Honors 495, or “Love, Sex, and Friendship,” is a seminar course that focuses on the relationships between humans. This course focused heavily on how humans interact and the opinions of authors on love, such as C.S. Lewis and Aristotle. My highlight of this course is an essay on friendship that I wrote in response to C.S. Lewis’ belief that men and women could not be friends without at least a modicum of erotic love. I argue this through the concept of the friend zone, friends with benefits, and workplace relationships.

This course was confusing at times, but satisfying when a conclusion was reached. I had never taken a philosophy course before, and I found it, at times, to be a bit boring. However, all of that changed when I saw how the pieces came together in the conclusion. Looking back, I see how this can be influential to my career as a social worker, as it can explain why humans do certain things, such as fall in love. By referring back to this course, I can make hypotheses on what causes clients to act a certain way. An example of this is why a battered woman would remain in a domestic violence situation out of “love” for the abuser.