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A Man. A Woman. Just Friends?
- Groxx 15y agoWhy do we so rarely see it in popular culture? Oh, I don't know. Maybe for the same reason you don't see TV shows about people getting along and living normal lives; there's no "drama" when things just work. I really hate articles like this.
- rayiner 15y agoThe author makes a quite interesting point about our culture. Media portrays a fundamentally more sexualized dynamic between men and woman than exists in reality. "Friends" is a pretty great example--pretty much everyone in that show that wasn't related ended up sleeping together. I don't think you can explain it simply by saying friendships are not good fodder for drama. The Lord of the Rings is a wonderful story about friendships, of all different sorts. The relevant friendships are all between males, of course, but it was written nearly 60 years ago.
- rbarooah 15y agoLord of the rings draws its dramatic tension from evil and the threat or violence and death instead of sex.
- InclinedPlane 15y agoThat's a problem though, because fictional portrayals (in movies, books, tv, and games) is so much a part of the culture these days that it does to a very real degree influence and affect people's perceptions of what is normal. The hollywood norms of friendships, careers, beauty (of course), romance, dating, and even the very concept of sex are often the models that most people start out with. It's impossible to measure the degree of damage and heartbreak caused by the stark difference between that and the real world. We have a little bit of insight into how the gap between hollywood ideals of appearance, attractiveness, and beauty affects girls and women, in some cases to life or death circumstances. People tend to keep their love lives much more private but we can know from anecdotes and from comparison with those other aspects like appearance that there is just as much a profound effect there. It would be nice if we didn't live in a world where fictionalized portrayals were decoupled from people's understanding of relationship, beauty, and sexual norms but we do. Whether the origin of that problem is that's of prudishness in the industry, or the need to tell compelling stories, or any other reason is entirely orthogonal to the reality of the problems caused by the phenomenon.
- InclinedPlane 15y agoOops, I accidentally inverted the first sentence in the last paragraph, I think people got the gist of it though. (In my defense, it was really late and I was very tired.)
- carguy1983 15y agoIn my view early in life and later in life, it's possible. During prime match making years, 20-30, you've got to be kidding. The only exception I can think of is people who were family friends from very early childhood that behave more like siblings when they get older. The idea that, for example, any 28 year old male I know will just hang out completely platonically with, for example, a 25 year old female "friend" which he met in the last 5 years, sounds like complete science fiction.
- TheEzEzz 15y agoI've seen it happen multiple times in the context of groups of friends. A large group of 10ish people, roughly half male and half female, all close friends, usually originating in college. The group is close enough that any two of the members can hang out 1-on-1. Long term relationships or mutual disinterest keeps most of the potential sexual pairings from happening.
- carguy1983 15y agoThe vast majority of college friendships are formed in the first two years, ages 18 and 19, possibly 20.
- danenania 15y agoI don't know, maybe it's not likely to have friendships at that stage with no sexual feelings whatsoever, but there's also a big gray area where you can like someone enough to be friends, and maybe be a bit attracted to them, but really aren't that interested in taking it further, for any number of reasons. Maybe one of the two of you is already in a relationship, maybe you anticipate too much emotional complexity, maybe you're already having enough sex and just don't feel motivated. Of course, there's always a chance that if two people like this end up in the right situation, something could happen, but it's far from a certainty. In my experience this kind of friendship is actually very common, especially among large mixed gender friend groups. The dynamic only ever seems to frustrate the guys who aren't getting any--but in those cases it's really just the frustration of not getting any being projected into the friendships. If the guy finds a girlfriend or whatever then the tension disappears.
- drivebyacct2 15y agoThe problems with women and men being "just friends" are the same as those that afflict any pairing of people, couple or not: a difference of expectations. I have plenty of very close relationships with members of the gender that I prefer. I've never had a problem keeping friendships and relationships distinct. I find this mentality very unforunate.
- munyukim 15y agoIts possible to hava friendship with oppositd, but as u get closer one of you might get confused.
- Swizec 15y agoA man and a woman can be just friends. It is in fact even possible for two persons who are just friends to have sex. There is nothing wrong with that, they can continue being just friends and never intending anything serious to come of it. It's even possible for a man and a woman to be just friends, always talking about sex (and almost nothing else) and there not being a single bit of sexual tension. However, what I've found is almost impossible, is for a man and a woman (both single and/or young) to be alone in a dark room for any length of time to, say, watch a movie, and nothing physical happening. At the very least there will be cuddling. But that has nothing to do with being just friends or not. After all, friendship is just a label, if both parties agree to call their relationship a friendship, then it is a friendship no matter what actually goes on and what anyone else might think.
- jrockway 15y agoHowever, what I've found is almost impossible, is for a man and a woman (both single and/or young) to be alone in a dark room for any length of time to, say, watch a movie, and nothing physical happening. At the very least there will be cuddling. I've been in this situation without anything physical happening. Seems like the default state.
