Posted: Jun 15, 2013 6:56 pm
In work I had a discussion on woman-men friendships with some of my colleagues. One of them made the point that a true friendship between a man and a woman was impossible and that the feeling of closeness and friendship will always end in one of the two wanting more, they mentioned that only gay men could truly have a non-sexual friendship with a woman. One of my colleges claimed that every single female friend a man has is due to a social link to you but are not true friends, i.e. they are a sister of someone you know, a mate's girlfriend and her friends...
They claim that if sexual attraction is not present and once that social link is for whatever reason broken, these girls would no longer socialise with you and so they cannot really be called friends in the same way you have your mates which you can call and meet up for a pint in a bar no matter what. If one of these friendships develops then they say the sexuality of the man would need to be questioned. I think he has an interesting point but I still maintain that it is perfectly plausible for two heterosexual individuals of the opposite sex to maintain a non-sexual friendship.
I am half Spanish and half Irish and I believe different cultures could be different in this regard. From what he says I cannot successfully point at any one Irish girl which I would considered a true friend independent of any other social connections as he puts it. I would imagine that this is in part due to the fact that I have attended an all boys school here and most of early education in the area is sexually segregated and approaching women now later in life has that obvious sexual tension, so I do see his point. On the other hand I have plenty of female friends in Spain from when I lived there and went to a mixed school. It could be that Spaniards tend to be more open and direct about their sexuality and somewhat more comfortable and they glorify it less.
I made that point to them and told them that they were just glorifying sex, putting sex on a pedestal and giving it to much importance. Good sex is not all a woman can offer (good sandwiches and cleaning too,
)
He made a personal accusation of promiscuity by saying "You couldn't spend 10 minutes in a room with a woman without thinking of having sex!" which although it might be true, I truly believe that it is possible for a man and a woman to have a successful non-sexual friendship.
What is the ratskept view on this issue? Is it possible? Do you have any truly good friends of the opposite sex?
They claim that if sexual attraction is not present and once that social link is for whatever reason broken, these girls would no longer socialise with you and so they cannot really be called friends in the same way you have your mates which you can call and meet up for a pint in a bar no matter what. If one of these friendships develops then they say the sexuality of the man would need to be questioned. I think he has an interesting point but I still maintain that it is perfectly plausible for two heterosexual individuals of the opposite sex to maintain a non-sexual friendship.
I am half Spanish and half Irish and I believe different cultures could be different in this regard. From what he says I cannot successfully point at any one Irish girl which I would considered a true friend independent of any other social connections as he puts it. I would imagine that this is in part due to the fact that I have attended an all boys school here and most of early education in the area is sexually segregated and approaching women now later in life has that obvious sexual tension, so I do see his point. On the other hand I have plenty of female friends in Spain from when I lived there and went to a mixed school. It could be that Spaniards tend to be more open and direct about their sexuality and somewhat more comfortable and they glorify it less.
I made that point to them and told them that they were just glorifying sex, putting sex on a pedestal and giving it to much importance. Good sex is not all a woman can offer (good sandwiches and cleaning too,
)He made a personal accusation of promiscuity by saying "You couldn't spend 10 minutes in a room with a woman without thinking of having sex!" which although it might be true, I truly believe that it is possible for a man and a woman to have a successful non-sexual friendship.
What is the ratskept view on this issue? Is it possible? Do you have any truly good friends of the opposite sex?