I watched a movie the other day that had a scene where the protagonist had to choose between his long-term girlfriend and a friend in a sticky situation. As I was on IMDb reading about the movie, I landed on the discussion boards where there was a thread about what people would have done in the protagonist's situation.
A depressing number of what I assume to be male respondents just blurted out "of course I'd choose the friend, that's a no-brainer". Apparently, girls are cool n' all but they come and go. And this phrasing was way more neutral and less misogynistic than the majority of the replies in the discussion.
I started thinking about this old fact "girlfriends/boyfriends come and go, friendships are forever". Firstly, friendships are not necessarily forever, that is just plain bullshit. I have first-hand experience of that, and not even with childhood friends with whom you regularly do not stay in touch often. Sometimes even with a close friend with whom you make effort to stay in touch, you drift apart. So the "friends are forever" is FALSE as shit.
Also, comparing the two different kinds of relationships (partner vs. friend) is not fair and realistic, because: 1) a romantic relationship, when it's serious and stable, is faaar more prevalent in one's life than a regular friendship 2) as a rule, you can only have one romantic partner at a time. These facts mean that the quality that relationship needs to maintain to survive is much higher than with some random friend. That is a lot of strain on the relationship, any relationship in fact. (To test this, feel free to move in with a good friend and see what happens.)
Also, this is exactly why a regular friendship tends to last longer, on average. Because it's less significant, and the definition for both 'to last' and 'friendship' is very, very broad. The quality and intensity of it might, and dare I claim will, fluctuate over the years. There is going to be phases when you are less close, sometimes even for months or years you hardly even talk. So to say a relationship has lasted for decades is stretching a bit. Of course there are exceptions to this, some people might have friends they have talked to on a daily or at least a weekly basis for 30 years continuously, but those are goddamn rare. You can't really take such breaks from a relationship.
Which is why you need to find someone who is as compatible as possible, and finding someone like that is hard as fuck. When/if you manage, you both need to have similar views about life and the relationship. Mainly regarding monogamy. If even one is not on board with that, it will fail.
So here are some thoughts to that "girlfriends/boyfriends come and go, friendships are forever" crap. For the vast majority that is still true though, but that is closely connected with choosing a wrong partner, for whatever reason. Maybe your standards were too low (the case for most people), maybe one of you changed or was dishonest from the beginning. I have always thought that whole saying sounds somehow wrong, like if you think that way, why the hell do you even get involved with anyone, you're basically dooming the partnership to fail with that awful attitude.
So bottom line is, while the saying might have some truth to it, does it mean a friendship should automatically be prioritized higher? Is some more or less flimsy and flaky connection better than a closer, more intense one automatically more valuable just because on average it tends to last longer? Some may think so, I sure as hell don't.
And about people who regard women as some form of temporary entertainment, they are obviously suffering from a horrible fate that is not having come across enough women to meet smart, funny and interesting ones. Or they did, but were too dumb to appreciate it. Fortunately there are men who don't suffer from this.
