Can Men And Women Really Be Just Friends—and nothing more?
Dear Duana,
A guy friend of mine made a very hard pass at me. I’m stunned…I thought we were friends and nothing more. Was I asleep during the men-are-always-interested lecture? How do I make a male friend who understands that friendship is *all* I’m after?
Anika
Dear Anika,
Can men and women ever really be Just Friends—without sexual tension?
When Love Science readers answered informally, most women said Yes; one even has a BFF from high school who, with his wife, vacations with her and her husband.
But the #1 answer men gave referenced this famous scene from When Harry Met Sally—where Harry insists that even with unattractive women Friends, “You pretty much wanna nail them, too.”
Who’s right—if anyone? Did we *all* miss the opposite sex’s lecture?
In a set of studies where young heterosexual adults were asked about their actual behavior with—and what they value about—their opposite-sex Friends, these three conclusions stood out:
- Men and women primarily want the same thing from their Friends: Friendship.
For instance, one man wrote me that, “Sure, I’d have sex with my [women friends] if they offered. But asking isn’t worth the risk. I can always find someone to have sex with….Good friends aren’t so easy to find.”
- Not all men want sex to be part of their Friendships. But men are muuuch likelier to envision the potential—and twice as likely to act on it.
Indeed, research shows that over half of men desire sexual involvement with their women Friends—whereas very few women feel likewise. And about 1/5th of men say they’ve actually had sex with close Friends—double the percentage of women who claim the same.
- When someone in the Friendship wants *love*…again, it’s probably the man.
It may seem against common stereotypes, but here it is: Men often name the potential for a long-term romantic relationship as a plus of having female Friends.
Perhaps due to the oft-unrequited nature of these feelings, men then have other uncomfortable emotions—such as confusion about whether the relationship really is Just Friendship or something more, and sadness if their love is not returned.
Meanwhile, women enjoy a relationship that is remarkably free from complexity—for them. They say they love the Friendship in part *because* of the lack of sexual or romantic pressure/possibility—and find their happiness marred only when they perceive an attraction they can’t or don’t return.
So, if you want a Friend who’s on the same page regarding the Just-Friends deal, what are your options?
Option 1. End your Friendships:
Actually, that’s a really dumb idea.
For one thing, most of us, regardless of gender, genuinely like our Friends. For every man who *is* on the make, it appears there’s another who *isn’t*. And most men value their opposite-sex Friendship much more than its potential for sex.
For another, Friendships give everyone a shot at emotional Intimacy—plus, according to the research participants:
— someone to respect;
— someone to speak openly with;
— someone to go get dinner with;
— a self-esteem lift;
—good feelings when we help a Friend;
—and—uniquely—insider-info about the opposite sex—advice research participants say they *don’t* think a same-sex peer could give as expertly.
Option 2. Announce your unavailability up-front:
Although I’ve heard this suggestion before, I think it’s bad advice.
Stating point-blank that you’re Not An Option when you barely know someone (or even when you do, but they’ve never made a pass) communicates a lot more than your unavailability.
It can also convey your status as a snob, egotist, and/or weirdo. And it can hurt and anger someone who really wasn’t Interested anyway.
Option 3. Cultivate Friendships with gay men:
It may not be PC, but this is probably a pretty smart idea, and one that Love Science readers introduced:
From a straight woman:
“I like having men as friends, but I prefer gay men because [we can relate] without being an affair risk…”
From a lesbian woman:
“I don’t have any straight male (good) friends right now. I often get the kinda sexual/creepy vibe pretty quick.”
Bonus: Befriending a gay man means never having to explain to him, to your (rational) sig other, or to anyone else that really, you *are* Just Friends.
Option 4: Go forward with your Friendships, knowing there’s a strong possibility that some times, with some men, you conceptualize things a bit differently.
I see this as your best bet. It keeps the Friends you have, removes shock that a man could turn out to be pursuing you, and avoids selecting Friendships based solely on demographics.
Specifically, assume your normal friendly behavior is often perceived as sexual interest. And accept that.
