YOU GOTTA HAVE FRIENDS

Can men and women ever really be friends?

About a decade before Harry posed that question to Sally, Another World's Rick had the answer.

No.

No, men and women cannot ever just be friends.

Especially not when the woman in question is Rick's wife, Marianne, and the man in question is Jamie Frame, the guy Rick believes Marianne has loved since they were kids.

Daytime drama is, by definition, a medium of romance. As a result, the front-burner relationships tend to be romantic, not friendly.

The most prominent male/female soap opera buddy system of recent years has been As The World Turns' Katie and Henry.



He helped her try to snag an anchorwoman job at WOAK, steal Holden away from Lily, bamboozle Simon into marriage, track down a long-missing diamond (why so many of those tasks required Henry dressing up in women's clothing is still up in the air, but also not the subject of this blog post).

Yet eventually even Henry and Katie's platonic bliss was disrupted by a marriage.



One that was promptly dissolved when the real man Katie loved -- at the time, Mike -- returned to the scene.

Guiding Light gave us the story of pals Ava and Remy.



But poor little Max is evidence that the relationship went further then just light-hearted banter and ball-games.

ATWT's Margo and Hal were close friends, but their past also included a sexual interlude that produced son Adam.

So to paraphrase Billy Crystal, can soap opera men and women ever be just friends? Can you think of a daytime male/female relationship that stayed loyally platonic to the end?

The first one that pops into my mind is the friendship of Cruz and Julia on Santa Barbara. That never turned romantic. But, then again, the show was canceled. There were also Brenda and Ned on General Hospital. But she went wacky and he faded away. Then, of course, there were All My Children's Jenny and Jesse. But their situation came with a host of other issues.

And while you're thinking of your own examples, to find out how the triangle of Rick, Marianne and "friend" Jamie turned out, take a gander at the current AW episodes running on the AOL/PGP Classic Soaps Channel!