Same-sex friends and relationships

Life Dating & Relationships
#1

I think a major warning sign to look for in a man is a man who thinks that male to female friendships always have some sexual undertones.

I got that one from SuchaFob from the warning signs thread, but it has got me thinking. Is it really a warning sign? I seem to fit the criteria put out as a warning sign for women…I have very few female friends, mostly male friends. Is that wrong? Especially if some of them do become friends-with-benefits, if I’m not in a relationship? Since I’m in a relationship now I don’t know where I’m at anymore. It seems impossible for me to keep any of my friends.
Would it be better for me to be single even though I really like my boyfriend? I’m stuck between…is there something wrong with me, is there something wrong with this relationship?

How many of the men here has successfully been able to keep their female friends, and how many women have been able to keep their male friends, even with their relationship? Or is it just something you have to give up?

#2

Most Taiwanese girls your age (and I do mean “girls”) are silly, vapid little creatures devoted to shopping and gossip. It reflects positively on you that you do not have many Taiwanese female friends.

#3

[quote=“Quentin”]Most Taiwanese girls your age (and I do mean “girls”) are silly, vapid little creatures devoted to shopping and gossip. It reflects positively on you that you do not have many Taiwanese female friends.[/quote]Still frustrated? :wink:

#4

Is anything I said not true?

#5

Yes. Many of the local ladies are as you describe. A whole lot are not.
Applying your logic, if you can’t find, or befriend the better sort…?
(just giving you a hard time, Q.)

#6

Damn. I thought it would be impossible to turn my should you be worried if your guy doesn’t like you to hang out with other guys/am I weird for not having female friends thread into a discussion of Taiwanese girls. But, there you have it…
Actually, I didn’t have many close female friends back home either. Right now, I have about five close female friends. My male friends just seem to far outnumber my female friends. And that is creating problems in my relationship.
About Taiwanese girls…I’ve always hung out at places like “The Wall” where the rocker women are pretty much like rocker women everywhere. Have never spotted one LV bag, which means obviously that they’re all pretty cool.

#7

Sorry, I was just being cranky last night. Damn this flu.

#8

As I noted, I have misgivings about relying on a list so inflexibly.

I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem that a man disapproves of his gf having male (or too many) friends.

  • It may just be a sign of insecurity on the man’s part.

On the other hand, you may want to examine why the girl has so many male friends and how she treats them/views them.

  • It may be that she has them around for attention, to use them, etc.

  • It may be that she appreciates men better than women. my friend’s gf is such a person. She was always kind of a tomboy, and cannot stand most women her age. She does have an inordinate amount of male friends, and though we deride her for it, never would we doubt her fidelity.

So, IMHO, adhering to “warning sign lists” inflexibly is silly grade-school stuff.

#9

This is a problem that goes both ways, I have in the last few months had to basically break off contact with 3 girls whom I had no romantic interest in but didn’t mind hanging out with as friends. None of them could handle that.

I think to an extent it’s the way we are wired, and the way society works today. Try having an opposite-sex friend when you’re married - it’s almost unheard of because of the assumed “risk” involved with letting your significant other spend a lot of time with a potential threat. That’s not the same issue but related I think.

#10

My friends are about 50-50 male-female and most of my groups of friends are well-mixed groups so this subject would not really come up. Frankly, any guy who made giving up male friends a condition for dating would find his ass laughed out of the door for me and most of my female friends.

So dilemmas such as yours seems kind of inconceivable to me…and yet I hear about it all the time.

#11

I would like to have female friends. I try. But in the end most of my female friends are a) girls who have no other female friends or b) my friends’ sisters.
I always call up my guy friends’ sisters for girl advice. I have one who is amazing at makeup. For years I have bribed her with free drink for makeup tips. Now I don’t own a bar and no longer know how to bribe her. :frowning:

#12

I’m sorry, but guys cannot be ‘just friends’ with girls unless the guy is gay or the girl is ugly and/or the guy already has someone much more attractive than the girl.