- Swizec 15y agoProbably just that I'm never alone with girls who don't want anything physical from me (and me from them). Seems more fun to have a movienight (or whatever) with a bunch of people, rather than just two friends. This fact probably skews that part of my experience. Another possibility is we define "something physical" differently - I think of [light] cuddling as something physical, from what I've heard a lot of people don't.
- TazeTSchnitzel 15y agoIt's such a huge generalisation and it's false.
- Apocryphon 15y agoMaybe the previous poster lives in a cold climate.
- jurre 15y agoNow that's just silly, I have lots of female friends and there is no sexual tention at all.
- FaceKicker 15y agoDid you finish the article?
- jurre 15y agoYes, I did, but I didn't take the conclusion as 'nowadays it's perfectly possible for men and women to just be friends', I read it more as 'maybe it will be posible in the future'.
- LogicX 15y agoCurious: are said females in relationships? are you? Check out http://www.laddertheory.com http://www.laddertheory.com - curious if your situation falls into one of their stated exceptions.
- jurre 15y agoSome are, some aren't, I'm currently not if you must know :)
- Shenglong 15y agoI'd argue that when a heterosexual man and a heterosexual woman become friends, at least one party wants to have sex with the other. This desire doesn't need to be realizable, but the desire must be there. Why? Well, because we want to have sex with people we're attracted to. Thus, the only way for neither party not to want sex, is for neither party to be attracted (physically, intellectually, emotionally) to the other... but if that's the case, and neither party finds the other attractive in any attributes, then why would they be friends in the first place? I suppose there are those rare instances where both parties find the other physically intolerable, but enjoy the intellectual pursuits. But then, perhaps we need to redefine man and woman in this context.
- hetman 15y agoI don't understand this at all. I don't want to have sex with any of my male friends yet I still find compelling reasons for friendship with them. So why then can't things that are completely non-sexual attract me to women and be a foundations for a friendship with them too? It almost sounds like we are nothing more than the sum of some animalistic urges we have little control over. I have not found this to be my experience, and sometimes wonder if it isn't a popular myth we like to use to excuse our behaviours sometimes.
- wazoox 15y ago> It almost sounds like we are nothing more than the sum of some animalistic urges we have little control over. Actually it looks like that's precisely what many believe; that's the excuse for veiling women in "traditional" religious societies after all (because you know, men all are rabid rapists; at least all pious believers must be, apparently).
- wpietri 15y agoYou're close, but the actual view is that all men are noble souls who are corrupted instantly when they glimpse a woman's ankle. Conclusion: women are inherently wicked and must be suppressed.
- 15y ago
- ajays 15y agoI think this article is written (and this question is asked) from a very American point of view. Having grown up in another culture but spent a significant part of my life in the US, I've come to the conclusion that there's a bit too much sexual tension in this culture; as if the underlying desires are being repressed, and thus could burst out any time there's an opportunity (like, say, being friends with the opposite sex). For me, sex and friendship are different dimensions. I can have sex with someone I'm not interested in being friends with. I can be friends with someone I'm not interesting in having sex with. My long-term relationships, of course, have always been with someone with high values in both dimensions. And I'm still very good friends with several of my exes, who have gone on to happy relationships. We stopped the sex part, but the friendship dimension stayed.
- TelmoMenezes 15y agoI thought the same regarding the American point of view. I grew up in Europe. It's hard to explain exactly what I mean, but I think American culture has less tolerance for gray areas in these matters.
- _delirium 15y agoI think it varies a lot within Europe. It's changing a bit now, but in southern Europe it's still common to be suspicious of young men and women who are supposedly "not dating" hanging out one-on-one, since everyone assumes something else is going on, or will be going on soon. It can even cause a bit of a scandal if a married man or woman is seen to be regularly associating one-on-one with an opposite-sex friend.
- personlurking 15y agoIn Brazil, among the youth, there's something called "ficar" (to remain, to stay) which translates to "getting with someone", which in turn can mean anything from kissing to sex. Ficar is something that usually happens more than once, as in you 'stay' with the same person several times. Think of it like a temporary boyfriend/girlfriend, no strings attached. There's also "pegar" (to get or grab) and that is like "ficar" but more physical and usually just once. Among a group of friends, changing around the person with whom you ficar or pegar is quite normal. It's as if they are choosing which shirt to wear for the day. Afterwards, everyone remains friends, just like before. In terms of relationships, one woman told me that it's perfectly normal to get to know someone through 'ficar', as if actually getting to know someone before deciding to kiss them is passé. So take the US workplace example given where there's this repressed feeling going around in regards to sexual tension....well, in Brazil everyone (the youth) is cool with it. There's not even a need to hide it from others. 'It's part of life, let's enjoy it.'
