Can a man and a woman "just be friends?"

[Moore11]

It depends. I would say a vast majority of the time no. There are some people and situations that are an exception and you have heard of them already but mostly I think this “friends” thing is a shortsighted lie.
1 One of you is or will be smitten and get hurt.
2 One of you will meet someone else and usually the other partner trumps a silly freindship.
3 You will drift apart.

And a distant 4 like 1 percent: it will work and future spouses will have no problem with it…


Sorry, couldn’t help myself.

 

[ToeInTheWater]

I find it interesting that people find it so easy to make sweeping generalizations about interactions between the opposite sexes, whether it be in the context of dating or friendship. A lot of it depends on the individual man and woman involved. There are certainly people who are incapable of looking at members of the opposite sex as brothers or sisters in Christ, who cannot help but sexualize every encounter (even if they’re not “raging sex addicts”). Likely due to hormones, personal experience, culture, how they were raised. But not everyone does this. Some married people are great with knowing what healthy boundaries are between friends of the opposite sex, great at knowing who can be a friend of the marriage, not just a personal friend. But then we see even on CAF posts about spouses who are poor at such boundaries, who have opposite-sex friends who are NOT friends of the marriage, who need to be defended as “just friends”.

I also agree with manualman that there is a difference between an acquaintance or casual friend and an intimate friend. Likely, there are more people who are able to handle having casual opposite sex friends, than those who can handle having intimate opposite sex friends as “besties” and emotional confidants without being tempted for more. Much as there are people who can handle passionately kissing someone they are dating without being tempted for more, and others where it’s likely most prudent to avoid such kisses until after the wedding vows take place.

Mock me all you want, but the statistics on adultery speak for themselves. The ones most at risk are the ones who think it could never happen to THEM.

I totally agree with this, I never thought it would happen to me either. Well, nothing physical happened, but when I look back on my boundary-crossing friendship with a married man, I know I went way too far. And based on personal experience, I certainly expect to be very cautious about befriending married people of the opposite sex in the future. And to be aware of the possibility that some people are just not able to have close opposite-sex friendships. I don’t think I’m in that category myself, but I realize not everyone is wired like me.

 

[Lujack]

You know what, I even left out a relevant story here. I once asked a girl out that I had been friends with, she said no, and we remained friends. As she explained to me once when I was nervous about asking out someone else-“Its only awkward if you make it awkward.”

Which is true (although either person can make it awkward).

 

[mcrow]

I can only speak for myself here but to me, it’s a “sort of”.

I don’t think I can be friends with a woman that my wife does not know. Basically, all of the females I would call friends are friends of my wife.

I don’t know that there is anything wrong with men and women being just friends but I don’t really socialize in a way that really leads to making female friends.

I guess I like to do guy things when I socialize without my wife and when my wife and I socialize together most of the women there are her friends or wives of my male friends.

To me, it would seem weird for a married guy who has a single female friend who isn’t a friend of his wife.

 

[manualman]

Two of my four best friends that I confide in, tell my hopes and dreams to, share my frustrations with and ask for help when I need it are men - the other two are women. I sometimes see them at home with my husband present (he is friends with them too - but they’re not *his *best friends - he has his own) and I sometimes see them outside of the home - not when my husband is out of town, mind you (who’d watch the kids?)

Phillip Morris used to like to trot out perfectly healthy 90 year olds who had been smoking for 50 years as proof that smoking wouldn’t kill you.

Intimacy begets more intimacy. It just does. Everybody thinks it can’t happen to them - until it does. That said, it sounds like you HAVE set some boundaries before the edge. IMO, that is the major key to faithfulness: set objective standards you will not cross, know that you can keep and hold to them. I just prefer (and recommend) having boundaries FURTHER from the edge.

 

[Litcrit]

Intimacy begets more intimacy. It just does. Everybody thinks it can’t happen to them - until it does.

I would tend to agree that intimacy begets more intimacy - but how does this automatically translate into sexual feelings and sexual activity? Unless the notion of it is somehow always lurking just beneath the surface? You know, some of us really don’t function in this manner.

Think about a mother and a son - if they see each other and talk a lot and share hopes and dreams, will they become sexually attracted to each other? No, because that’s not even an option.

Friendship is a big deal to some people. Something like kinship. Something you don’t translate into sexual attraction just because there’s sharing and intimacy.

I actually sort of cringe when I hear the words “just friends.” It implies there’s an element lacking.

