Can men and women be "just friends"?

That was exactly what I was going to suggest.

Depending on Mike's reaction when Stacy asks for the wife and him to come over for dinner, she'll have her answer.

right eoe, my first thought was Harry & Sally too.
look how that ended up.




Just friends
Lovers no more
Just friends
But not like before
To think of what we've been
And not to kiss again
Seems like pretending
It isn't the ending
Two friends
Drifting apart
Two friends
But one broken heart
We loved we laughed we cried
Then suddenly love died
The story ends
And we're
Just friends
We loved we laughed and we cried
Then suddenly love died
The story ends
And we're
Just friends

well the stats suggest that Stacey is in fact the one thinking something of it



http://www.metronews.ca/vancouver/comment/article/304212--forbidden-fruit

http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/do-single-women-seek-attached-men/

Very interesting! I made this suggestion to Stacey and she's going to ask Mike & wife out for a drink... can't wait to hear his reaction!

I have to admit ehBeth, that I do tend to think that Stacey may be a little interested, or at least curious (though she denies it). Those statistics are VERY interesting aren't they?
Kind of sad too...

I was quite startled when I heard those numbers this morning.

I've always thought that the anecdotal evidence about men being horndogs was overstated, but this adds a new dimension to my thinking on the subject.

It IS startling ehBeth! Both articles were really quite interesting (and very surprising too). Sadly, I have always assumed it was the guy thinking with his 'you know what'... now I feel kind of guilty! I guess both sexes are less sensitive than I hoped!
You learn something new every day...

I often agree with eoe, but not this time.

Perhaps she is right if all that is going on is lust or bust. Well, I'll back off - that is often all that is going on.

okayyyyy????

eh?

Some relationships can work out as friendships later.
























































































































































































































































































































































































































































.0

Of COURSE men and women can be friends1 I see it all the time. I have lots of male friends.

But Stacey and Mike did not have that kind of relationship. It was smoldering from the start. Just never quite caught on fire.

He is not available (hello!!?? he's married!!) so either include the wife in all this or forget it.

It's funny that this thread came up.

Yesterday a co-worker who works at another location came to my office for a meeting.
I took one look at her and asked "what's wrong?"

She looked exhausted, eyes red, depressed body language. I thought it was her back problem flaring up.

She said "Oh Chai, it's Jon (her son) and Mary (his wife). They came to the house over the weekend, and Jon says he's thinking about divorce." Her main concern was their children.
Anyway, as she talked she said "you know, we just went through this a few months ago with Eddie (other son) and Patty (his wife). They patched things up but they really went through a rough time.

Patty saw calls on Eddie phone that were from an old girlfriend, from long before Eddie and Patty met. Eddie tried to tell her that old girlfriend was just calling "as a friend", but in Patty's judgement, there were far too many of those calls on the phone.

I am quite sure patching things up involved no more calls from "friends" like her.

Things like this do not just effect the immediate couple, but can, if it goes to far, end up screwing up the parenting, the relationship with their parents, other real friends, and on and on.

I've said this before, but I'm going to get on my soapbox for a minute.

It's extremely short sighted and stupid to think that, in this case, the wife is just being a mean controlling bitch by not letting her husband behave in such a way.
I'm a Wife. That's with a capital W.

I'm not just some minor detail to be pushed aside in the mind of some other woman that feels like calling and chatting with my Husband (with a capital H).

We are husband and wife....but we are also Husband and Wife. I don't know about other couples, but don't think for a minute I don't realize I have higher place in the relationship than any friend, current or past, or even family, with the exception his child.

Mike's wife has every right to know miss chippy is calling her husband.

Well she's not interested him in that way, she just wanted to catch up because she hadn't talked to him in a long time...

well then, she can talk to him in front of his wife.

I definitely agree with you Chai, that Husband and Wife trump any other relationship (other than children of course) in people's lives. Or at least they SHOULD. However, I do think that in some cases, people just aren't happily married. I'm not speaking for Mike and his wife, because I do not know either of them at all, I'm just speaking in generalities. I truly believe through personal experience and close friends' experiences that happily married people don't just chat up their exes all the time. I believe that if someone is having a new "relationship" with an ex or any other member of the opposite sex for that matter while married, there are marital problems to begin with. In other words, the problems did not start with the contact they're having with the "other party" (not spouse)they were mostly likely pre-existing. I will also say that if you are not happy in a marriage, you should probably seperate before getting involved with someone else, to avoid hurting your partner further! In my friend's case, she did not call him, he called her. She initially sent him a short email just to touch base. Now that she knows he is married, she has decided that she will not call him... if he calls her, that's his decision to make.

She didn't know he was married before she emailed him... he called her. Now that she knows, she has decided she won't make contact. If he contacts her, that's his decision.

Pre-existing problems does not mean it would be understandable that one of the spouses takes up with someone else.
Every marriage has problems at one time or another. Every married couple goes through at least one rough patch in their marriage.
The automatic response to not being happy at a particular time is not to separate. Much can be said for sticking it out, and working through it. Other people, knowingly or not, can kick up dirt that wasn't even noticed.

I believe it was foolish of your friend, and a cop out on her part to say that she didn't realize her ex boyfriend was married.
Most people, at least at some point in their life, is married. It would have been a far safer assumption on her part to realize that a grown man will have gotten himself a wife after their relationship ended.

It's also foolish to just say that it's his decision to make as to if he calls her.

If he does, she needs to have already decided what her action will be. If she doesn't want to be potentially responsible for a lot of pain, she needs to tell him, if he does call, that she would be glad to meet his wife, and is looking foward to it.

Ha, sorry about that big gap in the post back there.

And sometimes the problem is not so much in the marriage but in the married person. Immaturity, ego, sexual and emotional issues, there are people who screw around outside of marriage for a variety of reasons which have absolutely nothing to do with their marriage or their spouse.

good point eoe.

Go rent a movie called 'When Harry Met Sally' it's one of my favorites and Billy Crystal pretty much sums up your question. After everything is said and done I've found out that this is usually true.

Sorry, I did not read all of the responses so I hope I am not being repetitive.