- davemel37 15y agoIf this isn't an argument to hack hollywood I don't know what is?! "When you can't improve on the silence don't open your mouth." Seriously, This opinion made no sense to me, had no support for any of its historical claims, and sounds to me like the author has a thing for a female friend of his, and this is his way of trying to appear platonic and not seem creepy.
- pinaceae 15y agooh come on, enough with that pc bullcrap already. can man and woman be friends? sure, if at least one side sees the other as sexually unattractive, undesirable. that could be plain ugliness, sexual orientation or status/wealth. but man and woman, or gay pairings that find each other desirable? why should there be friendship if nature tells you to fuck each other? real friendship can only exist if there is no sexual desire. then there is the second form of friendship, the less talked about one: the SM one. one quite attractive female and her fat "best friend". always together, especially on a night out. the good looking one using the fat one as a boost to her ego and ugly backdrop for any male choosing between them. the fat one leeching off her friend's attention and snapping up the male leftovers. the male equivalent is pretty much the setup for the tv series Entourage.
- forgottenpaswrd 15y agoYes, just friends. If I want a lover I will say to her. "Close friendship between members of the same sex, are also suspect" And this, my Hacker news friends, is what we call a dirty, unsatisfied and repressed mind. This reminds me to catholic priests in my childhood, if it is taboo for you to have sex you can start obsessing about sex, thinking too much of sex, seeing it everywhere, even inventing it when there is none. The problem is not in the people, the problem is in you. Here in Spain we hug our friends, and we kiss our other sex friends a lot. In Morocco two male friends will hold hands together. It is part of the culture.
- Shivetya 15y agothen you have our wonderful work place rules which have to go to such extents to keep people away from each other so as not to offend anyone and bring on a lawsuit. I have worked at places where they asked people not to kiss their spouse goodbye when being dropped off and such. Really. We had two married couples working at the same place and both were told no open signs of affection were permitted. All because it could offend someone else. The worst was the no flowers office. Glad I was only there six months. Yeah, no flowers, no cards. The only thing allowed were pictures of kids or family photos. Bizarre. Then you get into those places where if you do go to lunch with someone of the opposite sex people love to have fun with innuendos.
- danso 15y agoThis was in America? How big of a company?
- petegrif 15y agoI strongly recommend 'A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire' by Sai Gaddam and Ogi Ogas. It's big data applied to the study of human sexuality. Essential reading!
- Lazare 15y agoThe article has, I think, one terrible point, which in turn is hiding one good point. The terrible point is, basically, "men and women just can't help being sexually attracted to each other", and it permeates the entire article. Even when the author is attempting to question this basic premise it still warps his phrasing. Why is it terrible? Well, because it's not true, for one. But beyond that, it's a remarkably heteronormative idea; it comes coupled with an inherent mental model that everyone is heterosexual. Consider: Is a male homosexual who hangs out with the other guys on his team going to be unavoidably attracted to every single one? If he hangs out with the girls on his team are they going to be unavoidably attracted to him? Does any homosexual individual, thus, unavoidably cause unrequited feelings of lust, no matter whom he hangs out with? Will a bisexual individual be unavoidably attracted to every person he meets? It it, say, just a feature of gay life that they are constantly frustrated as they keep meeting straight guys whom they can't help but be attracted to (whereas straight males can just avoid hanging out with females and remain unfrustrated)? No. That's not how it works, for anyone, gay or straight. Apart from a few relatively rare mis-fires, we are only sexually attracted to people who are attracted to us. (This one of of the major misconceptions that led to restrictions on homosexuals serving in the military. And there's no question it's a misconception.) Most pairs of people - regardless of gender and orientation - simply don't have that sexual spark. The good point hidden in the article is that American culture has no real idea of "friendship" in a sense that people from other cultures either now or historically would recognize as such. American's just don't have friends. We have weak acquaintencnes. Why? Nobody seems to know. But it's something that probably deserves more attention. But in this context, the question "can men and women be friends", in the context of American culture, actually has an answer. "No". But since the same answer is true of "can men be friends" and "can women be friends", this doesn't mean quite what it seems. :)
- ncarroll 15y agoSexual tension? In friendships? Wait a minute, why not? Let's don't be disingenuous, here. We love it, don't we? Isn't why we read books, go to movies, watch silly TV series? It works there because it's universal. We've all felt it. I don't have to act on it if I don't want to but in some relationships it simply occurs, naturally. When it does, I try to refrain from doing violence to one of Life's most enjoyable feelings by denying it, repressing it or labelling it right off the stage with the sibling comparison.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- RyanMcGreal 15y agoA half-baked thesis, warmed-over pop-culture anecdotes and phoned-in analysis: I have no idea how this ended up on the front page of HN, let alone on the pages of the New York Times.
