I was just reading a very interesting article in the Sunday Times abt this. In a nutshell, the author said that platonic relationships are very difficult to maintain between people of opposite sex, as sexual fantasies/tensions invariably come into play - consciously or sub consciously - something abt our primal desires to mate with the opposite sex.
Some of my best friends are females - but the above is not true in my case, my primal desires are errr....ummm...somewhat different
with slappy here, can skwerl and the ese be far behind?
at least if skwerl's here, certain persons will stop asking if i'm him
"Can they be JUST Friends?" you ask. Hmm...I suppose it depends on your definition of "Friends."
Women may want to be "just friends", but do men?
friends are pretty dammed important - why are we saying"just" anyway?
Psst, welcome Slappy!
I understand you're from Bruges, Belgium. And your stepmother has webbed feet. And something about shaving intimate areas. Hmmm....
That is correct. And sometimes, my father would accuse chestnuts of being lazy.
So, my question is: why do sexual tensions mean a guy and a girl aren't friends? I've had plenty of male friends, at times more male than female friends. Sometimes there's sexual tension one way or another, but that hasn't broken up many friendships. And, usually, as time marches on, the tensions subside.
Great point, littlek. Tension doesn't negate friendship.
I've had both happen; tension dissolving, tension getting worse to the point where "just" friendship isn't acceptable. That's the kind I hate.
Yep, the second is harder.
Based on my experience, the male-female platonic friendship is a lot easier to achieve once one is a bit older. When I was young, it always seeme to be: Hey, we get along well, why don't we sleep together? Seemed like a logical question.
Now that the hormones have, ahem, abated somewhat, it's not such a burning issue. Still comes up, but reason usually prevails before the friendship is threatened...
Well, D'artagnan, I found out - when I was younger ;-) - that sleeping with a 'friend' didn't necessarily mean the end of the friendship. It was just like 'Ok, we did this, it was nice, now I know you even better'.
Of course, this does not go for all relationships.
Agreed urs53, and some of my best friends right now are ex-girl friends. In fact, I've lately opined that the best part of a romance is having a new friend after the break-up!
That never worked for me...I don't speak with any girls I've gone out with anymore. Not always bad break ups, but the "friend" thing just doesn't pan out.
Maybe it's because they've all moved far, far, away, after dating me?
Yeah, I can't quite imagine being too friendly with exes. I have some friends who used to be in the tension-convention category, but they (or I, or both) got over it without anything happening.
One of them has to be ugly or gay.
Hey everyone... I think a lot fo this depends on the place you're at in your life. For instance in college I was dating this guy who was very good friend with a female friend from HS. At first I was cool with this but once they got in a fight and she was pretty awful to him. They didn't talk for a while and later tried to renew their friendship. I said I thought it was a bad idea based on the fact that she had treated him so poorly but I am sure much more of my feelings came out of insecurity. Through this same time in my life I had a very good male friend and our friendship was complicated as we both had feelings for each other that we wouldn't voice and I was too scared to leave the safe sure thing boyfriend and take a chance on this guy. Needless to say I was scared I would cheat on my boyfriend and broke off my friendship which I regret to this day. I've tried to get in touch with this guy many times and he doesn't seem responsive to rekindling our friendship. I think at this point in my lfie (19 yo to early 20's) I just wasn't capable of handling this. Later on in life I had many guy friends. Many of these friendhips have faded as I moved away but I really miss them. They were a great group. They were very chivalrous never letting me pay for anything and always making sure I got home ok. They were very protective and a ton more fun than most of the girls I knew.
I'm friends witha couple exes, most have faded out of my life. One I want to kill still.
