Male female friendships

annaindundalk

Hi everyone
This may be an old debated topic but anyhow here it is again.
Do you believe in friendships between a male and female? If so what type of friendship? If not how come?

Katgurl

It's too vague to answer properly but yes I do.

What is your personal experience or reason for asking?

MommySquish

annaindundalk wrote: »

Hi everyone
This may be an old debated topic but anyhow here it is again.
Do you believe in friendships between a male and female? If so what type of friendship? If not how come?

I personally do. But it can be very messy. I am a woman, and have had mostly male friends due to hobbies. I am completely oblivious to people fancying me. I'm not pretty, I'm painfully average, to the point I sometimes get extremely insecure. However, I have confidence in spades. I'm outgoing, outspoken, get along with lots of people and fit to any group. In short, I'm likeable to most.

However, more often than not, I've had close male friends profess their love. It makes me feel awkward and disgusting. It's horrible and I genuinely wish people just.... Wouldn't. I'm in a long term relationship (and married) to my SO. Yeah, I have issues with him from time to time, but never 'leave him' issues.

I do have a few male friends which are strictly platonic on both sides. And thats exactly how it will stay. No boundaries crossed. Ever. Thankfully.

In short, it depends. But it is very difficult. And extremely hurtful to know someone doesn't actually want your friendship.

LoMismo

I don’t have any close female friends personally but some kinds of friendships are possible alright. If one or both of you are in a relationship there are some boundaries that I think should be respected, although not everyone adheres to them and it can cause problems.
I’ve known a few pretty girls who only hung around with guys because they “don’t get on with women”. The girls in question seemed to just love having these guys do anything they wanted for them because they were basically in love with the girl. My last girlfriend was one of these, even while she was with me a couple of her “friends” confessed their love for her which she rebuked. Wrecked my head of course.
As a bloke I’d go nuts if all my friends were women but I do love female company all the same, but you just can’t have the same type of friendship as you can with your own sex, well I can’t anyway.

khaldrogo

Only if neither party fancies the other..........no other scenario works in the end

Annabanana23

Yeah, it's possible.
I have lots of male and female friends. Maybe it helps that I'm engaged and therefore off limits? I don't know

Airyfairy12

It depends, both people have to be on the same page. One of my longest and closest friends is a straight male, nothing has ever come close to happening between us and it never would. It would be like flirting with my cousin *vom

That said ive had male friends who it turned out wanted something more.. they pretended to be friends with me in the hopes it would lead to sex or relationships and when it didn't they became possessive, nasty and rude.

Really it depends on the situation and people involved but Id say mostly yes.

FizzleSticks

This post has been deleted.

kylith

I’m female and have male friends. Some I know have had a crush on me, some i’ve had a crush on. As long as all parties are mature enough to behave like adults when they know the other person isn’t interested it’s fine.

There is no reason that men and women cannot be friends.

mojesius

I have male friends who I grew up with - in gang of female and male friends. Might have been the odd flirt/kiss when we were much younger but once in our 20s and a bit wiser, those indiscretions stopped. In our 30s now and still close friends (with less time!) ,with young families etc. In my experience anyway, it's totally possible.

LoMismo

kylith wrote: »

I’m female and have male friends. Some I know have had a crush on me, some i’ve had a crush on. As long as all parties are mature enough to behave like adults when they know the other person isn’t interested it’s fine.

There is no reason that men and women cannot be friends.

You just listed reasons why they can’t be friends! I’ve never had friends of the same sex make things complicated by having crushes on me but a female friend once told me she loved me when she was drunk and that was the end of that relationship.

suicide_circus

Depends on the people involved but mostly, no, it dosnt work. Evidence for this? "The lads" and "the girls". In traditional societies the genders and largely separate and only come together to..eh..come together. This whole men and women being friends lark is an extremely recent phenomenon.

silverharp

there is a huge "it depends" but if I was going to give advice to my kids it would be to focus on cultivating friends of their own gender in school as they are most likely where your lifelong friends will come from and kind of ditto with college.

Ursus Horribilis

Anna, why are you not giving us more information? It's such a generic question I can't see how any answer you're getting can be of any use to you. Are you or your other half having issues with such friendships? What is the problem?

memorystick

It's just not possible. Sex is the ultimate goal. End of.

JackTaylorFan

Almost every man I've tried being friends with (who wasn't gay) gave me the distinct impression that they wanted more. Even when I would make it clear from the get-go that it was never gonna happen. And even though I enjoyed their company for a time, I found myself often having to ignore obvious flirtatious behaviour and suggestive comments from them - often having to laugh it off and quickly change subject.
But inevitably, after a while, their attention would become overbearing and rather possessive especially when they noted my interest in other guys - be it romantic or not, on my part. I don't know why; I never led any of them on, but I do feel they became resentful of me nonetheless and after a while eventually just disappeared from my life. No explanation, no nothing. Texts would just stop. All communication, just stop. They just got fed-up trying it on, I suppose.

Most of these guys would have been single - but a few have also been partnered or married. The pattern with attached guys is usually a little bit more ambiguous at first - but eventually you end up knowing what they want without them being as direct.

I don't really trust straight men anymore because of this - they rarely want to be just friends.

gaynorvader

Yeah, I have many female friends, not as many as I do male friends, but still. Some I had feelings for in the past, when I asked them out they told me they weren't interested so I just stopped looking at them in that way. I don't really get the whole problem people have with friends of the opposite gender tbh. Do gay people have problems maintaining platonic friendships with friends of the same gender?

It's possible I think in some cases that men act extra nice to a woman they find attractive and then when she rejects him, he stops acting extra nice and she interprets this as him being resentful. I've noticed this happening a few times in the past, plus the unrequited love from either side, which is awkward for everybody.

JackTaylorFan

gaynorvader wrote: »

It's possible I think in some cases that men act extra nice to a woman they find attractive and then when she rejects him, he stops acting extra nice and she interprets this as him being resentful.

So in that scenario the men act in an artificial manner, expecting something in return (i.e. sex or/and relations)) and when they realise they aren't gonna get it they completely change their attitude to this person who has done nothing wrong - yeah, at no point was that a relationship based on mutual friendship. It was one person being genuine and the other being a bit creepy/sexist/assholey .

Neyite

Mod:

Hi there. This forum is for asking advice on an issue personal to you. If you want to start off a general discussion I can move it to somewhere like After Hours or The Ladies Lounge if you like. For now I'll close it so just message one of the mods if you want it moved