“We’re just friends.”

How many times have you heard these three words from the mouth of someone you know or even yourself?

The debate about whether or not guys and girls are really able to be just friends is a growing and complicated topic with a lot of grey area. How much truth actually stands behind that little statement when it comes from two people who swear there isn’t any romance involved in the friendship but their friends think otherwise?

Platonic is defined as a relationship free of physical desire. In this day and age, it seems to be a word that can rarely be used truthfully.

I’ve heard and read about this topic time and time again. Online blogs share their opinions and map it back to our genetic makeups that apparently make it near impossible for a close platonic friendship between two people to really be platonic.

My opinion on the matter changes all the time, especially now that I live with four other men who I do consider to be just friends.

There seems to always be some level of attraction present even if it’s one sided. Bringing these four new males into my life this semester has proven to rattle my brain on the matter because of the friendships I have formed with them.

But my new situation seems to be a little biased because of the preconceived notions set before moving in. Living with people is hard enough because you have to see them every day and deal with all of their crap whether you want to or not. Adding a relationship to the mix changes the whole environment and I can only imagine adds that much more of a challenge.

I mean, look at how weird and annoyed Schmidt got when Jessica Day and Nick Miller started dating on New Girl. Therefore, starting a relationship with any of these boys (given there is attraction and interest) is out of the picture for me.

But that doesn’t mean they are off limits to the girl friends that I bring around the house. Since moving in, my roommates’ friend group and my own have started to merge. The girls spend time at my house and therefore have gotten to know my roommates on a more personal level like I have.

At first I looked at the situation as a completely platonic hangout because that was my mindset. I later remembered that didn’t have to be the case for anyone else because there were no roommate “barriers” to hold back attraction like there are for me personally.

After being the middleman in a spark of interest that occurred between one of my new male roommates and one of my old female roommates, I decided that platonic friendships are real but very rare.

I believe, though, that I have true platonic friendships with my roommates. The fact that the one came (and still continues to come)to me for advice solidifies that relationship for me. It’s just when there aren’t those barriers holding either party back, it’s almost near impossible for a relationship that’s 100 percent platonic to occur.

Not to say that if you have a close friend of the opposite sex that either one or the other is attracted to the former, I’m  just saying there is a chance maybe your friend is hiding something, or maybe even deep down, you are.