At any rate, Kerri and I have just finished watching Firefly, a space western by Joss Whedon. Very cool show, and I recommend it to all. Kerri, who’s not a sci-fi fan, thoroughly enjoyed it as well.

Episode 109, War Stories, has me thinking about marriage and old friends. The episode starts off with a bit of a conflict between the ship’s married crew members: Zoe, the first mate, and Wash the pilot. You see Zoe and Cap. Malcolm Reynolds are old war buddies, and their history and close friendship finally gets under Wash’s skin in this episode. In an early scene Wash ends an argument with his wife saying, “No, what this marriage needs is one less husband. Right now it’s kind of crowded.”

So, let me ask you your thoughts on the topic of one partner in a marriage having a close friend of the opposite sex. Do you think it’s possible for that arrangement to operate smoothly, or is conflict inevitable?

Kerri and I no longer have any close friends of the opposite sex. Back when we were dating, in high school and college, we both did, and while there wasn’t anything close to infidelity (such as you would define it in a serious dating relationship) there were certainly a few jealous moments between us. I distinctly remember putting a dent in the roof of my old S-15 pickup from the inside after such a moment.

Anymore, neither of us really has many – if any – close friends of the opposite sex. The one’s that come closest to fitting that description are mutual friends so far as I can think of. I don’t think it was necessarily a conscious choice to pull away from one friend or another so much as it was a decision to draw closer to each other. And I, for one, think it’s probably a good thing. I think conflict is inevitable when a husband or a wife draw too close to anyone of the opposite sex other than their partner. We just aren’t made in such a way for that to work well.

What do you think? Am I out of touch with both pop culture AND reality, or it this just the way things work?

Post from: Blisstree

Zoe and Wash – Firefly