Male-Female Friendship

[Lara]

Actually, it’s no comment on the men who can be kind. I just wanted to say that these relationships with beta-orbiters aren’t helpful to married women. But I’m willing to hear you out.

 

[bumblebee]

My friend is at a catholic university and we had a long conversation about this—they surveyed her class (which was fairly large) and asked just bare bones, can men and women just be friends. The class was split where all the men said no, and all the women said yes. Catholic friendships are beautiful things, I have a friend who is a seminarian and another male friend who is going towards the consecrated single life among many others. Our friendship is not something negative that interferes with that, we are friends because we get along well and have similar senses of humor and as people we just clicked. I don’t get as to why the persons age and health is relative or needed info, the situation transcends to all possible combinations.

I will say, this probably isn’t something by that every single male female friendship pairing will do, but with my Male friends mentioned above, we set boundaries at the very beginning of the relationship. There are some lines we won’t cross and things we won’t do or talk about to each protect the other persons heart. Deep conversations are okay, but just the emotional of some topics are definitely not okay.

Why would a male and female even want to be friends without eventually leading to marriage? If you were only friends with other people of the same sex then people wouldn’t know how to communicate with each other. My seminarian friend he pointed this out, but like Priests need to be able to talk to people. They need to be able to talk to women. People go to priests for long lists of things from confession down to just talking or random advice etc etc. If a priest couldn’t talk to a woman or just have a platonic relationship with any female, that would cause problems. Yes they could go to a sister per se, but at the same time why is there such a strong need for division?

Personally, I would not date a male that I was not friends with first. I know I’m not alone in that, But it’s just a personal preference. My parents for example, just started their relationship dating, and didn’t build a friendship first. Now of course other things went into it, but they’re now divorced. One of the main reasons my mom talked to me about all of that happening was that they were never friends, and that began tearing them apart (among other things quite personal).

(Part 1)

 

[bumblebee]

Back to what was said about attractions, they are not bad. You can be friends with someone of the opposite sex and think they’re attractive, you can acknowledge that without it causing problems. But acting on it or dwelling on it or anything more is where lines get blurred. I feel as though this factor is one that separates how men and women generally feel about this question asking if they can be just friends.

You can be friends with anyone and with any friendship boundaries should be set. I think of it as a funny story now but at the time it was a really smart move to make, but when I was doing mission work I was on a team with one other women and two men. Before sending us out, the coordinators gave a talk to everyone about not falling in love with your teammates and at the time it was cringey and awkward, but then I saw it happen on other teams and people get very hurt or confused. But one of the guy teammates who I am still friends with today and we occasionally text and such, he really wanted to bring up and give me a very specific compliment, but waited until we were all saying our goodbyes at the end of the mission because that would’ve crossed an emotional line where we were exhausted and drained and giving all of ourselves into the work we were doing so that on top of that, adding in specific compliments would’ve changed how our relationship and how our team worked.

(Part 2)

 

[bumblebee]

others.

Having those thoughts or feelings are not dealbreakers! You can think that and still be friends, but acknowledge the fact that you should NOT and will NOT act on it! I can be friends with a person of the opposite sex and appreciate the beauty of creation by God. If it goes into lust then take a step back, and reevaluate yourself. That’s not on the other person, but for yourself to handle. Take it to God, talk to a priest or sister.

If you truly can’t be friends without wanting more then be honest with yourself and with them. But know that your friendship will likely change after that.

 

[SPBlitz]

. As signit mentioned above^ it’s possible for women to be friends with men, not the other way around

That seems like a pretty massive generation. You don’t speak for all men.

 

[twf]

What does that even mean? If the woman is responsible for cooking, cleaning, and child rearing, and the man for working… that will improve their sex life? Conversely, if a dad is too involved with the children or cleaning, the sex life will suffer?
I assume that’s not what you’re implying… but I’m just scratching my head at your comment.

 

[PetraG]

What does what they look like have to do with the question?

This is an important distinction, and not just because it would be insulting to strike up a friendship with someone on the theory that he or she isn’t attractive enough to ever be a temptation.

It’s the pretty girls and women who are surrounded by male ‘friends’, and the handsome boys and men who are surrounded by female ‘friends’.

Is that so?

