Energy Coalition nonprofit that proposed and coordinated the project.
Brandon Smithwood, vice president of policy at Dimension Energy, the developer for the project in West Goshen, said he still hopes to see a community solar program in California that compensates projects for the way they help out the grid.
“We’ve seen it can work, and we know what we have won’t work,” Smithwood said at the hearing.
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