When the rom-com “When Harry Met Sally” was released 35 years ago on July 21, the film posed the now-classic question: Can a man and a woman be just friends?
In a moment at the end of the fan-favorite film — written by Nora Ephron and directed by Rob Reiner — Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) tells his wife Sally Albright (Meg Ryan), “The first time we met, we hated each other.” Harry and Sally met right before an 18-hour ride share trip East from college to New York City in Sally’s yellow 1976 Toyota Corona station wagon. That journey begins the retelling of Harry and Sally’s relationship.
When my husband and I first saw the 1989 film together, we had been married for five years and had known each other for 12. We compared our similar circuitous route from acquaintances to a couple with the fictional Burns and Albright. We also met on a shared trip and initially disliked each other long before we realized a deeper connection.
Courtesy Amy McVay Abbott
We drove in an 18-foot-long vintage black Caddy, which required a 19-cent Bic pen in the carburetor to work. Randy wore a wrinkled white shirt, grungy pants, a white beach hat and old tennis shoes. His long, dark hair stuck out from underneath the hat in every direction.
We got lost between our college, Ball State University, and the workshop’s location, Ohio University, taking the road south and west through Indianapolis and extending the trip by hours. He might have asked me directions, and I might have made something up, mumbling a random answer. Hungover and tired from Saturday night out at the Chug-A-Mug with friends, I did not find Randy interesting or likable.
We arrived in Athens, Ohio, for the weeklong yearbook workshop, landing on a dirt access road across the Hocking River from the campus. I still don’t know how he got us to this dead-end spot, in sight of our destination but impassable. Upon getting to campus, I spotted my friend out a window of the Martzolff dormitory, watching for us.
“I never want to see this SOB again,” I yelled loudly, sharing my negative feelings about my travel companion.
During their own drive in the movie, Harry tells Sally she should realize they can “never be friends.”
“Men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way,” he says. Sally tells Harry that she has several male friends and doesn’t believe she can’t have male friends. They agree to disagree, never resolving the issue on the trip. In New York, they part and wish each other a nice life.
“It’s too bad,” Sally mused. “You were the only person I knew in New York City.”
Sally wasn’t too impressed with Harry, much like when I disparaged Randy to my friend that day. But over the next few years, Sally would occasionally run into Harry. They became friends, even though Harry did not believe they could be just friends.
After our workshop, Randy and I worked together in our student yearbook jobs. We became friends. I was gun-shy about romance, having recently been dumped. Being with Randy was fun. Randy was up for anything, like a trip to Mr. Happy Burger during the 1978 Blizzard. We saw people on horseback in the drive-up window and realized with increasing horror that we were deep in doo-doo, drifting snow and ice, and 30 miles from home.
Randy often brought down the house. Once, he made a friend laugh so hard she choked up a burger. He pointed to the stains on her clothes and said, “I see you had the cheeseburger.”
We talked often about how cool it was that we could be friends. With and apart from the larger group, we often hung out, watched movies, listened to Billy Joel albums or talked. Despite my close, emotional friendship with Randy, I got back together with my old boyfriend. Our relationship was tumultuous, with Randy as the third wheel.
“Why don’t you just marry Randy?” my boyfriend asked after one too many comparisons with him. I was moving to Florida for a better job in a month, and I dumped him, ready for a new life. With no encouragement from Randy, I was leaving Indiana behind.
Randy and I had always written letters, which continued after my move. One day, a handwritten letter on yellow legal paper came that I read four times before I grasped what it said. He’d written that he loved me and wanted us to be together. I received a second letter the following day: “I’ll bet you are about to lose your mind. Yes, what I wrote yesterday is true.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to react, though I cared deeply for him. We kept writing letters — sometimes daily — and discussed our potential future. At Christmas, I flew to Indiana to visit his family and reunite with him.
Our first kiss was on a snowy evening under twinkling Christmas lights. We walked holding hands in the snow as giant flakes slowly dropped around us. After the break, Randy moved to Florida, and we started a life together. We got married two years later. For 40 years, we’ve shared the rollercoaster ride for better and worse.
In the film, Harry and Sally eventually became friends. Harry wanted his friend Jess to meet Sally, and Sally wanted her friend Marie to meet Harry and set up a double date. Jess (Bruno Kirby) and Marie (Carrie Fisher) hit it off and soon became a couple, dissing Harry and Sally. Jess told the castoffs that he and Marie might not have gotten together if “either of them found Harry or Sally reasonably attractive.”
In the final moments of “When Harry Met Sally,” Harry finally declares his love for his best friend at a New Year’s Eve party, uttering the memorable line, “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to begin as soon as possible.”
While my love story isn’t quite as cinematic, the scene resonates with our walk in the holiday season. A deep friendship forged their connection and marriage.
Our marriage is still filled with love, humor, sarcasm, honesty and a willingness to speak hard truths, and we’ve had an amazing ride so far.
Like Harry and Sally, it started with a stranger in a car and the road trip that would be the foundation for the journey of a lifetime.
