[Way OT & possibly NC-17 rated] Can men and women "just be friends"?

[Silver Moon]

I just have to weigh in on this one. Back in 1982 I dated a girl for about six months, then we broke up. We both played in the same D&D group, and both wanted to continue with the group, so decided to stay friends for the sake of the group.

As the years went by we went from friends to "best friends", but kept everything platonic because we had tried the relationship thing once, and it didn't work out. It was very much like "When Harry Met Sally", in fact when we saw that movie together we laughed about it afterwards. During the several years that we were best friends I firmly believed that Men and Women could just be friends. I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say that a few years later she changed my mind about that. We're now coming up on the 14th anniversary of our marriage.

 

[Bob Aberton]

IMO, of course it is.

Course, that depends on your definition...

I flirt with my female friends all the time (and sometimes we take it pretty far) - but all in good fun. It's not "serious" flirting, and I don't have romantic aspirations toward them, even if I do catch myself checking them out once in a while. Just because we're friends doesn't mean I'm totally unaware of their gender. Then again, I've got all those youthful raging hormones and all...

 

[Angcuru]

Enter the Philosopher....

It's good to get some female perspective on this topic, Dragongirl.

*cracks knuckles* This'll take a while.

Just a note beforehand: I'm not anti-homosexual in any aspect, I just think(rather understandably) from a heterosexual male's perspective. So don't expect to read references to guy&guy relationships.

Item 1 - The idea that men constantly have sex on the brain.
From my own personal experience and interaction with other guys, this isn't entirely true, nor is it entirely false. THOUGH it does fall closer to true than it does to false. While I don't agree with the idea that men are completely hormone driven, I'd say that thinking about sex is our back-up generator when it comes to thinking. We can easily go through long conversations and sometimes day-long periods of time without even remotely touching the subject, but when we don't have anything in particular in our minds, our thoughts tend to drift towards sex, in one form or another. Not to say that all married men think about every woman they see when in this state(more on that later), married guys would think about their wives, dedicated guys about their girlfriends, and single guys - "That redhead's got a nice---that blonde has a huge----DAMN! that's hot!", etc. But in general, we all have sex on the mind when we're bored, some more so than others, some a lot less than the rest.

Item 2 - Friend Compatability and Spouse Compatibility.
Bear with me on this one. From my experience, regarding guy-girl friendships and romances, guys tend to have prerequisites for each category, wether concious or subconcious. While a woman may make for a nice friend, she may not at all fit a guy's needs & desires when it comes to love. On the other hand, a woman may make for a good friend, and eventually the guy may get it into his mind that taking the relationship up to the love-level may be called for or even expected. Also, perhaps a guy falls madly in (one-sided)love with a woman, but feels nervous about right-out asking for a date, so he decides to first form a friendship, and steadily increase the level of intimacy, etc.

An example from my own life: I am good friends with one particular girl, but we're just friends and neither of us would think of taking it further than that. But then there's this one girl whom I well...you could say that it was love at first sight, for my part. Mind you this isn't one of those "I want to screw the hot bitchy girl" situations, she's a very nice girl who always has a smile, etc.(stopped early to avoid ranting). Not being the type to just walk up and say "Hey, howya doin? Got any plans this weekend?"(not to be crude, just an example), I form a friendship with her and learn that she has been dating this one guy from her home country(apparently met him while visiting relatives) for quite a while. Imagine my dissapointment. So, not being an ass, I have become really good friends with her over the past few months. However, she has recently revealed that they have just a few weeks ago broken up on a good note, the reason being distance(he's in Eastern Europe, she's in New Jersey, it's understandable). Now I have no competition, so to speak, and well...I'll see how it goes from there.

Item 3 - The Topic at Hand : Can Men and Women Just Be Friends
Interperetation 1 : Before/Avoiding Entering Sex into the Relationship - To quote George Carlin: "What are you, ing stupid?"(no insult intended) Of course a man and a woman can be good friends without having sex enter into it. Of course there may(or is likely to) be some sexual attraction, it's a general consensus that once you do something sexual in a relationship, that relationship is changed for good. Avoiding this is something that most men are able to do, the thing is wanting to avoid it. Just to comment, REAL men aren't the ones who crush beer cans against their foreheads, bench 350, and screw everything in sight. Real men are the men who can control themselves, who have this little thing that I like to call Willpower/Self-Control. If you can simply say to yourself "This is wrong. I want to avoid this. I WANT TO, but it's not worth it.", you should have no problem.

Interperetation 2 : Post-Breakup - Honestly, maybe this is because the only info I get in this aspect is from the average teen in middle-class New Jersey, but....no. While I'm not so stupid as to think that once a couple breaks up they are AUTOMATICALLY going to HATE one another with a VENGEANCE for the REST of their LIVES!*pant pant*....I've seen that post-serious relationship friendship is more elusive than a pudgy Hawaiian man pushing a fruit cart in the middle of the Gobi Desert. Lets face it, if you've exchanged bodliy fluids with someone for a prolonged length of time(outside of a blood transfusion), the tone of that relationship is permanently altered. Once that tone is set, you can't go back to the past and become simple friends. There is always a sense of unease between the two. It may be as extreme as stated above, or it could be as simple as taking the position that having had love between the two of you, neither of you is comfortable having less than that. It's all or nothing. In either case, I don't think so, post-relationship.


Just a bit regarding me since we're on this topic. I'm the type of guy who simply HAS to commit before getting serious, so to speak. I don't go for quickies, one-night stands, etc. If I'm going to be that intimate with a woman, I need to be intimate in all the other aspects of a relationship. I don't know how many other guys are like that, but that's just what I'm like. Bonus to my mindset : My woman will never have to worry about me being faithful.