 

[do_justly_love_mercy]

I think we have very different perspectives on relationships. I don’t want to be emotionally dependant upon anyone. I don’t want my marriage to be the only thing in my life. We are open to children whenever they come along, but we are thinking we might have ten years before that happens. I want to get firmly established in my career, I am working on a proposal to turn my master’s thesis into a doctorate. When we do have children, we’d like to split the childcare 50:50 and both work part time.

I don’t get the “beta-orbiter” thing. It sounds like one of those theories that circulate in the so-called “manosphere”. I certainly don’t intend to give up friends of either sex. I regard my friends as friends. They’re not people I almost dated, almost married, etc. The “beta-orbiter” thing seems to reduce humans to the level of non-human species.

The basic premise I work from is that I don’t draw a distinction between men and women when it comes to having friends. My husband and I are going to have friends. Whether they are men or women doesn’t make any difference to me.

 

[do_justly_love_mercy]

They are not usually doing it because they fear what the other person will do

Yes, I agree. Somebody, somewhere, on what is now a very long thread, was saying that one has to be aware of the possibility of romantic or sexual feelings developing on either side in a friendship between a man and a woman. The suggestion was that even if you have your emotions under control, the other person may not. So, my comment on that was, if you are a straight man, and you worry about women developing these feelings toward you, would you also worry about a gay man potentially developing the same feelings? This question isn’t really directed toward you personally, as I don’t think you were the person who originally raised this point, but, to be honest, I’ve lost track…

 

[PetraG]

Your fiancé and you aren’t living in the same country now. And you are not dependent upon him. When you are married, and you’ve barely seen him all week, and then he chooses to spend three of his precious hours with his female friend while you are doing housework and minding young children, you will not feel the same way.

Well, actually, my husband has gone out to lunch with friends while I was home with our children; sometimes it was a male, sometimes a female. I suppose I could have resented it, but I looked at giving him social time that was neither parenting nor working as something he needed to keep on an even keel. Good friends aren’t so easy to find that you just discard the ones who are the opposite sex.

Having said that, I do think that the adage that “spouses know” is not a bad one. I mean that if your male friend’s wife isn’t comfortable with her husband’s friendship with you, listen to that. Be a friend to his marriage and respect his wife’s sense of things. Put some distance in. If she’s the kind cutting him off from all his friendships, that’s for him and his family to look out for. Usually, though, I think the spouse can sometimes sense when a relationship is going in emotional directions that aren’t good for the marriage. Whether that is sexual or not hardly matters. The marriage has to come first.

 

[phil19034]

So, my comment on that was, if you are a straight man, and you worry about women developing these feelings toward you, would you also worry about a gay man potentially developing the same feelings?

Well, I guess if one was worried about women developing feelings towards him, then it would be reasonable for them to feel the same about gay men too.

But in practice, I think most only act to protect their own thoughts.

 

[Lara]

A couple should absolutely need one another and be emotionally dependent on each other. It’s much more passionate to go into marriage with the idea of having children almost right away. It’s also smarter. The older you get, the more difficult it is to have children and run after them. This is now getting off-topic, but I will caution you, the feminist approach to marriage often leads to marital breakdown. The hallowed halls of higher education lead to thought patterns that undermine family life.

Our ideas are very different due to our ages. When I was younger, I thought more like you do, but thirty years have changed me.

 

[C.laypersona]

What, then, is your proposal for avoiding [persons of] the opposite sex in the work place?

Sarcasm? It’s obvious that we can’t do that; we simply can’t completely avoid having them around or occasionally talking with them. (It’s also obvious that we can’t ask people how to dress, unless we run the company.)

Yet what we can do is to avoid becoming too familiarized with, avoid getting psych-ically close and attached to, our opposite-sex colleagues – if either we or they are married or engaged, and additionally if either we find them ‘attractive’ or they seem to have ‘romantic feelings’ for us (that can usually be noticed).

I’ve only tried to point out that the ‘friends “by default” (or by familiarity)’ vs ‘friends on purpose’ distinction, that has been mentioned here by someone, is naïve. And that without proposing any ‘practical solution’, because a practical solution would have to be societal: imposed by law that men and women should work in separate buildings or rooms (so as monks and nuns live, pray, and work in separate monasteries). Since I don’t see that happening (unfortunately), it’s up to personal self-discipline.

