Can women & men really be only friends?

a_uncensored

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I don't really have a ton of girlfriends to hang around with or talk to. I tend to gravitate toward friendships with guys because I am a geeky kind of tech girl and I don't mind speaking my mind.

I think some of my guy friends like that I tend to talk like they do about sex or that I am sometimes a bit flirty.

Some of them I know only see me as a friend but some I'm just not sure. The ones who I am sure are only platonic have been straight verbally about it.

My husband knows I have some online guy friends because none of my girlfriends are into the geeky stuff I am into. He's fine with that as long as it's only platonic.

So can women & men only be platonic friends and not have sex being an issue? Anyone else have any male / female friend stories?
 

SomeGuyOverThere

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Yes, of course they can... maybe I'm weird but I hang out with people because I can relate to them, not because I want to fuck them.

Off hand I have about 7 female friends or acquaintances who I have absolutely no interest in fucking and they have absolutely no interest in fucking me as far as I'm aware.
 

D_Leotols Toy

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It's very possible. All my best friends are female and always have been. I've had a few good dude friends, but the females are the ones that have stuck. Mind you, I've kissed at least more than half of them, had sex with one and otherwise flirtatious, but best friends nonetheless.

I find it way easier to talk to females for some reason. They always joke that I'm not a normal guy in the sense I actually give a shit about how they feel or what they say
 

Fleur

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I used to be like Sally...oblivious. I'm still a little bit though...
 

Wish-4-8

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Here is the one qoute that speaks more directly to your issue that was not in the last link:
Harry Burns: Would you like to have dinner?... Just friends.

Sally Albright: I thought you didn't believe men and women could be friends.

Harry Burns: When did I say that?

Sally Albright: On the ride to New York.

Harry Burns: No, no, no, I never said that... Yes, that's right, they can't be friends. Unless both of them are involved with other people, then they can... This is an amendment to the earlier rule. If the two people are in relationships, the pressure of possible involvement is lifted... That doesn't work either, because what happens then is, the person you're involved with can't understand why you need to be friends with the person you're just friends with. Like it means something is missing from the relationship and why do you have to go outside to get it? And when you say "No, no, no it's not true, nothing is missing from the relationship," the person you're involved with then accuses you of being secretly attracted to the person you're just friends with, which you probably are. I mean, come on, who the hell are we kidding, let's face it. Which brings us back to the earlier rule before the amendment, which is men and women can't be friends.

here is the link:
When Harry Met Sally... (1989) - Memorable quotes

The first link is better.
 

the_reverend

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it seems like those are two different questions to me. can men and women just be friends? of course. i have as many, if not more, super close female friends as i do male friends. without sex being an issue? i guess that depends on how you define it. if there's attraction there, then it's going to be an issue. i'm a sexual person with an active imagination, so i've thought about sex with most of my female friends at one time or another...but there's a difference between thinking/feeling it and making it an issue or the basis of your relationship. i think the problem a lot of guys have, or at least perceive, is the notion that if there is a sexual element there then it's the most important thing. and so they either give into that notion and decide they can never be friends with females, or they fight it and repress those feelings and wind up in denial which is just as bad, if not worse. i think the trick is to acknowledge it, feel what you're feeling but not necessarily act on it if you don't want to take it to the next level. fantasy has no consequences...if you move it into the realm of reality, you have to be prepared to deal with those consequences.
 

D_Petherick_Poundlouder

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it seems like those are two different questions to me. can men and women just be friends? of course. i have as many, if not more, super close female friends as i do male friends. without sex being an issue? i guess that depends on how you define it. if there's attraction there, then it's going to be an issue. i'm a sexual person with an active imagination, so i've thought about sex with most of my female friends at one time or another...but there's a difference between thinking/feeling it and making it an issue or the basis of your relationship. i think the problem a lot of guys have, or at least perceive, is the notion that if there is a sexual element there then it's the most important thing. and so they either give into that notion and decide they can never be friends with females, or they fight it and repress those feelings and wind up in denial which is just as bad, if not worse. i think the trick is to acknowledge it, feel what you're feeling but not necessarily act on it if you don't want to take it to the next level. fantasy has no consequences...if you move it into the realm of reality, you have to be prepared to deal with those consequences.

This is also true.

But because it is a big block of text, it is invalid.
 

swimmersox

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It's possible, but difficult.

If there IS attraction, either one-way or both ways, which there usually is if the people involved like each other well enough to be good friends, that attraction invariably strains the relationship. For a while, such 'strain' can be a little bit fun, but inevitably, one or the other person can't/won't want to continue on the 'friends' plane anymore. [Exception: In my experience, M-F friendships DO work sometimes when both people are very strongly and openly partnered with someone else. As in a close work colleague, or something. In such cases, the external 'restraint' of the respective committed relationships and/or the work relationship, can succeed in safely containing whatever sexual tension/attraction there may be.]

Alternatively, if there is NOT attraction, especially if it is only one of the parties who does not feel attraction, eventually the 'attracted' party will begin to feel 'rejected' and will want to get out of it.

Nature designed men and women to be sexually attracted to each other and to relate to each other that way. To try to act otherwise is running counter to what nature intended. Not to say it can't be done, just that it is almost always a large challenge.

Or, at least, such has been my own experience...
 

SomeGuyOverThere

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YouTube - When Harry Met Sally(Men&WomenCanNotBeFriends)-Part I

The best a woman and man can be while playing platonic is...play platonic. One of the two want to have sex with the other. It's just the nature of the beast.

You can play "friends" all your life. At one point in the relationship...sex was on someone's mind for a decent amount of time.


Because of course, 1980's Romcoms are the basis for all social interaction.

I think the deciding factor is how important sex is in your life. If sex is very important to you and is a prime motivator in your social interactions, then I suspect it's very hard to have a completely platonic friendship with the gender you're attracted to. Personally, sex is a small (in fact, non existent) part of why I seek companionship with other human beings, so I have friends of both genders without there being anything beyond a platonic friendship.
 
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SpeedoGuy

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My experience has been that men and women can indeed be just friends. However, it doesn't seem to happen very often and I think some sexual overtones usually linger, even if slight.
 

a_uncensored

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OMG I can't believe the whole 'When Harry Met Sally' thing was actually brought up! That is completely different because they fall in love and are not with other people when they do the deed and change the tone of their relationship.

Anyways movies are not reality and even tv "reality" isn't real.