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Love you, L!

For Edith and Julian

Happy Valentine's day, dear friends! I love you!

(Image)

The Set-Up

Help!

I have never really ventured into the world of setting up friends who I think might make a compatible couple, but I was recently struck with the idea of introducing two wonderful persons to each other (in prayer!). Has anyone successfully done this? I've been on the other end of this process, and have experienced it a few different ways: being the only one who knew it was a "set up," being totally off-guard, and having the man also know this was a "set-up." For those matchmakers out there, what do you think is the best way to go? The opportunity for the two of them to meet is about a week away, in a relaxed atmosphere (a party), but I'm wondering if either of them (or both) should be clued into my thinking.

Deal or No (Big) Deal

Agatha and I had a conversation the other night over dinner about what to do when single friends freely talk about their sex lives. Essentially, if you're friends with either of us, and you're confiding in us about intimacy, chances are you know what we think about the body, sex, love, marriage, God, well-being, et. al. While Agatha's friend was recounting her recent sexual escapades with men after recently getting out of a long-term relationship, my friend was seeking advice about whether or not to have sex with her new boyfriend after 25 years of virginity. Her rationale was that she had never really made up her mind about when she wanted to save sex for, and that now at the age of 25, she had found someone she was reasonably attracted to, was reasonably attracted to her, and someone whom she got along with in a decent way. Tonight she confessed that the "deed was done," last night and that it "was no big deal." However, as she continued to talk, she started to back track in her confidence saying, "I mean I'm still processing it all. I mean, I have to think about what I think about it."

I didn't really know what to say. I could see her trying to convince herself (and me), that it really was no big deal. But shouldn't one want it to be a big deal? What ever happened to the emotional gravity wrapped up in being with someone? Don't we distinguish between making love and having sex? I mean, anyone can have sex, but don't you want to be in love (and I mean the forever-kind of love) with a man when it happens? Look, I know about temptation. I know about the crazy, mixed-up feelings. I've lived it. But at some point, one has to acknowledge that it's not just body parts, not just the next step, and that it is a heck of a huge deal to allow someone to be with you in that way.

What is a friend to say?

What a Ride

Thanks for your prayers, sisters and readers, as I drove across the country from Washington, D.C. to Denver, Colorado, and for my safe flight home. I am back at my desk safe and sound and invigorated by my cross-country adventure.

My friend, who I was helping to move to Denver, is one of the holiest, most beautiful women that I know. We talked for 12 hours straight on the first leg of the drive, and only put on music (which we naturally discussed, too!) to keep us awake before our one and only overnight (I know, I know...we drove 31 hours in two days). It is such a blessing to be able to share that much conversation -- ranging from silliness to holiness -- with another person. It should be obvious to our readers that when the Magdalene Sisters are all at the same table, this same thing transpires.

What I learned on the drive is that Iowa is deceptively long and Nebraska is incredibly flat. In all seriousness, seeing the expanses of God's creation and the varied landscapes and people made me appreciate His handiwork so much. I can't believe how many things glorify Him in their diversity and richness. I had this feeling on Friday, too, when we hiked to the summit of a 12,000 ft. peak in the Rockies. As we ate lunch overlooking the enormous horizon, three of us ladies had an amazing conversation about atheism, specifically how sad it must be to look at the scene we saw and think that there was no meaning to it besides tectonic plates shifting around under the earth's surface. It was just so clear that we have a Creator, and what more, that He loves what He creates. I mean, just look at that cute little duck!

I just loved everything about Colorado: the weather, the landscape, the people, and the very active Catholic population. Also, it's the #1 gluten-free-friendly city in the nation...between these things and the sign above that I saw on a walk, I think it may be my next destination! All in God's time though, and only if He wills. What He wills right now is that I head back to the classroom tomorrow in preparation for the upcoming school year. Amen!

Male Friendship

Last weekend I had a fascinating discussion about male friendship, spurred by this article describing the modern misconception of the relationship between Cardinal Newman and his dear friend Fr. Ambrose St. John:

[Newman] was not afraid to be very close indeed to a few people. "The best preparation for loving the world at large, and loving it duly and wisely," he wrote in a letter, "is to cultivate an intimate friendship and affection for those who are immediately about." Hence his deep friendships with those "immediately about" him: John Bowden as a student, Richard Hurrell Froude and Frederic Rogers while a don at Oxford, and Ambrose St John as a Catholic priest.

