Platonic paradox: What happens when men and women become friends?

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  The Economist.

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  Hello, I'm Rosie Blore.

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  I host The Intelligence, our daily news and current affairs podcast.

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  Welcome to Editor's Picks.

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  Here's an article we've chosen from the latest edition of The Economist.

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  "Men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way."

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  This gloomy view, expressed by Harry in "When Harry Met Sally",

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  a romantic comedy released in 1989, is still widely shared.

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  Turkey's state religious authority recently issued a more scolding version of it,

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  to be read out in the country's 90,000 mosques:

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  "Friendships between men and women,

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  which begin with thoughts of companionship or confiding in one another,

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  drag people into the pit of adultery."

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  The notion that sex sometimes "gets in the way" is not absurd.

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  A study of Americans by April Bleske-Rechek of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

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  finds that in platonic couples,

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  the men are far more likely than the women to find their friend sexy,

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  and far more likely to think she finds them attractive, too.

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  Indeed, a man's assessment of how much his female friend fancies him

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  matches how much he fancies her, and is unrelated to how she really feels.

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