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

[Mathew_Freeman]

Nah, that doesn't count. It is the same reason I excluded married people. Sure, they are just as capable of flirting and going further with their "friend", but there are consequences. I'm talking about a friend, that you've known for more than 10 minutes at a party, and where you are both consensual and there are no immediate consequences (such as their husbands finding out or them accusing you of taking advantage of them in the morning).

Emphasis added...

Well, if we're both consensual then it's going to happen, isn't it? That's what it means. But I have the choice whether I consent to it or not, and in some cases, no, I wouldn't go with a friend, regardless of any immediate consequences, because a) I don't like the thought of long term consequences and b) I'm a coward when it comes to these things

 

[The Sigil]

Ok, so these women, who are married, that you are friend with... Would you take one of them to the movies? Lets assume your wife had plans one night, and one of your female friends husbands was also busy. Do you think your wife and your friends husband would mind if just you two went to the movies together (maybe to see When Harry Met Sally)? And be honest...

I can be perfectly honest... no, they wouldn't mind. How do I know? Because it's come up. Several times. We've gone to movies, lunch, and other stuff. Similarly, I've trusted my wife when the tables are turned.

It comes down to, I guess, my definition of friendship. Friendship, to me, is having someone whose well-being you care about and whose company you enjoy. Plain and simple, sex and other such things do not enter into it... being friends with someone because of the potential for sex seems more, well, like selfishness than friendship.

But lest you think this is only because I'm married, I again refer you to the example of high school. I've always been like this - from high school on, I went on lots of dates with "friends" for no reason other than to just "hang out." Throughout HS and college, there were dozens of girls whom I went to the movies with or had lunch or dinner with whom I was friends with and the expectation was simply, "we'll see a good movie" or "we'll have a nice meal and/or chat" and nothing else (on both sides). It's quite possible.

I have to agree with Eric and some of the others - I believe you have a much greater deal of control over your emotions and hormones than some would like to think. I am a firm believer that "no one ever just 'falls in love' - they are looking to fall in love if they do."

Different mindset, I guess. I have never really seen women much as objects to gratify sexual desires. I have seen them as humans... and with that viewpoint, being friends w/o tension is easy. Though I would agree wholeheartedly with Teflon Billy... a "friendship" where one "friend" is entertaining thoughts of a... um... carnal nature and the other one isn't IS a recipe for disaster. I think once you stop objectifying someone, you can be friends without any problems (or if you don't objectify them in the first place). By the same token, I would suggest that you really can't have a friendship with someone you objectify. My wife and I do have a relationship a notch higher than friendship (obviously, we have 2 kids! LOL!) but I don't see her as a means to objectify my desires. She's not "mine" to do with as I please. Intercourse refines and uplifts our friendship, it's not the end-all-be-all. The important thing is the relationship; the sex is a "side benefit" that is not required (though it is nice) - trust me, with 2 little kids, there's precious little time alone for my wife and myself (our anniversary on Monday consisted of cleaning the house and wiping blurped up milk from our not-quite-two-month-old's chin), yet our relationship is growing stronger, not weaker.

I think, really, the question is, "how do you see sex?" Is it an end in and of itself and is the friendship a means to that end? Or is it a means to expression of true devotion and a higher level of friendship. If you see it as an end, you'll have a tough time with friends of the opposite sex. If you see it as a means to a different end, you won't - because I have no intention of getting to the "end" of expressing true devotion and a higher level of friendship to anyone but my wife.

--The Sigil

 

[krunchyfrogg]

It's possible to just be friends, without any sexual tension at all.

Unfortunately for me, that only works if I find the female unattractive.

 

[Pielorinho]

Notice, Riga, how you're having to qualify your position more and more in order to hold onto it. If I understand your current position, it's this:

"Men and women can't be friends who aren't attracted to one another unless they aren't attracted to one another or are married."

Is that right? Because if it is, you can leave out the "unless they're married" bit.

I've had lots of female friends in my life that I've not been involved with. Some of them I've been attracted to; some of them I would've been attracted to if circumstances were different. But I'd still hang out with my female friends just like I'd hang out with my male friends.

If one of us were attracted to the other one, then sure, there was an extra dynamic to the relationship. So? I've also had friendships where one person thought the other person was cooler than they were, or where one person loved hearing the other person play music, or where one person deferred on political matters to the other person, or where one person had a radically different religious bent than the other person. All of these also added different dynamics to the relationship.

Attraction, whether it's male-female, male-male, or female-female, will add an extra layer to a friendship in which it occurs. But that's just a truism, not a particularly interesting insight.

Daniel

 

[Henry]

I'm talking about a friend, that you've known for more than 10 minutes at a party, and where you are both concentual and there are no immediate consequences (such as their husbands finding out or them accusing you of taking advantage of them in the morning).

Rigamortus, once you put several conditional modifiers on the situation, then it is naturally going to lead to something further. You just described how I met my wife in the first place. We had been friends for years in high school; however, we met back up a few years after she and I had finished other relationships, we started dating, and things went straight to marriage.

1) We were friends, and would tolerate one another for more than 10 minutes.

2) We were physically attracted to one another.

3) We had a lot in common emotionally and personally.