There’s nothing lacking from my relationships with my friends.

 

[EasterJoy]

Phillip Morris used to like to trot out perfectly healthy 90 year olds who had been smoking for 50 years as proof that smoking wouldn’t kill you.

Intimacy begets more intimacy. It just does. Everybody thinks it can’t happen to them - until it does. That said, it sounds like you HAVE set some boundaries before the edge. IMO, that is the major key to faithfulness: set objective standards you will not cross, know that you can keep and hold to them. I just prefer (and recommend) having boundaries FURTHER from the edge.

For some people, too, it is fair to say that the boundary is that “Except for my relatives, I don’t spend time with other women unless my wife is there, because without her I’d have no one to hit me upside the head when I do something inappropriate.”

The main thing is that if your boundary is more lenient that you not get arrogant about it. If in doubt, assume that the railing isn’t sound, that the glass is not bulletproof, the brakes aren’t what you thought they were, and that old horse can still buck.

It’s just like flying airplanes: If you’re going to take to the sky, you double-check everything. Some people just stay off of airplanes. That isn’t necessary for a good number of people, but some people need to realize they are not cut out to be pilots. Those who do fly had better be unfailingly careful. You never put in enough hours to earn the right to be careless.

 

[manualman]

That’s a pretty good analogy, Easter Joy. Nice work.

On the other hand there’s a reason you can’t just walk into an airplane dealership, sign on the line and fly out. If you could, a awful lot of self-delusional pilot wannabees would be crashing and burning. Humans tend to estimate their own abilities as much larger than they are. Just sayin’…

 

[mcrow]

It’s just like flying airplanes: If you’re going to take to the sky, you double-check everything. Some people just stay off of airplanes. That isn’t necessary for a good number of people, but some people need to realize they are not cut out to be pilots. Those who do fly had better be unfailingly careful. You never put in enough hours to earn the right to be careless.

I think the issue for some men is not so much that they would be tempted to start a romantic/sexual relationship with a female friend but that they could possibly become attracted to them. I’m just not sure that a friendship would workout If I were physically attracted to a woman who is a friend. For me, people who I call friends are people I consider to have some level of closeness with. I have many female aquaintances like co-workers, other parishioners…ect that I see and talk to on a regular basis, but I literally have no female friends I spend time with alone.

I guess I think that the only woman who is my true friend is my wife.

 

[Litcrit]

Wow. This is beginning to sound eery to me.

Depicting maintaining a normal friendship as something inherently dangerous and risky.

This sounds to me like:

Eating is natural. I have regular meals at home. However, to be sure I won’t sin, I can’t shop at a supermarket, because I might get too tempted to steal a bag of peanuts and eat it right there. Even though I really like the home-cooked meals I eat every day.

Or, I sometimes get annoyed by certain people. To make sure I don’t act out in anger and possibly kill someone, I won’t socialize even with the people who don’t annoy me at all.

Or, I am a happily married woman sexually attracted to my husband. To make sure I’m not too tempted to cheat on him, I will not be friends with people I’m not attracted to - just to be safe.

 

[Moore11]

Wow. This is beginning to sound eery to me.

Depicting maintaining a normal friendship as something inherently dangerous and risky.

This sounds to me like:

Eating is natural. I have regular meals at home. However, to be sure I won’t sin, I can’t shop at a supermarket, because I might get too tempted to steal a bag of peanuts and eat it right there. Even though I really like the home-cooked meals I eat every day.

Or, I sometimes get annoyed by certain people. To make sure I don’t act out in anger and possibly kill someone, I won’t socialize even with the people who don’t annoy me at all.

Or, I am a happily married woman sexually attracted to my husband. To make sure I’m not too tempted to cheat on him, I will not be friends with people I’m not attracted to - just to be safe.

The problem is that all too often “friends” becomes something else, unlike the situations you describe. I was friends with many different girls and women when I was single. Some I dated, some I didn’t. I don’t have contact with any of them now. I am a man, I have a family and I have dear friends that are men. I do not carry on with some girl I was friends with in college and now see and talk to often on our little" friendship" outings…

If the murder rate was 50%, (like the divorce rate) then I would think your analogies would apply.

 

[Baelor]

Phillip Morris used to like to trot out perfectly healthy 90 year olds who had been smoking for 50 years as proof that smoking wouldn’t kill you.

