Can Men and Women Truly Be Friends?

[EmmaLou]

I've always thought they can, especially as time goes on. I don't know anyone my age (24) who doesn't have a mixture of best friends... lasting friendships without sexy benefits.

When I'm talking to a male friend, there is always that underlying knowledge that I'm a female.... He's a male... but there's never any tension.

My mum however, says how she loves that I can have male friends, because it just wasn't done in her youth. You had relationships with men, but you didn't hang out with them as friends.

[deux ex machina]

I can only speak from the male point of view.

 

Is there usually some sexual tensions between men and their female freinds? Sure, absolutely. Most men--especially younger men--rarely go out of their way to befreind women they're not attracted to.

 

But so what? We also see attractive women walk past us on the street every day. We don't feel compelled to pursue them. Why should we feel compelled to pursue out female friends?

 

Guys just need to grow up. If you think your female friend is hot, but she's not interested, that settles it. Leave it alone. Just be her friend.

 

 

It really hurts when you lose someone you thought was a friend because he gets harsh and cold when you can't think of him as anything more.

 

 

 

I do wonder how much this has to do with the experiences people have with the opposite sex growing up, ect.

 

Does a man have a sister or mother he loves and can talk to?

 

Did the woman have an opportunity to make friends with males as a teen?

[saivenkat]

I think men and women can truly be friends but not just friends like people of the same gender.........

DigBands

[fllove17]

I am actually struggling with this right now because I do have a thing for my good friend from work and she is with someone else. And they will not be splitting up unfortunately for me.

 

I've been friends with women before that I've had absolutely no attraction to and its been just friends. However, when there is some kind of attraction, its hard for me to get past that. If I really get along well with someone personally and socially and I also happen to find them attractive, why wouldn't I develop a thing for them? It just seems to be natural to me. And its not as though I pick and choose who I like, It just seems to happen.

 

And I have a hard time understanding how women do not fall in to this same trap. If she gets along really well with me and finds me cute, why would she not develop at least some kind of feelings? Maybe she wouldnt act on those feelings, but I have a hard time believing they dont exist. However maybe thats one of the big differences between men and women.

[WTRanger]

It is simple genetics. We are not set up to be "friends" with the opposite sex. It just makes sense these days since the future of our species really isn't in danger. Sure, cavemen lived in villages but that doesn't mean caveman #1 wasn't trying to bone caveman #2's wife.

 

The initial stages and attraction of men and women are not well defined and are blurry at best. Half of them are getting to know someone romantically and half are getting to know them on the friends/personal level. Our weak and feeble brains cannot tell which direction we are going. Are we friends? Are we dating?

 

Once the initial stages are past, then the lines become a lot more clear. This is why most of the friends falling for each other happens very early on. Even though one side may hold it for years, those feelings developed from day one when everything was confusing and blurry.

 

So short term, no, men and women cannot be friends. Long term, yes, if and only if the initial feelings are dealt with in a very open and adult manner. Anything short of that, you are not friends and you might was well take a pack of smokes, a short length of hose, and continue to blow smoke up your own ass.

[panzer6]

I have a few women friends that I am quite close with. I don't have any desire to date them but I do find them attractive in their own ways. Sometimes it's tough because you can really click with someone and you start to think " what if ? " But I find that most of the women I know are surrounded by a lot of emotional baggage. From their families, friendships, and past relationships. Seeing this part of someone actually makes them LESS attractive to me. Over the years I have found that women have a way of attracting emotional drama like a magnet attracts steel. Many of them seem to make the same mistakes over and over, doesn't anybody learn from these mistakes ? Being friends with a woman gives you access to all her issues, problems and mistakes and I sometimes thank god that I am a man because life, it seems, is a lot easier for men than it is for women. So, yes, men and women can be friends as long as they don't want to have a relationship with each other. If that happens, then everything changes.