BAM! Thoughts of marriage.

Now, had either of us been attracted, and the other not, then things likely could not have remained "just friends." Not impossible, just "not likely." There's usually too much tension, and people who DON'T quit are called stalkers. But men and women can be friends all the time - but issues of commitment and unrequited physical attraction can alter the relationship dramatically.

But people can CHOOSE to do a heck of a lot. According to Dr. Stephen Covey, it's his belief that personal choice DESPITE a stimulus is what separates human beings from animals. I do not know of any animals that will choose an alternative path despite all stimuli and instincts, except for humans. We can choose to act differently, despite hormones and urges; but the fact that many humans DON'T, gives them less credit than is actually due to human beings.

 

[KDLadage]

Yes.

I have many female friends. I have no sexual attration to them (it is not that they are unattractive, they are all very attravtive really) -- it is just that I love my wife very much and so (for me) the idea of seeing another woman in a sexual way usually -- not always, but usually -- does not occur to me.

But then, I have a history of having a blind eye for some details. For example, a very good friend of mine back in Highschool (9th grade) was very close to me and we always spent a lot of time with each other. She and I both loved Star Trek and loved to write fan fiction. One day my mother saw us together and told me I was to never see her again.

I asked her why.

My mother's response floored me and has been a source of tension for us ever since (I will be 35 years old this year). In fact, my mother and I have had very few civil words with each other in over 15 years... My mother said: "Because I want white grandbabies." It was not until that moment that it ever occured to me that my friend was black.

I mean, it is not as if I did not know what she looked like. It just never occured to me to think of her in those terms. She was my friend. Nothing else really mattered (or matters).

Now as far as my (female) friends. Some of them are, quite honestly, more (physically) attractive than my wife. My wife is niether the most (physically) "beautiful" or (physically) sexually "attractive" woman I have ever met (or even dated, for that matter).

But she is the most beautiful and sexually attractive person I have ever known. And for those that cannot understand how these two things differ -- physical and overall -- I am afraid this will make no sense, because I cannot explain it any better than that...

 

[EricNoah]

i think the most difficult thing about the situation isn't that guy is attracted to girl -- it's the fact that girl isn't attracted to guy, and that makes guy feel bad in some way. That makes the relationship seem "unbalanced" or "unequal" in some way. So maybe he's asking "can you be friends with someone who isn't living up to your expectations" or something... In order for the friendship to survive, the guy needs to change his expectations.

 

[Pielorinho]

i know a lot of hamburgers

I must shamefully admit that I no longer know any hamburgers.

Oh, wait -- was that a metaphor?

Daniel

 

[Merlion]

I probably SHOULDNT be weighing in on this but I'm going to anyway
I am gay...but I have been friends and only friends with males that I found atractive. and I know plenty of straight people who have friends of the oposite sex, who are atractive, and they remain purely friends. Now yea being friends only with someone you find physicaly atractive AND are INTERESTED IN would be very diffacult.
Also as for the controlling hormones thing...well I think this is where I have maybe some insight because of my being gay. I was in the closet for a long time..and even after I essentialy came out I was still living with my folks and forbidden from acting on my feelings in any way. And I associated with guys that I found atractive..with no real problems. Now no I wasnt often around guys I knew to be gay...but I didnt even try and find out. Some times you do lose control...but people CAN and DO control this and other urges. Which feeds back into what I said...trying to be "just friends" with someone that you want to be intimate...is going to be painful. being friends with someone whom is of the gender your atracted to that your not INTERESTED in(often even if the are atractive or visualy pleasing) is quite possible.

 

[Malcolm]

Good points of view..
Good to see this kept civil..

My 2 cents:

1.) As a psycho-biologist I'll say that the concept of basic drives is pretty much deteriorating. Humans can do many things for survival, "not having intercourse" is one of them thats easy compared to "jumping in the way of a bullet to save your friend Ray." Inherent survival of the species is a cultural/social tendency re-inforced biologically by the mind+body reaction to any situation. In other words, as some have said "I calculate my attraction based on the value of the friendship, other factors (wife, self-esteem, etc) and then decide." For some folks this is a real struggle, for some no big deal.
In the end folks are different.

2.) This is a young man's argument (or a mature woman's depending on age). Heightened testosterone levels combined with self-image and personal appetites often lead to the false mental argument that "I'd better do X now because X will never happen again!" With experience and time you come to realize, both sexes, that physical attraction is pretty much a never-ending thing. Or "There is more than one pretty face in the world, don't worry there will be more." If one were to stop and recount the number of people of the opposite-sex they have found attractive in life they should come up with roughly a 44% of the population of that sex.
Attractiveness is on a very low scale for most people, but being attracted to someone does not = "need to shag."

My views from experience: I have 3 very good female friends whom I have dated (2 seriously, 1 not so serious) and various other women I dated who I am friend/acquaintances with still.
I live with a female roommate, we are just friends. I have three good friends who are female that I have not dated, and have been somewhat attracted to but would never put the moves on.

Every situation is different, and the outcome will be different as well. Don't give up on having women as "just friends", for me my "sisters" (as I call them) have provided me with invaluable insight into both life and how to properly role-play Women.