Around the world, men see mere friendliness as a sign of sexual interest (whereas women perceive it as mere friendliness). And the #1 thing a woman can do to advertise availability is simply to smile.
So unless you’re willing to avoid straight men, frown constantly and dress like a nun, a certain amount of unwanted interest may be part of the deal.
What *isn’t* part of the deal is the on-going expression of that interest. If a kindly-put “I treasure your friendship, but I don’t want any level of romance or sex in this friendship” doesn’t bar future advances and keep a buddy just that—
It’s time to make some new Friends.
Cheers,
Duana
Related Love Science articles:
http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/winning-him-backwith-jealousy.html
http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/sex-the-happily-single-girl.html
The author wishes to acknowledge the following scientists and sources:
—April Bleske-Rechek and David M. Buss, for their research into what opposite-friendship really means to men versus women—and how it fits into evolutionary psychology.
You can read their articles here:
Bleske, A. L., & Buss, D. M. (2000). Can men and women be just friends? Personal Relationships, 7, 131-151.
Bleske, A. L., & Buss, D. M. (2001). Opposite sex friendship: Sex differences and similarities in initiation, selection, and dissolution. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 1310-1323.
If this article intrigued, surprised or enlightened you, please write a comment and/or click “Share Article” below to link it with your favorite social media website.
All material copyrighted by Duana C. Welch, Ph.D. and Love Science Media, 2010
Do you have a question for Duana? Contact her at Duana@LoveScienceMedia.com
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Reader Comments (31)
Gillian, "Even with all the Caution Tape around it, that's why women do venture into the male/female friendship: Men have so many great qualities of personality and character, and women are always intrigued by the raw and authentic male point of view." Perfectly said! Getting the opposite-sex perspective is a major perk of these Friendships--and one this Love Scientist does not intend to give up anytime soon.
Keep writing, Wise Readers of Every Chromosomal Makeup--keep educating us all with your experiences and opinions and knowledge. You're what makes Love Science.
Hey, Gillian. I do want to point out that the only reason why I tread lightly with my male relationships these days is because I am married. They used to be my bread-and-butter, and despite the fact that the men will (generally) always be open to sex, I figured that was just an aspect I needed to be aware of and manage as necessary. A very few of my close friends were interested in me sexually. The rest, though they would have happily hopped in the sack had the situation presented itself, were into me for the company I provided. My best friends EVER have been guys, and the only reason I carry my caution tape with me these days is to honor my marriage.
Penelope's latest post sparked this thought. From a male perspective - I think that there's a calculation that goes on in a man's mind and it goes something like this:
-- Am *I* available (the man)?
-- Is she rockin'?
-- Is *she* available? In other words, does she have another partner, and how tight are they anyway?
-- Is she interested in *me*?
-- Could she become interested in me after we've interacted in a friendly way for a good long while?
-- Do I have anything to lose? In other words, things like Do I respect this woman's partner, regardless of her interest in me? Or, are we co-workers and I could really really mess up my life if we do this?
-- Second iteration of "Is She Rockin'?"
And this all takes place automatically, with frequent data updates. The "Go" or No Go signal is unique to that specific man. Even with the identical conditions, one man will think "Go" where another will think "No Go".
Thought the First:
One thing I feel needs pointing out is that a woman with single male friends (most of us) needs to KNOW HER MALES if she wants to avoid being seriously icked out and/or just plain getting hit on at really bad times.
As I've posted before, my field is Asperger's Syndrome. From experience, I can tell you that the more socially awkward and/or naive a man is, the less likely he is to use a direct approach and the more (MUCH more) likely he is to hang around and as a "friend" in the hopes that one day his lady-love will suddenly say, "Gosh, I have been blind to the amazing hunk of man-meat that you are! Take me, big boy!"
Or something like that.
Males who are awkward, shy, and socially naive generally attract friendship from women who want to help them get a bit of a boost and to help them gain confidence and social know-how. Such males are also often lonely and isolated, so that kindhearted, highly empathetic social females are loathe to ignore them or send them away when they insist on hanging around.
