Can women and men be friends?

[fictional_character]

From a male perspective ¿Would it be beneficial to be friends with a woman to train your social skills with girls? Or it get's too tricky, especially if it's a hot girl?

[Preety_India]

I've never believed that true friendship can exist between a man and a woman. It's hard. Because most men try to hit on the girl in the name of friends or there's some cold tension going on. 

I had many instances where the guys who I befriended began to touch me inappropriately(one guy who I considered my friend awkwardly placed his hands on my thighs) and some of them began to text me sexy things. So I had to stay away from them after the sexual pressure began to escalate. 

Then I was a bit careful about being friends with men. It looks okay initially but later turns into a mess. 

Guys are weak at control. 

 

[Jodistrict]

My ex wife is now my best friend. 

[Preety_India]

Just now, Knowledge Hoarder said:

Yeah, I'd say that cold tension is kind of a requirement for men/female friendships to work - since you're both trying to not escalate things further, and not send out signals that could be interpreted as a signs of attraction by the other side. So, there's always gonna be a kind of cold war between men/women friendships - just a nature of that dynamic.

Which is why gay men and women tend to be actual, genuine friends a lot more - since there's no attraction that could spoil the friendship.

Nevertheless, the OP asked if it was POSSIBLE to have female friends as a straight male, and the answer is, of course, yes - under a certain set of conditions.

Yes I agree wholeheartedly. 

[soos_mite_ah]

I personally see it as a red flag if a guy can't just be friends with women. 

[mivafofa]

I seriously WISH to believe it's also possible from a male perspective to see us as friends... but I've lost just too many guy friends because they couldn't see us the same way I did.  Especially having a guy best friend, it's almost impossible, always short lived. They always eventually want more or try to touch you.   The only men that stayed friends long term were either gay or men already in a committed relationship. 

[aurum]

2 hours ago, fictional_character said:

From a male perspective ¿Would it be beneficial to be friends with a woman to train your social skills with girls? Or it get's too tricky, especially if it's a hot girl?

It’s extremely rare that people pull this off.

Usually when you see men and women as friends, one of them doesn’t actually want to be friends. Most likely the man.

I’ve also seen it where too many friendships with the opposite sex can put strain on a monogamous relationship. People start getting jealous.

That said, if you can pull it off, I think it’s beautiful. I love having female friends. They’re fun to be around and usually very supportive. They can also help out your dating life massively if you’re a single guy.

[mivafofa]

7 minutes ago, aurum said:

I’ve also seen it where too many friendships with the opposite sex can put strain on a monogamous relationship. People start getting jealous.

That's so true.. 

8 minutes ago, aurum said:

That said, if you can pull it off, I think it’s beautiful. I love having female friends. They’re fun to be around and usually very supportive. They can also help out your dating life massively if you’re a single guy.

and I absolutely LOVE my connection with male friends so much when it works! (in the beginning..)  Guy friends tend to be more direct, chill, laid back, non-judgmental, low-maintenance & hilarious. I feel so great around them! .. while it lasts

[Federico del pueblo]

You can be friends with girls, but it does get hard if they are really your type/hot etc.

This works better if they are taken, like this you have a good moral reason to not hit on them.

[jongsijs]

Of course they can be friends! As a man, I feel I can learn so much from women and I really love female energy in my life, not necessarily on a sexual level. I feel often women are way more emotionally developed than men. Read, often, not always  Finally, I believe it is the responsibility of the person realizing he or she is getting more attracted to communicate this in a respectful way and then see what the other person wants. If I personally would be too attracted, some distance may be necessary, when the other person does not want to intensify the relationship. That's life. 

[Nightwise]

Maybe men and women can be friends up until a certain point. If there is polarity (which there almost inevitably always is), either these two persons should see each other very infrequently in person (not more than a couple of times per year, I'd say), if it all. Or these people agree (preferably from the very beginning) upon having certain set roles in their relationship to one another. For instance, a client and a therapist of the opposite sex may experience polarized attraction towards one another, but they agree upon not acting upon that because otherwise the professional relationship would get really weird and skewed. If they can manage, at least.

