Wave Rider Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 So I'm a guy, and I've done alright with friendships with other men. I usually don't make a large number of close male friends - typically only one or two at a time. But they are good friends, and they are supportive, and they do stick around for me. But my romantic relationships with women don't last more than a few months, and I always end up getting dumped. So I'm actually considering trying to be platonic friends with a few women, just to see what it's like. To date, the only platonic friendships I've had with women I never dated tended to be therapist-type relationships, where she was my therapist or we were each other's therapist. I'm not sure how to find female friendships that feel natural and organic rather than forced. I am a graduate student in physics, and I do research in a physics lab all day, and I interact with exactly zero women in the course of my normal daily activities. My hobbies are virtually all male: physics and astronomy (90% men), weightlifting (90% men), surfing (90% men), and radio controlled airplanes and FPV drones (99% men). I'm just not going to meet any women, even for friendship, in the course of my normal work and hobby activities. I could meet women for friendship at swing dancing, but if I'm there to meet women and not to dance, it's going to feel artificial and forced. Any recommendations on how to find female platonic friends? Link to post Share on other sites
preraph Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 You make friends by doing your interests. i guess you have to be careful not to crap where you eat maybe with the swing dancing? Seems like a good place to meet women to me. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
central Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 Dancing is a great place to meet women, as many men don't dance - you'll quickly adapt if you initially go just to dance, and ask a variety of women. Friendships will develop naturally, and the women may initiate. I'd also see if there are meetup groups in your area that would interest you, that include a significant proportion of women. Just avoid the science and technology areas, and look to the social, political, and freethinker types. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
Popsicle Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 I'm right here. I'm looking for the same, but I live in NorCal. Link to post Share on other sites
basil67 Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 I've always found that men tend to seek male friendship and women seek female friendship. The two come together socially when there's an event (dinner/party/pub/concert) and have a good time, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of close, sharing friendships between the guys and girls. If you're looking to be included in a mixed group and have women in your social network, your goal would be quite achievable. But if you're looking to have a close friendship with a woman, it's going to be tougher to achieve. Of your guy friends, do any of them hang out in mixed groups? Can you join them? Would you be up for going out to dinner or a concert or to the pub in a group? 2 Link to post Share on other sites
FilterCoffee Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 I have a cousin who's super social and has a massive network. Whenever I hang out with him I invariably meet lots of new people and make a couple of friends. Do you have a friend or relative like that? If you do, then hanging out with that person a little more often would definitely help in meeting new people. As far as having platonic relationships with women, what has helped me is making my intentions very clear early on. To give you an example, in 2009 I met this girl at a training program. The moment I saw her, I was floored. She was incredibly hot and as I began speaking to her I realised she had a cool personality as well. But our initial conversations were very bland to say the least. It barely went beyond "How was your day?", "It was good?", "ok bye". At that point in my life, I had just got over a long term relationship and wasn't ready to start dating again but I was determined to have a deeper relationship with her. What I did next was very very stupid but it surprisingly worked in my case. I gave her a call and told her (in excruciating detail) how hot I thought she was but how I only wanted us to be closer in a platonic sense. She was taken aback but didn't want to run away from me which is surprising thinking about it now. We met a week later, spoke about what we wanted from our relationship and we've been the closest friends ever since. I guess this was all possible because she knew what I wanted from her all along and that made her feel comfortable to open up to me. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
Author Wave Rider Posted September 1, 2017 Author Share Posted September 1, 2017 (edited) Hmmmm....my thought as of recent is to try and join the choir at my university, because I'm pretty good with classical music (I have a large diversity of interests.) basil67, I've had lots of female friends who were members of a group I was hanging out with, but those never really were intimate friendships. We talked and joked, but it was hard to go further than that in a group. i don't have such a group right now because nearly all people I work with and socialize with are men, which is what I'm trying to change. Popsicle, yeah, as much as we could be friends, internet friendships seem less likely to become intimate friendships. It seems to be much more about what people go through together. I like how Esther Perel criticizes the modern version of intimacy, which she calls "talk intimacy" where intimacy is supposedly formed between two people by increasing self-disclosure: you each air more and more of your own dirty laundry until you know all of each other's imperfections and secrets, and boom, now you have intimacy. But she has a much broader view of intimacy, which especially includes some elements of shared experience. FilterCoffee, that may be worth a try. I don't know too many hot women close by at the moment, but being upfront about wanting to be friends with one sounds like a good plan. I will have to find one. My stipulation for being friends with hot women is that she can't have a boyfriend, because if she does, I will be too jealous, and I also don't want to hear her go on and on about the sex she has with him (and not with me.) That would actually be a really interesting exercise, because then I would have to ask myself which women I would be interested in hanging out with based solely on their personality, which I admit I have never done before. That actually sounds like it might work. But if I have a female friend, what are we gonna do together? Play golf, lift weights, and go surfing? I mean, the stuff I do with my guy friends is typical guy stuff. I guess we could go hiking or to a classical music concert, but that feels more like a date, and those aren't things I would normally do with a guy friend. What kinds of activities would I do with a platonic female friend? Edited September 1, 2017 by Wave Rider Link to post Share on other sites
