In second grade, my teacher would let us out for recess everyday. Upon walking out, I saw swing sets to my left, a jungle gym to my right and a glorious castle in the middle. Yes, a castle. It was red, blue and yellow with domes, had slides every way and even a draw bridge right in the center. I clearly remember a game we used to play; it was a game of pretend. As I mentioned earlier, this playground resembled a castle, so one of the girls would take on the covetous role of a princess and a boy would take on the role of a prince. Inspired by fairytales, we naturally had the prince and the princess fall in love and live happily ever after.

The key word in the above sentence is “naturally.” From a young age, popular culture has ingrained certain societal values into our minds. Since we were little, we have been exposed to fairytales like Cinderella that cemented the notion of romantic love between the two genders in our minds. Through popular TV shows, movies and books, society has created a natural order of events: first comes friendship and then a romantic relationship. This order has been deemed an accepted process.

Research by Professor Emma Renold at Cardiff University highlights the pressure to turn a close boy-girl friendship into a relationship. The study, which interviewed 125 school children between the ages of 10 and 12, concluded that the children talked about boyfriend-girlfriend culture as something they had little choice about participating in. Moreover, the study continued to state the benefits of being in a romantic relationship; being in such a relationship shielded the children from bullying and gave them a desirable status.

In this way, societal norms have made it nearly impossible for men and women to be just friends. From grade school, it has been embedded in our minds that men and women are romantically related, not platonically.

Because we have been exposed to this idea presented in books, movies and television, our actions and our interactions have come to express it. From romantic movies such as “The Notebook” to TV shows such as “How I Met Your Mother”, we are exposed to the same story: boy and girl meet; they become friends and then they fall in love. It’s the classic tale that resurfaces in nearly every story. Just like after a new movie comes out and suddenly men start cutting their hair like the hero and women start dressing like the heroine. The story which likely follows this pattern is bound to have a profound impact. It is naïve to assume otherwise.

Read – Sarah Liu: Platonic friendships can exist between opposite genders; in fact, we should value them more