St John had been in Oxford with Newman; they became Catholics together, and were ordained priests in Rome at the same time. When Newman founded the Oratory in 1848, St John was one of the first members. Being 15 years Newman's junior, when he died suddenly aged 60, Newman was devastated. "I have ever thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband's or a wife's," he wrote, "but I feel it difficult to believe that any can be greater, or any one's sorrow greater, than mine." Some 15 centuries earlier, St Augustine in his Confessions wrote in the same way about the death not of his mistress, but of his best friend. "My eyes sought him everywhere, but they did not see him; and I hated all places because he was not in them, because they could not say to me, 'Look, he is coming,' as they did when he was alive and absent."

The article concludes with a eye towards the failing of modern culture with regards to understanding male friendship:

Do we – can we – today applaud such friendship? Do we – can we – make room, now, for such "evidences of sweet brotherly love"? Men and women often have intense friendships with members of their own sex, friendships that have no sexual component; yet we are losing the vocabulary to speak about them, or we are embarrassed to do so.

(If you have a strong constitution, you need only look at the comments to discover the veracity of his complaint.)

A favorite professor, Anthony Esolen, has written extensively on this topic. His most developed expression is found in Touchstone Magazine, and is available to read online. Here's a snippet. Do read it all, and let us know your thoughts, friends!

Shakespeare, or his narrative persona, expressed in his sonnets a passionate love for an unnamed and not too loyal young man, so Shakespeare must have been homosexual—despite the absence of evidence, and despite his persona’s explicit statement in sonnet 20 that the young man’s sexual accoutrements are of no interest (or use) to him whatever.

The bachelor Abe Lincoln long shared a bed with his closest friend, Joshua Speed, and later wrote letters expressing, with what seems a touch of self-deprecating irony, his fear that he would be lonely once Speed had taken a wife. Lincoln therefore must be homosexual. No matter that men (and women too) commonly shared beds, and also commonly spoke of their friendship in strong, earthy language that now embarrasses. The poet Edmund Spenser, celebrator of his own wedding in one of the most brilliant poems in English, used to share a bed with his friend and fellow scholar at Cambridge, Gabriel Harvey. There you go.

“Your love to me was finer than the love of women,” laments David in a public song, when he learns of the death of his friend Jonathan. We know why. The godlike hero Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu walk hand in hand into the dark forest of Humbaba. No wonder then that at Enkidu’s death Gilgamesh will weep inconsolably, letting his hair grow long, flinging away his royal robes, and leaving the city to wander in the wilderness.

Happy Birthday Julian!

Jules! I've nothing to say but: HAPPY BIRTHDAY! and YOU ROCK! and I HOPE 26 IS AWESOME! and... WE LOVE YOU!

A Response to "Sorrow"

Edith, so many thoughts were buzzing around my head today after I read your post. Agatha and I would give anything to ease your pain and to lighten your burden. For what it's worth, here are my thoughts tonight:

Your Good Friday has already happened -- the unthinkable, the unimaginable, the incomprehensible. Remember what the last word means -- unable to comprehend, to wrap our minds totally around something.

You are in your Holy Saturday of this experience, and there is no telling when God's grace will finally help you to feel the peace of Easter. But stay in this Holy Saturday -- don't rush the healing, don't rush the time of uncertainty. Tend to your wounds like the women tended the body of Christ. That is your vocation right now -- to nurture yourself and to begin, little by little, to remember what it feels like to be whole. You can't relive whatever happened before Good Friday...you can only be where you are. And God's will for what happened and what is to come WILL be made known to you, as fully or in whatever time is perfect for you to know it. What we know that the women at the tomb did not, is that there IS reason to hope. That itself will make all of the difference in the world, especially on the gray days, the days in which the thought of leaving your bed seems impossible.

All of this being said, it is so understandable that seeing other married or engaged women would hurt you. That will eventually be manageable. What you can do, though, is put down those books, and escape into fiction, pop magazines with little substance, or into a list of the 100 greatest films. Eventually you will want to pick up your books for your dissertation and to get a new, and exciting game plan together. Journal, journal, journal. And as always, Agatha and I are here to help you get your bearings in the meantime.

Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. -- The Shawshank Redemption

Love Poems to God

Dear Edith --

I let the poet Rilke speak some words for me from The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God.

I love you,
Julian


She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
of her life, and weaves them gratefully
into a single cloth --
it's she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration

where the one guest is you.
In the softness of evening
it's you she receives.

You are the partner of her loneliness,
the unspeaking center of her monologues.
With each disclosure you encompass more
and she stretches beyond what limits her,
to hold you.

I, 17
_____________________________

Because once someone dared
to want you,
I know that we, too, may want you.

When gold is in the mountain
and we've ravaged the depths
till we've given up the digging,

it will be brought forth into day
by the river that mines
the silences of stone.

Even when we don't desire it,
God is ripening.

I, 16

Quote

Never think that geographical distance can ever separate souls whom God has united by the ties of His love. The children of the world are separated one from another because their hearts are in different places; but the children of God, having their hearts where their treasure is, and sharing only one treasure--which is the same God--are consequently always united and joined together.
--St. Francis de Sales

Friends and Lovers

This Christmas I got to meet the new significant others of four dear friends. I got to meet my best friend's boyfriend/almost fiance, my oldest (as in longest friendship, not age of friend) guy friend's new girlfriend, and another high school friend's boyfriend/almost fiance. Plus, I got to meet (at their wedding) a college friend's husband.

It was a strange experience, to say the least. Each encounter was so different, and I hardly knew what to expect. The groom, needless to say, was cheerful, happy to meet any friend of his wife's, and grateful for the small part I played in getting them together (really really small part). He was mostly just glowing in pride and joy at being married to the most graceful (in both senses of the word) woman he knows.

I got to spend the most time with the guy friend's girlfriend--a charming, lively woman who instantly fit in with our rather dynamic and outspoken crowd. In two meetings I can see already why he is crazy for her, and would be so glad to see their young relationship develop into a life-long one.

The other two meetings were odd. Circumstances prevented the opportunity to really get to know these two gentlemen who have one the hearts of dear friends. One was rather overwhelmed by the intensity of all of us and our families (we can be a...vibrant crowd when we haven't seen each other in a while). I felt like I hardly met him at all.

Meeting my best friend's boyfriend was perhaps the oddest encounter, since 4 hours spent with him and his family is not enough time to really get to know someone, especially someone who's future is responsible for the happiness of a loved one. While he was charming, interesting, obviously cared for her, he also shielded himself with his family, and was pretty reserved about personal things. I have no real complaints--I think he is very well suited to her, and I thoroughly enjoyed his company, and the company of his family--but I do wish I had the chance to see him more than once, and to really get to know him, and I assume he wishes the same about me.

All through these meetings, I realized again and again how providential God is. The wedding would not have taken place were it not for over 40 years of coincidences involving friends and family of the couple. Friends who had, for several years, struggled with their singleness, living with their families, trying to find a carrier and place in the world, now find new hope and joy in their ever deepening relationships, that will, with God's grace, lead them to the altar.

I have a feeling that 2010 will be a year for weddings...and I can't wait. But I do hope I get to spend more time with these guys before everything changes (for the better, of course!)

Resolutions

I've never been one for yearly resolutions. I tend to do my resolutions during lent and advent well. And I often give myself little projects and seem to rise to the challenge of completeing them. But I have never been able to sustain a new years resolution throughout an entire year. Rather, I try to find something concrete that I can and ought to do anyway, and make it part of my routine.

This year, I only have one: to write a letter once a week. I have 2 friends in a cloistered convent, another 2 in Europe, family and friends all over the US. And there are few things as cathartic as writing a letter, or as happy as getting one in the mail. Perhaps my own notes will inspire others to write to me (yay). Either way, I do love writing letters. So, check your mailbox!

Happy New Year, sisters!

The Feminine Countdown

I am a sucker for end-of-the-year countdowns. Seriously, give me any list of things in countdown from the previous year, and I'm content. A major guilty pleasure!

This year, many people are not only thinking back over the year but over the past decade. Can you believe the first ten years of the 2000's are behind us? I thought it might be fun to think back over these years and to think about how my experience of my own femininity has changed.

