Why Josh Can't Be Left Alone

First, two quick anecdotes. I was on the phone last night with a girl (not one that I'm dating. The other kind.) for awhile. We were talking. It happened to be that we were talking about whether it is appropriate for a guy and a girl to "be friends." (The conversation wasn't because of our relationship, but another one that this girl has.) Next, I went out before the phone call with two other girls. One was visiting from out of town (Gasp- from Southern Jersey), and it was an opportunity to get together with somebody I hadn't seen in awhile.

While I won't say that such relationships are necessarily good, I don't think they are by definition bad. Certainly, somebody who wants to be angelic in their religious ideals will avoid them. And that same somebody would probably spend their lifetime learning Torah. But Kollel isn't for all of us. And that doesn't mean there isn't a level that we can all strive to achieve. We just struggle on a different plane.

Friendships between the opposite sex are normal. They do pose a certain threat for spiritual accomplishment. But knowing the risk, I think an individual can carve for themselves a safe relationship. It is forbidden to have a physical relationship or have hirhurim (sexual thoughts) about girls. Good. I won't take a girl to a dark movie theater. But why not for ice cream? We can sit and talk. In public view. It may be a surprise, but you can learn a lot from people with a different point of view. I think I may be on to something, but opposite sexes seem to think differently. Why should I avoid somebody (let alone the rude/antisocial implications of ignoring 50% of the people in the world) if they could make me a better person?

I don't want to get into questions of Platonic Relationships, and other Rabbi Orlofsky trademarks. That is a whole topic unto itself. My opinion is you have to know yourself, and make your own precautions. Nobody else's "rules" will always work for you. That being said, the common difficulty in a genuine co-ed friendship, after you honestly have dealt with the Yetzer Hora issue (I don't want to come across as saying sex isn't on people's minds. I just feel that sometimes you can get past your hormones.) is dealing with the nosy public issue. This is the pesky topic known as the "reputation."

I don't want to go into all of the permutations of that ("Oy, this family will never get a Shidduch again...for generations!"), but the bottom line is that sometimes even after somebody realizes that a certain action is perfectly acceptable in a Jewish lifestyle, they feel restricted from actually carrying it out because of the public perception. But caving into GroupThink is actually more dangerous than being a freethinker. In many ways, the cutting edge logic that most of the Gedolei Torah (Leaders of Torah) have can be stomped out by public protest too. I'm not saying that all our personal decisions are as well thought out and Halachicly sound as theirs, but certainly if somebody truly believes that what they are doing is right, they shouldn't be intimidated from doing it by others who either have chosen not to think outside the box, or who personally have different Nisyonos and have assumed certain stringencies that are relevant to their situation.

If we don't let people develop healthy relationships in public, who knows what they will become in private.