We are dealing with individual cases. It seems that those opposed to opposite-sex friendships are arguing on a basis of temptation/near occasion. The natural consequence is that if those friendships are not tempting to an individual, they would be perfectly appropriate and permissible. The individual cases are what matters.

Intimacy begets more intimacy. It just does. Everybody thinks it can’t happen to them - until it does.

As noted, that intimacy can remain platonic.

The problem is that all too often “friends” becomes something else, unlike the situations you describe. I was friends with many different girls and women when I was single. Some I dated, some I didn’t. I don’t have contact with any of them now. I am a man, I have a family and I have dear friends that are men. I do not carry on with some girl I was friends with in college and now see and talk to often on our little" friendship" outings…

I am sad that you did not have more meaningful friendships with the women you had met earlier in life, but that does not mean that your experience applies to others.

 

[Oneofthewomen]

Reading this thread makes my head hurt! uch:
I don’t mean to be rude, but are we adults here, or is this thread filled with a bunch of adolescents?
Or is it just “typical Puritanical American sexual obsession/repression”?
Whatever it is, it astounds me!!

Of course men & women can be friends, without any romantic entanglements. Not *all *men can be friends with *all *women (and vise-versa), and for some, it will not be a possiblity due to the lack of maturity needed to have a true friendship.

And I am still waiting for an awswer by to this question I posed 3 pages ago-

So, by your logic, people that are attracted to both men & women should have no friends al all?

HHHMMMM…

 

[Moore11]

We are dealing with individual cases. It seems that those opposed to opposite-sex friendships are arguing on a basis of temptation/near occasion. The natural consequence is that if those friendships are not tempting to an individual, they would be perfectly appropriate and permissible. The individual cases are what matters.

As noted, that intimacy can remain platonic.

I am sad that you did not have more meaningful friendships with the women you had met earlier in life, but that does not mean that your experience applies to others.

LOL don’t be too sad. :nope: I have a lot of friends and a great little family. My wife is of course my best friend. You may not agree with me but don’t belittle me to prove a point. I am quite satisfied and happy thank you and am grateful for the full and meaningful freindships and romances I had growing up.
Careful not to attack others just to make a point.

 

[Baelor]

LOL don’t be too sad. :nope: I have a lot of friends and a great little family. My wife is of course my best friend. You may not agree with me but don’t belittle me to prove a point. I am quite satisfied and happy thank you and am grateful for the full and meaningful freindships and romances I had growing up.
Careful not to attack others just to make a point.

I am not belittling you or attacking you. I am genuinely sad that you did not have the opportunity to experience intimate friendships with women. If that offends you, I am sorry that you are offended, as that was not my intent. I stand by my expression of sorrow, however.

 

[Moore11]

I am not belittling you or attacking you. I am genuinely sad that you did not have the opportunity to experience intimate friendships with women. If that offends you, I am sorry that you are offended, as that was not my intent. I stand by my expression of sorrow, however.

Perhaps you are misunderstanding me. I had very intimate friendships with women. How did you get the idea that I didn’t? because they didn’t last? Huh, the most intimate friendship with a woman I have is with my wife. There are many, many single and married people out there who deserve your pity and sadness more than this ol chap. Hopefully, you are married and know what I am talking about. I question why I feel the need to even justify myself to you but your presumptuous attitude has prompted me to.

When I was in high school my father passed away. I had an amazing group of friends that were girls. Some of them had similar tragedies, some didn’t. Some knew what I was going through some didn’t. We played, worked, and spent time growing up together. Some of us dated, some didn’t. But I am a better man to these women. One in particular became my fiancee. It didn’t work out but we left on good terms. She is married as am I and we both have wonderful families. We are not friends anymore. Not because we dont like each other but because real life took over. My best friends are my girls, my wife, my sister and a huge number of men who like me are striving to be holy and good family men. It’s called growing up. In college I wanted to date this girl who didnt want to date me. We were best freinds. She regrets that now and told me that she wishes she had dated me. She is 37 and single.
All of my friends WERE girls. In certain times of my life. In others, it was my football teammates, or my dad, or a good friend.

You can waste your time being “sad” for me but you have no idea what my life consist of or has consisted of so in my opinion you are wasting your time and cannot be sincere. You cant be sincere because you have no knowledge of the situation to be sincere with.
I wonder why you felt the need to “be sad for me” in this way and why you would think it comes off as caring and not snotty.