When the decade began, I was halfway through my high school years. Ah, those were interesting times. I was really driven and putting a whole lot of pressure on myself. Beauty consisted in watching everything I ate so that I was rail thin, and I would have given anything for my crushes to think of me as more than the nice girl or the smart girl. Miraculously, I emerged from those years as a poised 18-year-old, confident that the next four years of my life would be life-changing. And were they ever.

My college experience is something that I will be thanking the Lord for for years to come. It was there that I first treasured my filial relationship with God as my Father, where I encountered lifelong friends who were also aware of their faith journeys, where I met several men who formed my heart, where I studied the deep truths of history and of my faith, and where I was surrounded by nurturing professors and peers. I entered a teenager and emerged a young woman. Before I entered college, my mother told me that the years between 18-22 are extremely formative for a woman's heart. She was right. But while her college experience ended with a marriage to my father, my heart was to be formed in many more ways in the years that followed.

In the next four years to round out the decade, I have learned vital lessons and been formed as a single twentysomething out in the "real world." The first two years after college I spent in graduate school. These years I met some of my favorite friends, including Agatha, but they were actually very lonely years. I went from an environment where I was thriving socially to an environment in which I was studying nearly all of the time. My best friends lived far away, my mother couldn't really understand what it was like for a woman to leave college and to be single, and my dearest friends of this time were all married. I think I went on a total of 3 or 4 dates in 2 years. It was me and God, all of the time, and boy, did I wrestle with Him. Oh man, it was a tough, although certainly rewarding and formative time.

And now, I'm learning what it means to be feminine as a teacher and a "spiritual mother" to teenagers in an all-girls high school. I am learning through dating escapades what it means to be treated like a woman. I'm continually developing an interest in feminine fashion. I'm embracing providing for myself financially and having to take responsibility for my present and my future. It's a good time in my life, a difficult time. But I'm really, for the first time in the whole decade, embracing my own particular femininity. And for that, I'm grateful for all of the experiences that have led me here.

Here's to the next ten years, God willing. I can't wait!

The Truth (not Truthiness) Will Set You Free

I'll say it again: I love Stephen Colbert. One of the words that his television persona has coined is "truthiness," as in, "The truthiness will set you free." Although this idea's absurdity is only compounded by Colbert's delivery of the term, I've been thinking about how hard it is to speak the truth with charity.


This week I had to hand back papers to my students. It was their first go around writing a philosophical paper, and some of the girls just could not for the life of them construct a sentence, let alone present an analytical argument that involved thoughts, not feelings. I was honest with them about their strengths and weaknesses, but I would not compromise on their grades despite the waterworks that were turned on (more like the pipes that just burst!). Though the girls can re-write their papers with the help of my suggestions, this was the first time, or so it seemed, that many had experienced a teacher showing them that could not do something on the first try, and that they actually needed to work to learn something. It is hard to be up there with 18-year-old girls, who I usually have in the palm of my hand during my lectures, looking up at me with disbelief (and dislike!). I know in the long run that standing my ground is going to serve them better. It's hard to tell the truth when you know that you will not be met with appreciation (at least not immediately).


I've also had to be honest in the past year with a few friends which has put me in sticky situations: one friend knows the truth that she is called to though she is living a life adverse to it; another whose relationship is really very unhealthy; a third who speaks down to me and berates me when I try to help her. In each of these situations, though different, I try to act as a mirror for them when they ask me for advice or want me to comment on their lives; I try not to speak with judgment, nor to pass it, but rather to hold up a mirror for them to see themselves in. So far, that has been a difficult task, and for the most part, my telling of the truth has not been met with gratitude. In fact, I have lost two of these friendships in the process. It is hard for me to live out the Gospel imperative to speak the truth in charity. Today if one speaks this truth, even with love, he or she is considered judgmental. I wish, somehow, we could separate these two things, as they do not have to go together. I wish it weren't so hard to tell the truth. Perhaps my friends don't want to hear it, or maybe they have cut me out because they did hear it.


In any event, pray for me that I, too, know this Truth and am set free from my own need for approval. Pray that I can perfect pure love for others.

The Laws (well, bendable laws) of Attraction

Agatha, I like the "So what?" response to my "What if something develops?" post. It actually calmed me down a significant amount. There really can be no fear about something developing if we are loving as God asks us to love. Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). Perfect openness to the will of God leaves no room for anxiety. You're right -- my job as a single woman is to try as best as I can to love what God loves and wills for me according to His reason and providence, and that is it.