[16thstreet]

Absolutely they can, at least on some level. I am a professional in a field with predominantely men and I am friends with many of the guys I work with. But we are not really close friends. I do have a few close guy friends outside of my current relationship, but there I think I try to be a little more cautious in some ways, as do they, because of a mutual understanding that things could cross lines perhaps if allowed. My partner's long-time best buddy is a woman, who is married with a family. I am very supportive of that friendship...maybe because he's very gregarious and has quite a number of close friends and she just happens to be at the top of the list. But alas my theory is not perfect. There is one xGF that he remains friends with that makes me uncomfortable for some reason (although I am comfortable with his friendships with other x's as he is with mine)...so maybe that betrays this fear I have that they absolutely can't be just friends? I'm still trying to figure it out!

[fllove17]

Absolutely they can, at least on some level. I am a professional in a field with predominantely men and I am friends with many of the guys I work with. But we are not really close friends. I do have a few close guy friends outside of my current relationship, but there I think I try to be a little more cautious in some ways, as do they, because of a mutual understanding that things could cross lines perhaps if allowed. My partner's long-time best buddy is a woman, who is married with a family. I am very supportive of that friendship...maybe because he's very gregarious and has quite a number of close friends and she just happens to be at the top of the list. But alas my theory is not perfect. There is one xGF that he remains friends with that makes me uncomfortable for some reason (although I am comfortable with his friendships with other x's as he is with mine)...so maybe that betrays this fear I have that they absolutely can't be just friends? I'm still trying to figure it out!

 

Its funny, I think a lot of times it really depends more on the other person than it does your significant other. As you said there are some of his relationships you are comfortable with but there is one exGF you arent. Is it because he may still have some feelings for her or is it because you dont trust her?

 

I used to see someone that had a good number of male friends. And I always trusted she wouldnt do anything. And I trusted all of her friends wouldnt do anything except for one guy. He was the kind of person that would one weekend try to take home some 19 year old sorority girl and the next weekend, he'd go after a 40 year old married lady with kids. And while he and I were on good terms, I had no doubt in my mind that he would take her home if he could. He really had no morals when it came to things like that. And whenever she was going to dinner or drinks with some friends, him included, when I couldnt make it, I was always worried. Again, I trusted her but when you start mixing in alcohol, you never know what could happen.

 

So as I said in another message above, I think it if two people get along and dont have any attraction for each other then its just friendship. When there is some level of attraction involved, I think its get a littler more difficult. However if the two people are mature enough not to cross that line, then maybe friendship can exist.

[16thstreet]

Its funny, I think a lot of times it really depends more on the other person than it does your significant other. As you said there are some of his relationships you are comfortable with but there is one exGF you arent. Is it because he may still have some feelings for her or is it because you dont trust her?

 

 

I think it might almost have to be both. I think it is possible that he could of course have feelings for all of his exs on some level (and the same with me and my exs) and his other female friends (and my male friends) . . . a connection is what a friendship is . . . but I really believe that in almost every case there is a mutual respect for boundaries and I can trust that. In her case, I do think she does not have the same boundaries as our other opposite-gendered friends on either side. But I am still not sure if I am feeling that because of some level of jealousy or if it's objectively true. A huge part of it is that my partner is open with me regarding most all of his friendships but is guarded when talking about her.

 

Of course, the more I've tried to push, I think the more guarded he's become and then I am finding that I grow jealous. Chix or eggs, which comes first? I've asked him to be as open as he can about her in particular and let him know that I'd rather he be honest about not being able to entirely open (and to please consider why that might be the case) than to tell me he will be open and then not actually do it. He has said that he will be as open as he can and that he is learning to be more open about things . . . which I could understand if he was more universally guarded and it wasn't a guardedness relating to this one person in particular.

 

She's his most recent serious relationship (although it physically ended quite some time ago). My theory is that he was really deeply hurt by the experience and maybe still hasn't really acknowledged those feelings. If that is all there is to it, I can live with him taking his time and being less open about his friendship to her . . . it is just the shadow of a doubt thing that sometimes creeps into a big shadow monster for me and then I can't figure out which perspective I should be looking at things.

 

I think it may also have something to do with him fearing I will be jealous, which is a reasonable concern considering that the guarded/jealousy dynamic started long ago regarding this particular topic, but I've tried to explain that imo generally fearing a negative reaction is not a good reason not to be open with your partner in a relationship. You are open, you have positive/negative/neutral reactions, you deal with them (hopefully) and you grow the relationship. I am not saying that I am very good at this either . . . but that is the way I know that I would like it to work.