I know you ladies refuse to believe this but it’s true. Men are just wired to assess females by sexual potential, subconciously or otherwise.

Say there’s a ‘nice guy’, maybe a bit nerdy, and he has a stunning ‘female friend’. The female friend would never bonk this guy and she firmly believes that he is ‘just a friend’ and thinks everything is all very ‘nice’ and ‘friendly’. Yeh, right. If she offered him sex he would jump on her like a horny dog in heat.

Men can be friends with girls they find very unattractive because then it’s just like being friends with a guy.

Look at how men treat attractive female ‘friends’ differently from male friends. Get with the program, fobby!

#13

Larry, are you familiar with the Ladder Theory of Relationships?

intellectualwhores.com/masterladder.html

#14

[quote=“Quentin”]Larry, are you familiar with the Ladder Theory of Relationships?

intellectualwhores.com/masterladder.html[/quote]

There’s a name for it?

I usually just refer to it as the time-tested “I-wouldn’t-kick-her-out-of-bed” test.

#15

[quote=“llary”]I’m sorry, but guys cannot be ‘just friends’ with girls unless the guy is gay or the girl is ugly and/or the guy already has someone much more attractive than the girl.[/quote]If that were true, I would have married one of my friends years ago.

#16

The fact is that any bloke ‘friends’ with an attractive girl wants at some level to bone her six ways to Sunday. Your not boning your attractive friends is surely down to self control, etiquette, her disinterest, wussiness, whatever. But don’t tell me you wouldn’t want to if you could. Any bloke that refutes this is telling porkies and any girl that refutes it is being naive. Case closed, next!

#17

So you’re saying that it is better to break off friendships with people of the opposite sex when you get into a relationship?

#18

No, I’m saying that men find girls attractive. No hidden agenda or message there. If everyone understands and accepts that very simple premise then we’re all hunky dory. I can’t believe how many girls I talked to who had ‘this really special friend’ who waits on them hand and foot while the girl adamantly refuses he has any sexual or romantic interest whatsoever. And the guy who treats her like a princess but adamantly refuses he has any sexual or romantic interest whatsoever.

Okay, here is an example of someone I know with names changed to protect the innocent-but-dorky:

Joe is ‘friends’ with a very hot girl Jane. Joe is a bit nerdy and uncomfortable around women. Joe likes computer games and basketball. Jane, as we said, is very hot and has lots of male attention. It’s obvious she feels no attraction for Joe but hangs out with him because he’s inoffensive and ‘nice’. Joe insists she is a friend but is obviously very attracted to her. Jane has no interest in computer games or basketball. Are they really ‘friends’ or deep down does Joe really just want to bone her? Would they be ‘friends’ if Jane was a guy with no interest in computer games or basketball and like shopping at Sogo? In this case, yeh, Joe should just pull away from this girl but he won’t because he’s a bloody idiot and thinks with his willy.

There is no such thing as ‘just friends’ between a guy and a remotely hot girl. Things might get evened out if the guy is popular and attractive and/or the girl is less attractive but at some level the guy is always going to want to have sex with the girl. That doesn’t mean he will, but the fact that deep down he wants to is going to skew the relationship a little, isn’t it?

Okay, I’m going to stop writing in this thread before I get pegged as a complete asshole. Look out for my book out soon in all good bookstores: Llary: My Willy and Its Part in My Downfall.

#19

[quote=“Quentin”]Larry, are you familiar with the Ladder Theory of Relationships?

intellectualwhores.com/masterladder.html[/quote]

You forgot to add that a working sense of humour is required to visit.

#20

Like I said before, I’ve mostly had 50/50 ratio between male and female friends. And I have NEVER been in a situation like the above. And I like to think, you know, that I’m not totally unattractive to the male of the species.

In fact, I’m sure some of my friends have been attracted to me and I have been attracted to some of my friends, but that doesn’t make our friendships any less real or somehow dependent on the sick dynamic you described.