That being said, I do think that if a single woman and a single man are introduced or meet socially and there is some type of physical attraction present on either (or both) end(s), then the type of relationship which might ensue cannot properly be called a friendship. Even if I were to cast out all anxious hypotheticals in my own head, the fact is that the man is inevitably thinking or feeling either sexual attraction, indifference, or repulsion, and may not be "open to a friendship or open to seeing how things develop." I don't think there is a neutral space in the male-female relationship for friendship like there can be for a female-female relationship. Attraction, and the opportunity or possibility of acting on it, inevitably changes the game.

The "What If?" Factor

Continuing our discussion of friendship between men and women, I wanted to bring up something Julian discussed in her post: The "What If"? Factor. Julian said:

I won't go as far as Harry and say that sex is actually the thing that gets in the way of a friendship, but I do find myself always wondering, "What if?" What if something romantic were to bloom? Could something develop? This happens with men that I meet socially... In my experience, there is always a question of "What if?"

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say: does it matter? I don't think so.

Ok, obviously it is a problem if the only reason you are friends with a person is because you hope someday he will wake up and realize that he wants to marry you and you can be happy forever having lots of babies and living a life of bliss.

But the vocation (blessing and cross!) of the single life is one of "openness to the will of God." What does that mean concretely? For me, it means going with the flow, pursuing friendships and seeing where they lead.

All relationships have a progression, and part of that progression in friendships between men and women is a possibility of "something more". But I'm also fairly certain that at some point in that friendship you'll realize (pretty finally) that there is no "what if."

(nota bene: I've added a new "tag" for this series of posts. Find them all here.)

Can Men and Women Be Friends: The Agatha Take

(This is continuing the discussion first posted by Julian about friendship between men and women. Here are the other posts: 1, 2, 3)

When Harry Met Sally...is by far my favorite romantic comedy. I love Billy Crystal; I love Meg Ryan; and I love the idea that romance blossoms out of friendship. (Emma is my favorite Jane Austen, too. Again: friendship rules.) Should I ever fall in love and get married, I hope I fall in love with my best friend.

You might be surprised then to hear my answer to the question "Can men and women be friends (without "sex" getting in the way)?". Yes. Absolutely.

I saw this from personal experience, but also from an understanding of virtue and chastity specifically. I am very blessed to have a very old very dear friendship with a guy who is as dear to me as a brother. But that's the key: in highschool I remember consciously thinking: "I could have a crush on him. But I don't. And I won't--because I want to stay friends with him." From that point on our friendship took on a fraternal character. It is a deep and intimate friendship, and there is nothing that I wouldn't tell him, but it is a chaste and brotherly friendship. We even talked about relationships--when he was courting his wife he asked my advice about long distance stuff. And when I was in a serious relationship, he wanted to make sure A. passed his test. His marriage hasn't changed anything, either, since I was lucky enough to gain a dear friend in his bride.

He is, perhaps, the exception that proves the rule. But since his friendship is the first I ever had with a boy (we were still kids when we met), it formed me deeply. From that point on, I think I accepted men as friends first and potential spouses second (if at all). I don't want to preach here, but this really seems to me to be the only sensible way. I hate being considered as potential dating material, and then, when found wanting, thought of as a possible friend. And in approaching men as potential friends I have been lucky enough to foster some deep friendships with single and married men alike--and I would be incredibly surprised if they ever turn out to be anything more.

In the hook-up culture, sex really does always "get in the way" because the sex makes you skip all the steps in between. Suddenly you are physically united to someone you hardly know. Or, if you do know them, it will dramatically change the nature of the friendship. (For Harry and Sally--because its a comedy and comedies always end in weddings--sex violated the friendship, but then made Harry realize that he loved her too much not to marry her--and reminded him that sometimes sex does mean something--and then ended up married and happy.)

C. S. Lewis talks about friendship as the one type of human love that is completely a gift, meaning that man doesn't need friendship to survive. We need familial love so that we may survive our childhood. We need erotic love so that we may procreate--these are animal loves (only not, of course, since we are rational and therefore not simply animals, but you know what I mean). But we don't need friendship (or caritas for that matter). If caritas is the theological love, then friendship is the human love: it is natural, it fulfills a deep need for companionship, and it has a hand in every good relationship we have--be it with your colleagues, your classmates, your spouse, your family. Familial love without friendship becomes a distant and lifeless obligation. Erotic love without friendship quickly burns out.

