My ‘best man’ was a woman – my male friends were shocked

Picture the scene: you’re at the pub with your oldest and closest male friends when you casually announce the news: you and your girlfriend are getting married.  

Congratulations ring out, a fresh round of drinks is ordered and then the inevitable question is asked: ‘So, who’s your best man?’ You look around the table awkwardly, knowing that although any one of them would do a good job their services won’t be required.  

‘I’m not going to have a best man,’ you confess, ‘because the best “man” I’ve chosen is a woman.’ 

It’s been 36 years since Harry Burns told Sally Albright, in Nora Ephron’s classic romcom When Harry Met Sally, that ‘men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.’  

Thirty-six years, and yet still in 2025 the debate about whether a heterosexual man and woman can ever be platonic friends rages on.

Well, I’m here to declare that not only is it possible for a man to have a purely platonic female friend but in my opinion, every heterosexual man would be a lot happier if they had one too. 

I met my best friend Jackie at sixth-form after five years at separate single sex comprehensives that looked out onto the same playing field. Going from years of lessons with only boys to ones that included girls was a steep learning curve for many of my compatriots.

Some were so terrified of the opposite sex that they never spoke to a girl if they could help it, while others were so thrilled to be around girls that they could barely concentrate.  

I, however, despite coming from a family of all brothers, was somewhere in the middle, happy to hang out with anyone, male or female, as long as they had something interesting to say. 

Jackie and I initially bonded over music. Gradually we progressed from making tapes for each other and swapping music magazines to going to gigs and the occasional trip to the pub together.

Friends who didn’t understand the nature of our relationship would ask if there was anything ‘going on’ and I’d give them a withering look, as if to say, ‘Come on, grow up.’  

Because what we had wasn’t about romance – it was about two people who really got each other, spending time together enjoying each other’s company. 

When Jackie began dating a boy at sixth-form I wasn’t the slightest bit bothered. And when I started seeing someone, Jackie felt the same. We were friends, it was that simple, there was nothing romantic about it, we just didn’t see each other that way.  

And though the people we were dating were fine about us, I can recall a couple of occasions when their friends, no doubt looking to stir up a bit of sixth-form drama, had whispered in their ears that it might be wise to keep a close eye on things.  

The subtext was clear: this friendship wasn’t normal, something had to be going on. 

The ‘something’ that was going on, however, was simple friendship.

Hanging out with Jackie was completely unlike being with my male friends. With them, all conversations were gloriously superficial, rarely if ever touching on anything resembling an emotion.  

With Jackie it was different. While we could happily spend an hour ranking our top 10 favourite Smiths tracks, we could also talk about other stuff too, like parent problems, relationship worries and stresses about passing exams.  

I think ultimately what I got from Jackie was insight: she could explain the inner workings of my girlfriend’s mind in a way my male friends couldn’t.

For instance, I learned that when a girlfriend asked me what I was thinking, the truthful answer, ‘Nothing,’ probably wasn’t the best response. The subtext of the question probably had something to do with how things were going between us.  

Another valuable skill she taught me was the important art of relationship maintenance. Prior to this, I didn’t even know that relationships needed maintaining.

She taught me that a phone call here, a thoughtful gift there, was the oil that kept the machinery of a relationship working smoothly. It’s obvious when you think about it but at the time it was a real revelation. 

Over the years my friendship with Jackie taught me a lot about men, women and relationships, so much so that when I was asked to be an agony uncle for a teenage girls’ magazine back in the mid-nineties, no one who knew me was in the least bit surprised.

And I think in turn Jackie learned a few things about the inner workings of the male mind from me, chief amongst which was that while you might think you’re being direct, men often need things spelling out, underlining in red and putting in all caps before they really get it. 

When I met my wife Claire in 1995 when we were both in our mid-twenties, Jackie said she knew it was serious because of the way I talked about her.

‘I can hear the big grin on your face,’ she’d say on the phone whenever I told her about a fun day trip we’d been on together or something Claire had said that had made me laugh.  

Within a month of Claire and I getting together, I introduced her to Jackie and they got on brilliantly from day one as I knew they would because they’re both really easy going.