Yes, of course. But I think people usually consider romance to be more important than friendships. I don't know if it's because of evolutionary reasons, or cult

Yes, of course. But I think people usually consider romance to be more important than friendships. I don't know if it's because of evolutionary reasons, or cultural reasons; just that it happens that way. Of course, my knowledge is mostly limited to men's opinions and it's also possible women have a different perspective on this. Which leads to the following: > The amount of women in stable heterosexual relationship is the same as amount of males in heterosexual relationship. Yes, you're completely right. However (in the culture I'm in) men usually take action to ask out/talk to women. This asymmetry theoretically leads to men getting rejected until they're not, and women meeting unworthy men until they don't. So each gender has an entirely different perspective on the same dating market. Personally speaking, it is hard for me to fully understand my female friends' difficulties with dating (or friendships) because I've only experienced it as a male, so many things they have difficulty with are things I take for granted (this usually goes the other way too). Unless there's a huge cultural shift, men and women will keep having completely orthogonal experiences and until then, empathy remains the biggest asset for us to treat each other with.