Christian culture can sometimes make close friendships between men and women feel complicated – but do they have to be? In her latest The Lens column, Lizzie Hutchison reflects on the male friendship grown over years, faith, laughter and an annual trip to a vineyard, and why she believes platonic friendships are worth intentionally protecting.
Lizzie and her bestie at a vineyard
Once upon a time, a boy met a girl at church. The girl was wearing a gold puffa jacket. And the boy thought, wow, she must be pretty cool. (He also thought the puffa jacket was pink, but as it turns out later, is colourblind.) Anyway, many dinner parties, weekends away and group holidays later, they became… friends. Some love stories are entirely platonic, but it doesn’t make them any less special. Or rare.
Friendship doesn’t hit the headlines in the same way that, I dunno, a chunky-one-carat-on-platinum does. But I think it’s worth prioritising, even if you’re the opposite sex. Now, few Ts&Cs here – I’ve had lots of close male friends get married, and the tactful thing is often to row back a bit, grieve the change, and try and befriend the wife as much as you possibly can. If she’s a good egg, then you’ve hit the jackpot and gained another pal. If she isn’t then… I can’t help you. Scream into a pillow.
But when you’re both dating / single / in a relationship, I see no reason why we shouldn’t keep investing in a healthy friendship
But when you’re both dating / single / in a relationship, I see no reason why we shouldn’t keep investing in a healthy friendship. Having a close male friend is incredibly helpful. I love seeing him treat women he’s dating incredibly well, and feeling encouraged that there are good Christian guys out there. Hearing things from his perspective is invaluable. Everything from faith updates to career advice to outfits that land with the opposite sex. Learning that internal processors might need a sec to react to the traumatic piece of information you’ve just unloaded. Understanding that sometimes not everything needs to be unpacked and evaluated and felt.
So a few years ago, my pal had been gifted a trip to a vineyard in Kent, including a lunch and tasting. Sadly, his girlfriend at the time had just shimmied off, so I got the call up to be the replacement wine quaffer.
To say we had fun was an understatement. All the actual couples on the tour wanted to befriend us. Except the vegans – but look, that’s on them. We tucked into the tasting menu. We ran off round the vines. We got the giggles during the serious talks. We tried to buy a bottle. We saw the price and pretended we didn’t need it. We got home after a delightful sunny day, and vowed to make it an annual trip.
No matter who we’re dating, we’ve always kept this one day just for us. It’s our friendship day.
And we have. No matter who we’re dating, we’ve always kept this one day just for us. It’s our friendship day. And look, of course we’ll FaceTime our other halves after a few glasses of sparkling, telling them everything we’ve learnt (this tastes gooooood), but for this one day a year, they don’t need to be there. I honestly think more people should do this. I can’t recommend it enough. You get the real conversations, the life update stuff. And you get a day off work in a sunny field outside London. Of course, it doesn’t have to be a vineyard, it could be a spa. A mini golf championship. A movie marathon. But take the day off. Make it count. Maintain the friendship. After all, marriages don’t count in heaven, so you might as well invest in someone you can at least riff with for eternity. Cheers to that.
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