Two thoughts I wanted to add to the boy-girl discussion from 2 weeks ago:
a) The questioners wrote that one of the benefits of guy friends is that they add less drama. Maybe your experience is different than mine, but I know that when I was around your age, boys were the CAUSE of all the drama. Without boys around, there wouldn’t have been much drama between the girls.
Which is why I would say that having nothing to do with Judaism or halacha, it’s important to be honest about the fact that there are emotional pitfalls to friendships with guys in high school. No matter how much one thinks that a certain friendship is purely platonic, it happens extremely often that either the girl or the guy end up developing feelings for the other that are not always reciprocated, and this usually leads to much emotional pain, confusion, and heartache. Or two girls who have been best friends since birth develop a crush on the same guy friend, and then what happens to the girls’ friendship? I just think it’s important to think about whether the upsides of the guys being part of your life exceed the downsides from a purely emotional point of view, before even getting into any potential halachic issues.
b) On a different note, I thought you might be interested to realize that the issue of the appropriateness of male-female friendships is something that is not just a high-school issue; it is a question that we, your teachers, grapple with in our own lives as well. In fact, just a few days before the question was posted on the blog, I was at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner together with some extended family and close friends, and a heated debate enlivened the meal about exactly this topic, just of course related to a life stage a few (or many) years ahead of where you are now. The specific question we were all debating was the appropriateness of married couples (even with their kids) going on vacation together since the families will then obviously be spending a lot of time together and it can potentially create a certain level of closeness between the various husbands and wives. My point is this: Friendships between members of the opposite sex, even married members of the opposite sex, are never 100% platonic. God created us in such a way that we are always aware of the other person being the opposite gender, with whatever that entails. That is just the given reality. The question is how we are supposed to navigate this reality. Does it mean that one should never interact at all with members of the opposite gender? Much of the charedi world advocates exactly this type of complete separation of the genders, and I completely understand where this approach is coming from; our Orthodox community is unfortunately not immune to extra-marital affairs or teenagers engaging in pre-marital sex or (less egregious but way more common and still assur) not observing the laws of shomer negiah. However, I personally do not live my life by the complete separation approach (at least I don’t now, though I pretty much did in high school due to how much I disliked all the drama the boys caused at the end of elementary school, as I mentioned above), and that’s generally not the approach of modern Orthodoxy. But what then is the approach? Obviously, it is an absolute given that all of the halachot set up to prevent problematic relationships must be adhered to, such as negiah, yichud, etc. If not, then by definition, the relationship is a halachically problematic one. But once all of the halachot are being kept, then what? Honestly, it’s not entirely clear. I think it’s important to keep in mind the two opposing sides: on the one hand, the value inherent in the other 50% of the human population from whom we can hopefully learn and enrich our lives (and them from us), but on the other hand, the serious danger, both emotional and halachic, inherent in such friendships. Thus, my ultimate advice, both to myself and to others, is to proceed with caution; know yourself and what boundaries you need to make sure that you are living a halachic, Torah-true, emotionally healthy life.
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