I have a female 'friend' in my friends' group whom I actually really like not just in a sexual way but also for her soul, so to speak, but I deliberately choose to not meet with her in private even for activities that would generally be seen as 'innocent' (such as swimming) because she has a boyfriend in the same friend group, and it might really skew with the dynamics if I were to start seeing her privately for certain activitities. It makes me actually uncertain of what to do right now, because on one hand I have the desire to just meet her to go swimming or something and chat up with her a little bit just to talk about how things are going and how things have been going the past few months, but even meeting with her very infrequently (not more than a few times per year) feels already like a break of my personal integrity to me because of the boyfriend she has. I may not intend to get anything started between us, but just the very seeing of each other in private and the bonding may cause it so that certain emotions may start to happen or intensify and become problematic. I would actually really dig having a sexual relationship with her but because she's taken out of integrity I won't interfere and I will look elsewhere.

After all, she prior to the boyfriend she has right now used to have another boyfriend in the same friend group (let's call him guy A). Then she started to get feelings for guy B, but she didn't want to cheat or be disloyal to guy A and she got really conflicted about it because she couldn't just turn off her attraction towards guy B. She eventually decided that she wanted to talk about it with guy A not to state that she was going to be with guy B but just to confess that she had feelings towards guy B, in which guy A became very upset and even hostile instead of feeling compassionate for her situation, and eventually it all span out of control and guy A eventually left the friends' group and all attempts to reestablish contact with him (at least for what I tried) ended up failing.

It's funny because she's the only girl in our friend group consisting of only dudes but her. I see the potential trouble here but my friends don't really want to admit that and want to act like it's all fine like this because of the feminist conditioning that supposes that all of this should be perfectly fine and problemless.

I think part of the reason why I prefer to be polyamorous is because of that monogamous relationships are really hard to remain loyal to if they don't have a very strong grounding in a virtuous or higher cause. It's a bit unfortunate that monogamy is assumed to be the default even for very young people who simply naturally have a much deeper yearning to have a wide array of sexual experiences instead of having a deep experience with on particular person. It's actually really hard to remain monogamous for a man when a really attractive woman starts hitting on him, or when he starts bonding with his attractive female coworker. On the same note, it's really hard for a woman to remain loyal to a man when a more high-value man comes around and starts hitting on her because of her biological wiring to be hypergamous. When the relationship between the two monogamous partners isn't going well, it's all too easy and convenient for them to divert from their ideal of loyalty out of wanting to feel love(d) and desire(d) or even just for the sake of revenge.

That's why two partners should only choose to be monogamous if their reasons why are very clear and grounded. Monogamy should be chosen consciously; It shouldn't be the default IMO.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Nightwise

[vizual]

Only mature men and women can be friends. If one of them is immature it will eventually lead to problems. That's why, usually, you see a distinct divide between boys and girls in high school. In university it's a little less. And if everything went well and both the man and the woman have matured they can work, and be friends, as equals when they are adults. 

Of course some people never grow up, even when they reached the adult age. So things like jealousy, power games, lust and possesiveness come into play and destroy the possible friendship.

Edited February 22, 2022 by vizual

[PurpleTree]

i think it's not that easy to have great, lasting, deep friendships anyway, men or women

 

but men and women can be friends sure

[Karmadhi]

As long as there is not sexual attraction from either part then yes.

I have really really good female friends that i love just as much as my guy friends.

However guys make the mistake of being stuck in a friendship with a girl they like, that is a huge mistake which i have personally made in the past and it is not a good choice in my opinion.

But if you started as just friends from the start, then super doable.

[integral]

Sister

Edited February 22, 2022 by integral

[somegirl]

Yes, I have male best friend. But we've known each other since we were both kids.

I also have lots of gay male friends.

Other than that... I wasn't able to stay friends with other straight guys since becoming an adult. I almost always feel when they want more than friendships.  

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by somegirl

[Loba]

No.

A "male friend" is someone who just didn't pass the tests and is sticking around anyways.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Loba

[PurpleTree]

1 hour ago, Loba said:

No.

A "male friend" is someone who just didn't pass the tests and is sticking around anyways.

how about liking someone for the person they are though

wether they're male, female or whatevs?

[Loba]

@PurpleTree I would/did, but they wanted more or I did.  Male/female friendships rarely ever pan out for a long time, unless the two people are both already in a relationship, sometimes that can work.

[Gesundheit2]

There's a saying in my culture that says when a man is alone with a woman there's always a devil between them.