WORKPLACE FRIENDSHIPS

 It depends on what's your concept of friendship-core common interest areas,shared passions and perceptions,common likes,even partly coalescing value systems,intelligence levels .....there are multiple facets of a paradigm called genuine friendship.

Else whosoever interacts with you for a reasonable length of time regularly and share superficialites of a shared workplace like a visceral dislike of management,overwork etc is a friend.These equations of supposed bonding are exposed once the 'c'word comes in -competition.Or the 'p'word-promotion.

Ironically ,I feel,its major age differentials in work place,which can foster genuine friendship-no competition there.

Rest is just BONDING-mistaken for friendship,which is way deeper.

Also ,its said that equations made in extreme situations do not last-given the tough work demands in most set ups nowadays(except CCD type environs,projected on social media)-these are just shared adversity bonds...again,not friendship.

It is said ,a man and a woman can never be friends(to me,a modified version:no man can be friends with a woman he finds attractive) -because love or sex comes in between.("When Harry Met Sally" deja vu).Its famously said that a man thinks of sex every seven seconds-that seems improbable- a Kinsey institute study puts it at once every 1.26 hours 

Women do to ...the study said ...several times a day.Given the Victorian prudery Indians suffer from,you can suitably modify the numbers.But opposite gender friendship at any place ,is hit big time by this factor.So it hinders work many a time(may help too!).(You may contest this concept of humans being libido enslaved homo sapiens ...history however is kinder to my perception.)

So friendship at work is rare-because work comes in between.

Then.

Is workplace friendship a real concept?

Possible?,yes.

Probable?,no.

Helpful?,who knows.

Minus the prudery ,a TRUE poll on workplace friendship would give 4 results.

1.Male (female)bonding ...yes

2.Office romance/intimacy/flirtation

...yes.

3.Opp gender friendship(no friends with benefits)...ugh.

4.Same gender friendship...get real maan!