Can men and women be "just friends"?

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Redrose13

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Hi,

I am a devout Roman Catholic single woman and I think I have problems befriending guys. I have 2 female siblings and most of our family members at home consists of female. Majority of my friends in highschool and college were females. I’ve been part of the Catholic Charismatic community and I’m also serving in the Singles Ministry.

Being friends around guys is a real struggle for me. I have this impression that I’m intimidating and snob. I’m afraid I will have a hard time finding a potential mate in my community. Also, I’m bothered that I might give guys a wrong signal if I show them how I naturally am when I’m around with my female friends.

Any thoughts on this one?

Thanks and God bless! 🙂
 
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Well, I don’t know what it means when you say, “show them how (you) naturally (are) when (you’re) around with (your) femaie friends,” but to answer your Thread Title question, yes, men and women can be ‘just friends.’ I have many male friends, just friends. Many of them are married, but not all. I am single, btw.
 
I care too much for my female friends and confidently show my emotions when I’m with them. I don’t know if I should show the same when I’m with male guys? Maybe what I’m trying to say here is the boundaries of friendship between men and women?
 
Yes definitely do not expose emotions around guys so easily. They don’t like this not even in romantic relationships. They don’t know what to do, how to react, to solve it when the situations seems like a tragedy from the outside but for us it’s just “meh… I am upset so I am crying… let me chill.” For them crying is a big deal, crying means a serious situation. Just an example.
But don’t become too quiet either. Men actually appreciate the more demure women, because they like to show off and be center of attention, but if you are too withdrawn they will feel awkward around you and not know what to say so you don’t get upset.
You have to find a way to be relaxed and open to humor and jokes. Develop a sense of humor, especially about yourself.
 
Male perspective here…my first knee jerk reaction is “no, but…”. At the end of the day, you cannot get too “close” to a man unless your intentions are to be married to him. Otherwise, keep it casual, polite, don’t maintain too much eye contact, and always “hang-out” with other co-ed friends; this way you avoid “mixed signals”.
 
“Can men and women be ‘just friends’?”

Emphatically, yes. I have dozens of male friends who I have never even contemplated romance with. Some of them are gay, some of them are married (or in long-term relationship), some of them are 10-20 years younger than me, and some of them are just not “my type” and vice versa. Plus I myself was married for a long time until very recently.

I would note that I don’t sit around discussing intimate details of my life with these guys most of the time. The friendship consists of us getting together for a meal or a show once in a while, sometimes as part of a group. I’m not in their text messages daily or calling them up to talk about how I’m feeling today. I have in the past had a few male friends like that but they tended to either go the romantic route after a while or else one of us got romantically involved with someone else and the friendship reverted to a more casual social thing, sometimes involving partners/ spouses.
 
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Redrose13 said:
I care too much for my female friends and confidently show my emotions when I’m with them. I don’t know if I should show the same when I’m with male guys?
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Most guys have enough trouble with this when it’s coming from female romantic partners. They definitely don’t want to deal with it from someone who’s “just a friend”.
I tend to be not particularly “emotional” with the vast majority of people.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I would note that I don’t sit around discussing intimate details of my life with these guys most of the time. The friendship consists of us getting together for a meal or a show once in a while. I’m not in their text messages daily or calling them up to talk about how I’m feeling today. I have in the past had a few male friends like that but they tended to either go the romantic route after a while or else one of us got romantically involved with someone else and the friendship reverted to a more casual social thing, sometimes involving partners/ spouses.
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This!!! I have male friends as my husband has female friends, and to be honest, it was one important point for me to see if someone´s able to see the personality rather than just a romance in a person. But there are also rules we both set naturally as no one would like to be intimate in talks and acts to another person. When I lived in my student appartment, there lived a guy next to me and we cooked together, talked, became friends. But I noticed, since I´m married and he got married, we spent far more time together than before, with our spouses, too.
 
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In my experience, some people just naturally have a good sense of how to get along in a friendly way with the opposite gender, sometimes because they spent a lot of time growing up around people of that gender and are comfortable. A girl may have been the tomboy type who hung out with a bunch of boys playing sports. A boy might have been the only boy in a family of sisters and gotten used to getting along with girls. It just comes naturally to some people.

Others seem super-aware of their gender and are really more comfortable being buddies with people of the same gender as themselves. It’s just a preference.

I’m not really into “girly” stuff or “girls’ nights out” and most of the things I enjoy like engineering, computers and bands were male-dominated during my formative years, so I got used to being one of the few girls in a roomful of guys.
 
I think I know this from my own…I wasn´t raised with brothers, but I´ve done sports and worked often in male-dominated areas and always had a strong contact to what I call my replacement-grandpas there 🙂
I would be uncomfortable with overly defined rules for contacts to the other sex, but I simply never felt it was appropriate to discuss intimate stuff with other men. I also don´t do this with women often if there´s no actual problem.
I was on the other hand often worried when people told me they “simply can´t deal well with people of their own sex” as there´s often an underlying wish to be wooed or fear for concurence.
 
I was out this morning with a lady .

We are good friends .

Of course men and women can be just friends .
 
I personally would have no problem with it, but I have been around boys, bad boys, men, and 6 brothers a multitude of uncles, aunts and my sisters most of my life, plus taking care of men in various nursing homes and hospitals. I think culture, background, and upbringing has a lot to do with how one gets along with men. So I think you CAN be friends with men. However, it is up to you to know the warnings signs of an association gone awry and draw the line. Men don’t always know 'cause they don’t always think with their brains. The more you associate with men the better or more comfortable you will be with men. Just fair warning 'though. Don’t get overly comfortable with them.
 
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