*cracks knuckles, wrists, flexes elbows, shakes arms, twists shoulders* ANGCURU HAVE SORE HANDS! Need rest! Go get Iced Tea!

EDIT - small edit for profanity filter circumnavigation. Otherwise, very insightful post. - Henry

 

[Ravellion]

Origianlly said by Chris Rock on Stand Up America:
"WHAT'S cool about women is, women get to have platonic friends. Men don't have platonic friends. We have women we haven't f****d YET."

Actaully though, it is rare, but it happens IMO. The woman not being sexually attractive to me is definitely somewhat of a requisite.

 

[s/LaSH]

Having not read most of the thread, I'll say this:

Straight guy here.

I've had female friends. I've had male friends. I don't believe I've treated them any differently, except that I've never been kissed on the cheek by male friends, and that's not my fault.

I don't think I've particularly thought about, ahem, intimate matters concerning friends of either gender either. At least not in an imbalanced fashion. It's impossible to excise it entirely, especially when your brain is as rampant as mine (which has made for some pretty frightening moments in the past), but I was brought up to be respectful and thus I can't really objectify someone I respect enough to have as a friend.

Now there's a problem here - I've never had a girlfriend.

 

[Dragongirl]

Hehe, it is threads like this that I wish there as an age field under location for people.

 

[WisdomLikeSilence]

Wow. Some very good comments in this thread. Special props to Eric Noah, Pielorinho, and Barsoomcore for arguing my beliefs for me.

Here’s my take.

1) It is indeed possible for a man and a woman to be friends without any sexual tension at all. Some of my oldest buddies are men, and sex has simply never been an issue.

Let me add that I do indeed exchange backrubs (and sometimes full body massages) with some of my male friends. If I’m not touchy-feely with an old friend, it’s likely to be because I’m sensitive to their comfort level, and not because I don’t distinguish between physical affection and sexual intimacy.

2) On the occasions where there is a little sexual tension, it doesn’t mean that you’re not friends. Acknowledged or not, a level of attraction doesn’t need to change a friendship at all. Whether with an ex or an old friend, you can ignore the desire and move on to simply enjoying their company. Or you can decide to enjoy flirting with each other as just another fun way to interact.

3) Even if you sleep with each other, it doesn’t mean that you’re not friends. I was intimate several times with a friend in college, and it barely rippled our friendship. The friendship was the important part, the sex was mostly incidental. Haven’t you ever heard the term ****buddies?

4) Relationships are complicated and sex is messy. Love isn’t always reciprocated. Neither is desire. You can’t always stay friends with your ex. Sometimes friends end up falling in love or lust. But the fact that this happens in no way precludes the possibility of 1, 2, or 3 happening instead.

Let me say that again. Relationships of any kind are complicated and varied. But if that means anything, it means that you can build good friendships with those you want to be friends with, regardless of gender or level of attraction.

-WLS

 

[Angcuru]

Hehe, it is threads like this that I wish there as an age field under location for people. - Dragongirl

Then I shall be the first to step up and offer unto you the number of years I have spent living on this little blue globe of ours. 17 .

 

[Guilt Puppy]

Guys, give your female friend a massage, do the same for your male friend. With the same hand movements and tensity.

Generally most people won't, because a lot of people are uncomfortable with homosexuality... Even if you're comfortable with it, your male friend might not be, so you generally don't go into that awkward territory. Likewise, sometimes people of either gender just aren't comfortable with affection from friends in general.

How affectionate I am toward people depends more on what they are comfortable with than it does with their gender.

Do all the other little flirty things with your female friends, then see if you can do them with your male friends and see if it isn't weird.

I think you might have a broader definition of "little flirty things" than I do... I don't do much that I'd consider flirtatious with female friends.

If it is, then I think you have a different relationship other than "friend" with your girl "friends" there.

If it seems weird, it may have nothing to do with your relationship to female friends. In fact, if it seems weird, I'd say it probably has more to do with some degree of homophobia (not necessarily a hostile form so much as a discomfort with it.)

Now ladies, here is a test for you. Go up to any one of your guy friends and tell them (make it sincere) that you want them. Basically come on to them, and see if they go for it. If they do, then they are certainly more than "friends".

I've had it happened. In cases where I wasn't interested in being more than friends, I didn't "go for it."

If they succeed these tests it means one of two things. Either they are married (and very committed), or gay.

Once again, I'd like to point out that what you're talking about has more to do with latent homophobia than some sort of universal attraction that heterosexual men have toward all females.

 

[Tsyr]

I'm sort of with Uzumaki...

I'm early twenties, strait, and male. If my college peers are any gauge to go by, I should be having sex left and right. But honestly, It's happened a couple times, but ya know? Really, realisticly, I could see living my life and never having sex again and not actualy having a considerably worse life. It's just not something that really drives me one way or 'tuther. I really have no interest in it.

I have several friends... I actualy think I have a friend who falls on every concievable aspect of the sexuality line (Gay and strait friends of both genders, and an "other" in there too, without being too specific for this thread)... honestly, I don't think I treat any of them really any different, except that I do tend to be a bit old-fashioned in some ways... IE, hold doors for women and stuff... but that's more how I was brought up than any deep-seated need to do so.

I mean, honestly, maybe I'm defective, but I would place a good friendship *far* above sex... And the latter can destroy the former, so it's just not worth it for me, even if I did care one way or another.

And the strange part is, I have a girlfriend that I love quite deeply, so it's not like I'm completely disfunctional. She actualy feels exactly the same way, which is the strange part... does mean we are well suited for each other, though. I mean, we hold hands, kiss, cuddle, things like that, but sex? Eh. By mutual consent we've decided to just take things as they come, and they haven't, so...