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By the way; perhaps it should be pointed out here, for some people, that sexual attraction between celibate laymen and celibate laywomen is not sinful if – and only if – it is directed towards religious marriage. Not everyone is called by God to be or to live like a monk/priest or a nun.

 

[C.laypersona]

Note of clarification: The topic was closed only because of a misunderstanding: I’ve asked the moderators by private message to delete a duplicate reply of mine from here (it initially was a separate topic, but they’ve moved it ‘back’ here), since I can’t ‘flag’ my own posts for moderator attention, and they thought that I’ve asked for the deletion of the entire topic. Good that they haven’t deleted it!

 

[twf]

You really believe that in an ideal world the secular authority would impose separation of the sexes in the workplace? I can’t imagine that being healthy or efficient in the long run. It would also make it far more difficult for single people to find a spouse…

 

[C.laypersona]

Firstly, and somewhat off-topic, the ideal society would be religious (Christian) and Theo-cratic, not secularistic (read: atheistic) and demo-cratic. We would have an anointed priest-king (as was David) instead of an elected president. – We have to keep in mind that God is not only the Creator and our heavenly Father, but also the Lord. If we live in a democratic society, it’s only because He has allowed that to happen. – But since it doesn’t seem that even a return to an authentic constitutional monarchy is something that would be happening during, let’s say, this century in the countries of Europe and North America (before someone mentions about it: almost no one takes the monarchy of the UK seriously), and since modernized societies become more and more ‘Brave New Worldly’, we’re left only with personal self-discipline.

Secondly, If I’m correctly informed (and I’m not sure about this), then men and women in the past, only a hundred years ago, have actually worked in separate/different factories, for example.

Celibate laypeople could’ve gone to organized dancing events to find a potential spouse – that’s how it was done in the past, and it’s still done in some traditional societies and cultures (might want to search and read about folk dances and customs). The workplace was for work, and the place of study was for study, not for finding a spouse. Though peasant work in the field, during the harvest season, was usually done by both men and women together.

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A question to all those of you who consider that male-female ‘strictly only friendships’, even among the young and healthy people, are or should be easily doable, both behaviorally and psychically, at least among devout Christians:

Why do you think that monks and nuns don’t live in mixed monasteries but separately?

 

[TheLittleLady]

Secondly, If I’m correctly informed (and I’m not sure about this), then men and women in the past, only a hundred years ago, have actually worked in separate/different factories, for example.

Segregation in learning and in work because of race was allowed 100 years ago, the past does not make segregation right or advisable.

 

[Fauken]

C.laypersona:

Secondly, If I’m correctly informed (and I’m not sure about this), then men and women in the past, only a hundred years ago, have actually worked in separate/different factories, for example.

Segregation in learning and in work because of race was allowed 100 years ago, the past does not make segregation right or advisable.

I also wonder about how the logistics of that would work. I work in a male dominated profession. Where I work, I’m the only woman with my job title, there are only four other women in my entire department, and none of us are managers. Sure, in this scenario, we’d work in a building where other ladies are, but we’re so tiny, what would our building section look like? Who would supervise us? Our section requires silence for us to work, how would that be accommodated for five people without it being viewed as space that could be used for departments with more women in them? How am I supposed to work with my other colleagues when they’re in an entirely different building? My job may be entirely on a computer, but talking with them directly and looking at what’s on their computer can save us all time.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Considering that in the 1920’s both nursing and teaching were employing a lot of women, and only private schools were segregated, this makes it even more confusing! I am a nurse, but, I cannot work aside male doctors?

 

[SPBlitz]

Celibate laypeople could’ve gone to organized dancing events to find a potential spouse – that’s how it was done in the past, and it’s still done in some traditional societies and cultures (might want to search and read about folk dances and customs). The workplace was for work, and the place of study was for study, not for finding a spouse. Though peasant work in the field, during the harvest season, was usually done by both men and women together.

A question to all those of you who consider that male-female ‘strictly only friendships’, even among the young and healthy people, are or should be easily doable, both behaviorally and psychically, at least among devout Christians:

Why do you think that monks and nuns don’t live in mixed monasteries but separately?

Boy, I would not want to be a part of that society, where people of the opposite sex are considered to be potential spouses an no more. Seems awfully constricting.