It's a fruitful situation for disaster. I cannot tell you how many young aspie males tell me that most women are horrible witches, or heartless, or the like, because their only attempts to get girlfriends involve hanging around, being adopted as a friend out of either genuine liking, pity, or both, and then waiting for months or years to declare themselves at what they think is the "right time" and getting totally shut down.
These are the same guys who never date but believe they are in demand because so many women are totally into them -- like their bank clerk, their pharmacist, the lady at the post office, and so forth. They really do think that smiles are a sign of interest. Women who work as secretaries in engineering departments are often besidged.
Interesting, women engineers, programmers, and other geek chicks (like me) are often considered too "guy like" by those same guys. We are guy-like, in that we don't take on hapless males as projects so that we can fix them and make them less lonely. Having no "pity friendships" equals no strange sudden declarations of passion from longtime friends who have no appeal to us.
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Thought the second:
On another note, one thing that is very important for women who want to avoid sudden declarations of passion from male friends is that one should NEVER TREAT A GUY AS A CONFIDANT in matters of love and/or sex.
The guy who hears about your relationship woes and frustrations can easily be hearing, "I am so lonely and sad and am just waiting for a wonderful man like you to fix everything."
One woman of my acquaintance came to me quite bewildered in that no less than three of her single male friends had declared their love for her at an out-of-town event. One of them had even proposed to her, seemingly out of the blue.
Why was she so shocked? Well, she was a married woman with no interest whatsover in any of these males. Even so, the fellow who had proposed had in fact offered to wait as long as it took for her to get out of her marriage!
She couldn't understand this sudden outpouring of ardor. On a hunch, I asked her (in so many words) if she had been dumping on these guys all about how awful her husband was and how there was nothing in any way fulfilling left in her marriage because of his apathy (poor guy was actually clinically depressed). In other words, I asked if she'd been dumping her misery on her male friends they same way she dumped it on her female friends.
She said that of course she had told her male friends this -- what was the point of having friends if you couldn't "vent" to them?
I explained, carefully, that when a woman says "My husband doesn't understand me or fulfill me anymore," what the available and hopeful male hears is "Come and get it!!!!!" I likened her repeated confidences to these fellows to standing on an air strip waving those bright orange lights to indicate where they were to land.
Fortunately, she didn't seem to notice how unfortunate that last metaphor was.
Okay, so I wasn't dealing with the sharpest knife in the drawer. She not only was shocked that her constant bemoaning of her lonely and alienating marriage had led to multiple declarations of love, but she was also really open to an affair -- that is, she told me she was having one. With a hunky jerk who tossed her aside darn quick when she got serious, but that's another story.
At any rate, what nearly killed me was when she described how icked out she had been by the marriage proposal -- she told me, with particularly off-putting emphasis, "My god, he's really short and he's SWARTHY, for heaven's sake."
(How I wind up being chosen as a confidant by acquaintences like this one is a subject for another time. Let's just say I now regard any offer to buy me lunch as suspicious.)
By the way, the guy who proposed was known to me, and he was roughly a 5 or a 6, while she was a 4-5, so it wasn't outrageous that he thought she might be interested. The only thing I couldn't figure out is what these guys saw in her. Maybe they were "rescuer" types as well.
In short (too late!), if you are a straight woman and you chose a straight male friend to confide in about the emptiness of your love life; your tragically loveless marriage; or the general lack of men who are kind, decent, and available; chances are he will think you are interested in him and in fact are trying to get him to pursue you.
For my part, I find you can filter out the guys who've got the wrong idea by occasionally dropping into conversation little bits of information about how wonderful your husband is. If a fellow asks if you'd like to go somewhere with him, simply respond, "I'll check and see if my husband wants to go; I'd love it if we can join you."
