Steve Harvey Was Asked If Men And Women Can Ever Be Platonic Friends. Survey Said ‘Aw Hell Naw!’

TheRoot.com, By Shanelle Genai, Posted May 7th 2021

The older I get, the more I seem to struggle with finding the answers to life’s most plaguing questions.

You know, questions like: what’s my purpose in life?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Is “Return of the Mack” really the greatest song ever? LOL…naaaah.

How in thee hell did Taraji end up on that boat?

And perhaps, most puzzling of all: Can men and women ever truly be platonic friends? Well, luckily for me (and now you because since I had to watch it, now so do you) our good ole relationship guru Steve Harvey has just made the crooked way straight in this recently resurfaced 2010 interview. In the nearly one-minute long clip, Mr. Act Like a Success can be seen explaining the fact that he doesn’t have female friends and that the likelihood of the interviewer (who happens to be a woman) having strictly platonic male friends is slim because most men are really incapable of being “just friends” with women.

And why is that, you may ask? Well according to Mr. Harvey, it’s because he believes that most men, if ever given the opportunity to “slide through the crack in the door” out of the friend zone, will always do so, thus rendering them incapable of having platonic relationships.

 “We remain your friends in hopes in that one day there’ll be a crack in the door, a chink in the armor and trust,” Steve says in part. “And believe that guy that you think is just your buddy, he will slide in that crack the moment he gets the opportunity. Because we’ve got to think this way. 99.9% of us think that way.”

Whew, chile. Big yikes.

As expected, this revived clip set off a firestorm on Twitter, with people feeling all types of ways about it. Some people agreed with Steve, others vehemently disagreed, and some folks thought it would be a good time to discuss his entire relationship expert agenda and the oft-unfair way it negatively impacts women. But like always, most folks found some way to find the humor in it all.

Granted, this interview is 11 years old, so maybe Steve’s thought process has changed. But even if it hasn’t, I think I’m gonna keep meditating on this one by myself. I’m not too sure his answers will suffice for me.