FilterCoffee Posted September 1, 2017 Share Posted September 1, 2017 My stipulation for being friends with hot women is that she can't have a boyfriend Sorry but that's too much to ask for man. Even if she's single when she meets you, she's eventually going to get romantically involved with someone so you have to be ok with that. At least in my case it didn't bother me because the boundaries were clearly defined and we were happy stay within them. I actually like the sex talk because the big difference I notice between her and my guy friends is that she gets into a lot of detail. My guy friends hardly divulge anything whereas she describes everything in all its dirty glory! Needless to say, I learn a lot from her. But if I have a female friend, what are we gonna do together? You can do all the things that you would normally do with a guy. Whether that's golfing or picking up chicks, it's all cool. My lady friend and I texted a lot but only hung out once or twice a month. We mostly just went out for lunch or I would go to her place and chill. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
elaine567 Posted September 1, 2017 Share Posted September 1, 2017 This plan is doomed because frankly you do not want a platonic gf, you want a gf, so you either hang about like some love sick puppy after her for years in her orbit, whilst she takes you shoe shopping and gossips to you about all and sundry and then she goes off into the sunset with the love of her life... who isn't you, or she gets the "romantic" vibe from you so dumps you in order to not hurt your feelings. YOU are a guy who does not do any female activities so you will stick out like a sore thumb and be sussed out right away as being up to no good. Friendships like the one you describe you want, tend to happen in childhood or at college or occasionally at work or when indulging in some shared activity. Otherwise people are too busy dating or being in LTRs to bother with people who merely want to hang out. Finding relationships can be hard enough without trying to cultivate platonic friendships with other guys too... Opposite sex friends can also cause chaos in real relationships so many people will deliberately avoid them, once adult. Link to post Share on other sites
basil67 Posted September 2, 2017 Share Posted September 2, 2017 My stipulation for being friends with hot women is that she can't have a boyfriend, because if she does, I will be too jealous, and I also don't want to hear her go on and on about the sex she has with him (and not with me.) But if I have a female friend, what are we gonna do together? Play golf, lift weights, and go surfing? I mean, the stuff I do with my guy friends is typical guy stuff. I guess we could go hiking or to a classical music concert, but that feels more like a date, and those aren't things I would normally do with a guy friend. What kinds of activities would I do with a platonic female friend? You can't ask a friend to not have a boyfriend. If you get jealous of her having a boyfriend, then she's more than 'just a friend' to you anyway. Part of having a friend is having a full and normal life outside of each other and sharing about it. And sex probably won't be discussed anyway. What do you do with a female friend? The same thing you'd do with male friends: find an activity which you both enjoy and do it. With friendships, it's pretty normal to do things in a group anyway. Go to the pub for the afternoon. Go see a rock concert. Go to some farmers markets. Meet for an hour on a Saturday morning for breakfast. See a movie. Go clubbing. Go to the beach. Picnic. Hang out in your house clothes and binge watch Netflix (no cuddling or sexual contact). Link to post Share on other sites
Popsicle Posted September 2, 2017 Share Posted September 2, 2017 I definitely don't want to be platonic friends with a hot guy. Who in the world would want that? Boggles my mind.... I do prefer being friends with single males, rather than married/taken ones. I don't want any drama. And I don't care how much they say there would be no drama. No thanks, I'll pass. Link to post Share on other sites
FilterCoffee Posted September 2, 2017 Share Posted September 2, 2017 I definitely don't want to be platonic friends with a hot guy. Who in the world would want that? Boggles my mind.... Hot guys could have hot guy friends? That's how it works with girls in most cases anyway. Not that you should befriend someone for their friends. Link to post Share on other sites
Author Wave Rider Posted September 2, 2017 Author Share Posted September 2, 2017 Alright, alright, fine. Let's say that I become platonic friends with a woman (hot or not) who has a boyfriend. And let's say that we hang out and do whatever platonic stuff people are into these days. I can tell you right now what's going to happen. My singleness is still the biggest emotional issue in my life right now and my biggest source of general life dissatisfaction. Any guy who I have a close friendship with knows this, and it's going to be impossible to hide it from any close female friend I would make, boyfriend or not. I know the general advice about being single: I will not be ready for a relationship until I become completely independent, satisfied, and fulfilled as a single person. I get it that I am only ready for a relationship when I have reached the state of perfect singleness zen where I no longer need a relationship. I must reach the state where I am so happy and fulfilled as a single person that I no longer want a relationship, and only then - when I have transcended the need for a romantic partner - will I be truly prepared and qualified for a romantic partner, right? Well, I don't believe that advice. And you probably don't either, because you're on loveshack.org, and therefore you do value and want relationships in various ways. I do want a relationship. So how can I stop wanting something that I actually do want? I can't. And if she has a boyfriend, then she wants a relationship, otherwise she wouldn't have a boyfriend. Since my difficulty with intimate relationships is such an integral part of my life, it's going to be impossible to be close friends with a woman without her knowing about it. And if I don't tell her about it, she's going to figure it out unconsciously, and then she'll run away. How would I deal with this in the friendship? The only thing I can think of is just to tell her about it. Any other ideas? Link to post Share on other sites
elaine567 Posted September 2, 2017 Share Posted September 2, 2017 Forget about pursuing the platonic friendship thing, as it is a complete waste of your time. YOU need to concentrate on dating and finding a real gf, as the time for organic platonic friendships with women for you is almost gone. You already had that previously and with growing up into adulthood, just about everyone pairs off or has other things to do, ie date or pursue their career or go off to see the world... YOU either bite the bullet and make a determined effort to find a gf or you accept your singlehood and maybe concentrate on your career perhaps or get deeper involved with your present interests. The idea of platonic gf is merely a diversion, and a way of swerving the real issue. Procrastination. Link to post Share on other sites
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