And for heaven's sake, never let a nerd down easy. The least socially adept males are the one's who interpret phrases like "I don't want to ruin our friendship" or "of course I care about you, just not *that* way" to mean something on the lines of "I will totally fall head-over-heels in love with you if you just keep hanging around me for a few more years, at least as long as you don't let me catch you going through my dumpster to keep track of my schedule."
Seriously. Be direct with guys. You might lose some hangers-on, but it is totally worth it.
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Thought the third:
A female relative of mine used a hint from the original column as her self-defense technique back in the early 60s. She "dated" a gay male athlete at her college, because he needed to be seen dating a girl (and she genuinely liked hanging out with him) while she needed a large male who would glower at any guys who were attemping to bird-dog her. She was (and is) both smoking hot and a lot of fun to hang out with, so it was not only necessary but a win-win that allowed her and her "boyfriend" to both spend their college years happier and less worried about what their male friends thought of them.
However, I do NOT recommend that women cultivate "gays" because they want a coterie like women on TV have. Do not try to cast your own version of "Queer Eye." But you can get involved with PFLAG because it is the right thing to do, and you'll wind up knowing wonderful non-straight people of a variety of sorts. Lesbians know how to ditch pesky unwanted males fast (and I have *never* been hit on by a lesbian friend who knew I was in a relationship), gay guys don't hit on female friends, and everybody benefits by learning a lot more about being human.
Just remember that you never, ever, ever want to criticize a drag queen's makeup. Even if you honestly think she looks like Clarabelle. Seriously. You have no idea.
Entertaining reading. Thank heavens I have become a hunky jerk and have left my "guy with wrong idea" days far behind. ;-)
The first question I ask myself when reading these comments is, "Are they rockin'?" ;)
The answer: Yes. Thanks for the multitudinous perspectives; Tom, for your insights into the Mind Of (non-Aspie) Men; Penelope, for highlighting the value of male friends, caution tape or no; Mocha's Mom, for writing that tickles the funny bone and the imagination (and which, btway, research and common human decency support. Thanks for underscoring the point about having GLBT Friends because being Friends is Friendly...not just to hide away from the caution tape. I also appreciate your comment about Not Being Ambiguous if the Friend needs clarity--I wonder, Men, what say you to that?).
While we're in a conspiriatorial mood around the Love Science forum, allow me to share this scenario from my grad school days. I had many a male Friend--like you, Penelope, boys and later men had made up the majority of the great Friends of my life. So much so that it was (incorrectly) assumed that my best Friend throughout grad school and I were dating.
(I really wanted to be Interested in him...he was Perfect. Alas...he smelled wrong--as we LS readers now know, the genetic match was no match. But, not then knowing the research, I assumed there was just something wrong with me, moved on with my life and kept the Friendship, which remains among the most important of my life to this day.)
Anyway, one of my married women friends would only invite me to hang out if her husband was absent. It didn't stop her and me from spending time together--he traveled often. Still, I briefly considered being offended; did she not trust me around her man? Did I appear to be on the prowl? Well...nobody else excluded me from hanging around their mates. What gave?
What I didn't know then, which research could have helped me with had I understood, was this: The more one's work takes one away from home, the more likely it is that one is having sexual flings; and jealousy is often a sign that one's mate is messing around, or at least considering it. My girlfriend's husband was not trustworthy, and it was likely that to which she was responding. And here's how I found that out.
One day, at a group gathering where my friend and her spouse were present, he sat in between us. Several minutes in, he placed his hand directly on my thigh, under the table. I brushed it away. He did it again. I hit him--hard. He did it again. I leaned over to his wife, smiled, and said--in front of him: "Please convince your husband to keep his hands to himself. I can't seem to."
He kept his hands to himself after that. And she and I remained friends. And I didn't wonder about why she kept me away from him anymore. (Indeed, I was grateful.)
Some men are on the make for sex and nothing more. Most aren't. Some women are using men for resources and nothing more. Most aren't. It feels awful when we're on the receiving end of being used...but thankfully, this entire thread and all the research show that it *is* exceptional.
Real Friendship--caution tape and all--is the rule.