Platonic friendships as they are known today are those which exist between two people in which the sexual element plays no part, particularly in those cases where it would be assumed that it would.

So technically, two heterosexual females (or males) who love one another but do not engage in any sexual acts are friends, Platonically speaking.

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We are always deeply moved by displays of this love, as in the case of any war movie ever made—dude goes into the line of fire to save his buddy’s ass which, incidentally, has been shot off by a round from an M-16 or something.

And some have taken to creating humorous ways of explaining how women are capable of this kind of love, but men aren’t, and so forth.

The debates start raging over the very possibility of amor platonicus, however, as soon as we move into the realm of two heterosexual individuals of opposite gender.

“Can a guy and a girl really ever just be friends” ranks right up there with “Is it okay for two guys to share the same bar of soap” and other such mysteries of the æons!

The answer, I think, is obviously affirmative; but not without caveats and complications, and it will take a bit of explanation.

I hold that the soul, at its core, is not intrinsically “male” or “female”: that artifact of Aristotelian philosophy was what allowed him to say that women were inferior to men, what allowed men to say that women were ignorant and shouldn’t be allowed to vote (or what have you), and what still, even today, makes women scared of fields like science and mathematics.

If this were the case (male and female souls being extant), that would mean we could infer things about the value of mens’ versus womens’ souls.

This is absolutely not, however, to say that there are no differences between men and women, or in the way that we interact, or in the different capabilities of each gender.

Obviously, for romantic love or any kind of generative eros to be possible, there must be crucial differences that penetrate to the soul.

But it goes back to the difference between the ways in which we approach one another through the two kinds of love, eros and philia: one approaches from the outside, the body, through that part of the soul that owns the gender roles and embodiment as one is, and finally, if ever, to the core of that person as they are; the other strings a bridge between cores, from person to person, black, white, man, woman, boy, girl, Japanese, Indian, Zambian, or Canadian. It respects individuals as they are, with all their differences but not focusing on them, like cells in a human body.

We are given bodies and a sense of gender to perpetuate the theatron, to play out the beautiful drama of Christ and his bride, and of the state of all creation in our lives; we are all “feminine” in relation to God, being the bride of Christ collectively, so there is certainly a large part that gender must play in our lives and interactions with others, and framing it this way is in no way diminishing the importance and joy of erotic and/or sexual love.

In that sense, we are all like actors on the stage of this world; where Paul talks about the apostles being “made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men” in 1 Corinthians 4:9, I say it applies to us all.

While we are on stage, we are dressed in fruity frills to play a role, whether we know it or not. But when we finally finish our part of the play, our final act, we go backstage, and remove the face-paint, the clothing, the shoes, and what-have-you: and we’re all dressed alike, we’re all just people.

All Christians will someday be backstage together, behind the scenes sipping heavenly joe together, if you like: having exited the stage of this world, we will be backstage, in heaven, in the greater part.

To approach someone on a level of pure friendship is to approach someone as though already backstage—it is to give them their due as a human being, an individual created in the image of God.

People today have become so oversexed, and have forgotten that it is possible and even desirable to be “just friends,” to such an extent that we equate love and sex, and we forget that the greater part is underneath the makeup and costumes.

Some people, I expect, will get to heaven like some stunned accidental Saducee, for whom finally the Scripture Jesus spoke will finally make sense: “In the resurrection men will neither marry nor be given in marriage, for they will be like the angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:23-30).

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The value of friendship in our presence society is based on what we want from the other person not what we can offer the other person. I'm usually careful not to just throw the word 'friend' around with just anybody.
I want friends who we can grow together, ones that can trust me in almost every situation, who we can be honest with each other and still feel safe. I'm not just interested in the aṣọ ẹbí and party hard kind alone

For me, no such thing as platonic relationship, except the girl or the boy is fugly. You can have a fine and sexy somebody and still lie to yourself that you are just friends. Feeling must come and one day ducking.