I am genuinely sad that you did not have the opportunity to experience intimate friendships with women.

Knowing that I am married and that my wife is the single best friend in all my life (the mother of my children and my very bonded self. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. Someone who I would lay my life down for as Christ laid his life down for the Church) the above statement is not only ignorant of my situation but of marital love itself. I understand the different types of friendship and love and all the different forms it can take and happily have been in a love and intimacy surplus for my entire life. I’m a blessed man.
By all means though, pray for my poor pitiful soul. I’ll take all the prayers I can get.

 

[EasterJoy]

Wow. This is beginning to sound eery to me.

Depicting maintaining a normal friendship as something inherently dangerous and risky.

This sounds to me like:

Eating is natural. I have regular meals at home. However, to be sure I won’t sin, I can’t shop at a supermarket, because I might get too tempted to steal a bag of peanuts and eat it right there. Even though I really like the home-cooked meals I eat every day.

Or, I sometimes get annoyed by certain people. To make sure I don’t act out in anger and possibly kill someone, I won’t socialize even with the people who don’t annoy me at all.

Or, I am a happily married woman sexually attracted to my husband. To make sure I’m not too tempted to cheat on him, I will not be friends with people I’m not attracted to - just to be safe.

Some people can be around any kind of food in any amount and under any conditions, and yet are always moderate and appropriate about what they eat. Some people, though, can’t have certain snack foods in their house, can’t go to certain kinds of restaurants and so on…and yes, some people can’t shop for their own groceries without filling their carts with foods that their health forbids. Most of us are somewhere in-between, and by far most of us find that our ability to be appropriate about what we eat and our relationship with food changes over the course of our lives and depending on other things we are going through in our lives. In other words, the vast majority of us can grocery shop just fine, but we often find that prudence dictates that we’d better not try it on an empty stomach!

Those who overestimate their ability to resist temptation are legion. Still, people do have to eat and people do have to have friends. All we are saying here is that as each of us goes about getting our physical and emotional sustainence, we have to take into account both our needs and our weaknesses.

On this analogy, I would point out that a “starvation diet” poses its own sort of peril in terms of maintaining temperance in food consumption. I believe the same is true of our friendships. Moderation in getting our needs met, practice in self-control, and avoiding what the Church has traditionally called “near occasions of sin” are key.

 

[EasterJoy]

I am sad that you did not have more meaningful friendships with the women you had met earlier in life, but that does not mean that your experience applies to others.

Many men find that interactions they have with their wives with other married couples meets their needs for female friendships just fine. The job of being “confidant” to and for their wife may be about all the feminine sharing of feelings they can endure, let alone need, but certainly it can be sufficient! They just don’t work out their interior life that way, and therefore don’t need the opportunity to spend time alone with any women other than their wives.

People get their emotional needs met in different ways. There isn’t anything sad about that.

 

[Baelor]

Perhaps you are misunderstanding me. I had very intimate friendships with women. How did you get the idea that I didn’t? because they didn’t last? Huh, the most intimate friendship with a woman I have is with my wife. There are many, many single and married people out there who deserve your pity and sadness more than this ol chap. Hopefully, you are married and know what I am talking about. I question why I feel the need to even justify myself to you but your presumptuous attitude has prompted me to.

There is no need to explain yourself. I clearly have a different conception of what constitutes an intimate friendship than you do, because I would feel very sad not being in contact with any of my intimate friends, and am still in contact with those I have ever considered intimate friends.

Also, this:

I do not carry on with some girl I was friends with in college and now see and talk to often on our little" friendship" outings…

Clearly you feel that you had intimate friendships, so that should be sufficient for you.

It’s called growing up.

No, it is not.

 

[Moore11]

There is no need to explain yourself. I clearly have a different conception of what constitutes an intimate friendship than you do, because I would feel very sad not being in contact with any of my intimate friends, and am still in contact with those I have ever considered intimate friends.

Also, this:

Clearly you feel that you had intimate friendships, so that should be sufficient for you.

No, it is not.

We probably have the same definition of intimate friends. I think we are all smart enough here to know what we are talking about. The elitist idea that “we are talking of different things because we both are on different intellectual plains” is insulting. Sometimes the lost art of “hey, I jumped the gun here and am sorry for the misunderstanding” eludes us.
But, alas, If you feel the need to carry on this prideful path then we can take it up in PM but I think the issue is sufficiently resolved for me.
thanks.