So, can men and women be friends? Yes, absolutely. At some point that friendship will probably change, and take on a new character. For Edith and Peter it is took on a romantic character, and now they are getting married. But that doesn't mean you have to be bothered by the question: what if? Take him as he is, love him as he is, and don't be afraid of who you are, and live chastely. Then the friendship will grow into whatever God wants it to be.

On the Friendship Between Men and Women

I absolutely adore this post, Julian! However, speaking experientially, I am not sure that I can agree entirely with your conclusions here. I too, experience great friendships in grad school with married men, but I found these relationships are entirely limited to a professional level. The real friendships I have had is with their wives. I find a cordiality exists between men and women our age, but I am not sure that 'friendship' in the highest Aristotelian sense can exist between men and women beyond a certain age.

When I was young -- and by young I mean in my tweens/junior high, I felt like definitely guys and girls could be friends. I had tons of guy friends, as well as girl friends, and as far as I was concerned, there was no 'sexual tension' that people would always talk about. It struck me as so weird that the 'girlfriends' of my guy friends would actually get jealous, because, gosh, really, we were just friends.

But then, as you get older, you start to learn about guys. And the 'guys' turn into men (or so they should). And things change. I have a theory that no guy wants to be just friends with a girl. He's always interested in something else. He may really want to woo her and win her love. He may, like Harry asserts, just want to sleep with her. But one party or another, I think, always ends up wanting something else. And if she lets him, he might even pretend to be 'friends' just so he can keep the opportunity open. I experienced this first hand with my now fiance. He kept saying he wanted to be 'just friends,' and I was falling deeper and deeper in love with him. He always acted like a man trying to court a woman, but always remained in the 'just friends' category. I tried to be satisfied, really, I did. But I loved him so much, I knew that when he starting dating someone else, I'd be the one heart broken -- so I was prepared to cut it off entirely. Luckily, he decided he really loved me too -- and the ending for us is happily ever after...

But at that time, there was 'another guy' was 'just a friend.' His motives must have been more, because the moment I starting dating my fiance, he stopped all communication. And really, would it have been appropriate to continue the friendship with one party feeling that way? And here's another question (I can give my opinion after I get yours!) -- Can you stay friends with an ex? What about when you start dating someone else? At what point does friendship with the other sex just become inappropriate??

Can Men and Women Be Friends? More Thoughts...

Lest I be accused again of not actually getting the conversation started (that's for you, Agatha), I'll post my thoughts on the matter.

In my head, the question has two answers: 1) yes and 2) no. I'm going to be speaking from experience, because, really, that's all I've got here.

In graduate school I was blessed with two really great friends who were both married men in my program. Now, if Aaron Spelling had gotten a hold of this plot, I'm sure it might have gone in another direction than it actually did. (Of course Aaron Spelling would have had to know what theology was!) From the get-go there was never, ever, any question of lines and boundaries. Perhaps because I have been blessed with an older brother, these two gents became like brothers to me, and I was able to talk about anything with them...even my love life! To this day I can still call either of them (and of course their wives!) and talk for a long time. It's been such a huge blessing in my life.

However, I have to say that my experience with single men is another story. Now, I won't go as far as Harry and say that sex is actually the thing that gets in the way of a friendship, but I do find myself always wondering, "What if?" What if something romantic were to bloom? Could something develop? This happens with men that I meet socially, but still happens with some of my single friends from college. In my experience, there is always a question of "What if?" Now, I also don't agree with Harry that it completely ruins the prospect of a friendship. I think it just adds a dimension that doesn't arise in female friendships. Not that one is better than the other, they're just different.

Can Men and Women Be Friends?

For some time now this question has been in the back, well, actually in the front, of my mind. Agatha and I have discussed it briefly, but I think it's an important topic to broach with the sisters and our readers. Instead of jumping into my not-yet-formed opinion on the matter, I'll begin with a clip from when Harry Met Sally, possibly one of the most humorous, yet thorough, studies on men, women, friendship, sex, love, and all of the ambiguity in between. Here's Harry's take on the matter, in case you are unfamiliar with it: