Column

The problem lies with the French language; it manages to make everything sound sexy. For instance “voulez-vous du beurre” just sounds more intimate than the banal “do you want some butter?” And “ménage a trois” manages to hide all the mess, awkwardness, inter-politics and jealous heartbreak in its sophisticated turn of phrase. Especially the new kinds of threesomes which aren’t only about love, but the collision course of love and friendship.

What’s the big deal you might ask? Movies have solved this problem years ago. Take a boy and a girl, make them the best of friends, throw in a couple of songs, then add a romantic angle to either or both their lives, make them realise that’s its each other they have been loving since time began and voila! the happy ending has arrived. Jaane tu ya jaane na, pyaar mein sab kuch hota hai as they say!

If only real life were that simple. More often than not deep man-woman friendships are the best kind of relationships where each gets the solid unisex support and understanding of a friend coupled with the natural attention, opinions and insights of the opposite sex. It also means having someone to go the movies with, someone to pick you up from the airport, and someone who is a phone call away to go and have midnight dessert with!

And then suddenly when one of them acquires a mate, the idyllic status quo comes under threat. Time for each other is no longer endless, every secret has a plus one bearer, outings become awkward 3-way affairs with each subconsciously trying to establish their domain of familiarity v/s intimacy and before you know it, the snappy two-wheeled Vespa has transformed into the slow, annoying 3-wheeled autorickshaw.

Why does this happen? Like the movies, are all opposite sex friends secretly in love with each other? Possibly not. Sure, one of them at one point might have entertained the thought of a full-blown relationship or had a crush on the other but usually that fleeting moment has long passed and often one of the friends might not even be single. But having a new entrant in the circle of intimacy upsets the apple cart, especially when one ceases to be the most important person of the opposite sex in the other person’s life. It’s best defined by the International Property Rights terminology called ‘holdback’. I don’t need a particular kind of rights on a product but I don’t want anyone else to have it either since I think it's going to conflict with the rights I do have. How does one say ‘dog in the manger’ in French?

Also the unspoken truth is that opposite sex friends fulfil the proxy role of a partner without any of the ensuing encumbrances of couple-hood a.k.a sex which always manages to throw a monkey wrench in the way of love and relationships anyway. If a woman has a man she can talk to, who understands and admires her...and notices her new haircut and summer sandals, then what more does she want? Sex can even be outsourced! Ditto for a man. If he’s found a listener who he can hang with, go to social occasions with and stuff his face in front of without doing the candlelight n’ roses n’ flirty banter routine then he’s come to heaven.

In the midst of all this, what about the newly-acquired mate? Well usually they’re decisively labelled pretty early on. He’s a bore/she’s a bitch, he’s anal/she’s possessive and the relationship is doomed from the start.Sometimes this is even true but irrespective of that, this person more often than not doesn’t understand or accept an über-intimate member of the opposite sex in their partner’s lives and lays down the cards pretty straight. And after that there are only two roads to take. Either the friendship nosedives into a hesitant, self-conscious monthly event or the other friend acquires a mate as well so that threat bets are off and the centre of emotional gravity has been restored.

It’s all the fault of the French really. Their words for ‘friend’ and ‘lover are too deceptively similar. But the distance between ami and amor is sometimes the hardest to bridge.
deblina@dnaindia.net