Can a girl and a lad just be mates?

JayZeus wrote: »

Play it down all you want but guaranteed there were times when he wanted it to be more than that. You can’t be 7 forever.

The dynamic of your relationship with him changed because you got married. That closed a door in a sense and you’re likely greatly overestimating how close you really are now or indeed have been in the past.

I reckon it’s common enough to be fair. I wonder how many women realise it though?

Yeah you know better than us womens.

You have literally zero evidence that the guy wanted to be more than friends with gogo.

Men aren't always sex mad willing to get up on any woman at all. There are women whom they don't fancy and can be friends with.

Even people who fancy the other person can still be just friends with them - it's not ideal but where's the rule that they can't be friends still?

And there's a difference between sexually attracted to and in love with. The latter would be pretty painful and likely doom the friendship, but the former would be gotten over in time.

completedit wrote: »

Where's this thing about men being sex mad from? Men are the more hopelessly romantic of the two sexes. The guy definitely at one stage had some romantic feelings, maybe strong ones.

Definitely? Where is the evidence of this? He may have, he may not.

(I said men *aren't* always sex mad).

I think so, yes, or at least I find it to be possible. And it doesn't mean that I think the guy is sexually unattractive, I usually do in fact think that they are wonderful, because it is all part of the whole person. A brilliant mind or a kind heart is incredibly attractive, which is a feeling naturally infused with some amount of eros, as is every zest for life. Though one has every possibility of just letting that be the simple truth and not dwelling or acting on it.

I have very few close friends and a couple are men. It is a sisterly affection for them - philia, though I can acknowledge quite readily their attractive maleness, their difference to me - eros. What's the problem with that? It's not like one is a hapless bundle of unrestrained reflexes - surely maturity is about balancing.

My husband works closely with lovely lassies in his job and they are very friendly with each other, he will phone them before me if their expertise in a professional area is what he needs. And sometimes just for a nice chat and a bit of craic. And it would be mad to think that he does not notice their loveliness, of course he does. Human beings are often quite adorable. He does, just as I notice my male friends are lovely in many possible ways. And yet we manage to not self-combust with those realities. Fnck sake, that's life.