- jonnathanson 15y agoA lot of it has to do with socialization. I was socialized with a pretty broadly mixed-sex peer group as a young child. I had friends who were boys, and friends who were girls, though admittedly a lot more of the former than the latter. I attended elementary school (and high school, and college, and now the workplace) with a roughly equal number of young men and women. And today, I can count on almost as many female friends as male friends. I can assure you that there's little to no underlying sexual tension in 99% of those friendships. All of this would have been unthinkable in my grandfather's day. As the article points out, previous generations had far stricter boundaries on the man's place in society, and the woman's. Young men rarely socialized with young women until the teenage years, which coincided precisely with the most raging period of hormonal upswing, and the result was a potent cocktail of mystery and awkwardness surrounding the opposite sex. Then they went off into separate workplaces, or at best, mixed workplaces with very strict boundaries of separation. Quite simply, they were never given the chance to develop normative standards of mixed-sex friendship. The premise that men and women are ineluctibly attracted to one another, and thus, a male friend and a female friend secretly want to fuck, is a broad generalization hammered on top of a specific, interpersonal dynamic. It doesn't hold up, except in those very rare cases where it does. "When Harry Met Sally" inverts the rule and the exception, taking a specific case -- this particular guy and this particular woman want to bang -- and applying it more universally. We encounter the same problem when trying to apply Ross and Rachel archetypes. Ross and Rachel are secretly attracted to one another because the writers of the show created them that way. It's not "inevitable" that any given Ross and any given Rachel are destined to pine for one another. (Likewise, nobody ever takes note of the fact that Ross and Phoebe were friends, and no sexual tension existed there. In a parallel universe, it's entirely possible that the creators of "Friends" never made anybody attracted to anyone else on the show, although I suspect that version of the show is a lot more boring). Art can imitate life, and life can imitate art, but we should be very careful to note the differences between the two.
- munyukim 15y agoIt depends on the type of friendship you have.
- 83457 15y agoI always enjoyed Chris Rock's commentary on the subject of platonic friends. Seriously though I think everyone is a bit different on this one. I've had multiple female friends and there was often some sexual tension but honestly that may have been part of what kept some of the friendships interesting. It is a kind of like a relationship without the actual sex. This might come up most often for people once they get out of college in the context of a "work spouse".
- sethg 15y agoOne factor here is that the people running Hollywood studios assume that men don’t want to buy tickets to a movie where the main female character is anything but the romantic partner of the main male character. (Yeah, the success of the Harry Potter series demonstrates that this assumption is bullshit, but... well... studio execs have a lot of practice rationalizing away exceptions like this. It’s like their assumption that white audiences won’t watch movies with a black main character, unless that main character is played by Will Smith.)
- Apocryphon 15y agoI like this article because it not only goes over the historical changes to a social phenomenon, but calls out entertainment for being cliched about it.
- reduxredacted 15y agoHe seems to argue that it's very difficult to have platonic male/female friendships in a heterosexual context. Speaking as anecdotally as that article did. My first roommate was a girl. Neither of us wanted to have sex with eachother. It was a shared rent/utilities arrangement and she got the second room because she was the only one of my friends who I would trust to not destroy the place. She was easy to get along with and our relationship was as platonic as it would have been with a guy (I'm straight, to clear that up). Despite [my parent's] faith not allowing such things (rather judgmental Catholic family), they thought it was a great idea because they knew "us" in context and even they saw it as no different than having a same gender roommate (believe me, I agonized explaining the situation to them and was shocked when they outright endorsed it). Today, I'm just finishing off a divorce. Of my three closest friends, the top two are women that I had lost touch with years ago. Both are exceptionally attractive, single, women (I'm no Brad Pitt, but I've never had a problem attracting, either). I think the simplest way to have a successful platonic relationship is to be transparent about sex. I think some of us are too insecure to even think of doing that, but it's really not difficult. If you really find your friend attractive, say so. If you previously had feelings for them but do not now, say so. If they're really a meaningful friend, the awkwardness won't last long as long as you're not so hung up on rejection that you can't take getting a "let's be friends". I've done this with both of my two friends, one I simply reassured that I'm not at all interested in a relationship, the other I admitted my attraction to years ago and was not reciprocated. I cherish the friendship of both and after a short time of grousing about the latter relationship, I realized she was right and we'd be a terrible fit. Now as a divorced man, I'm looking for a roommate. I'm not interested in a relationship beyond friendship and I don't see that changing regardless of the person. I'd consider either one of them (and that is likely to happen at some point in very the near future), but not my best "guy" friend. *Edit: Bracketed items for clarification.
- drblast 15y agoImagine the following conversation between a (heterosexual) married couple: Husband: "Hey honey, I'm going over a friend's house and we're going to hang out on the couch and watch the game." Wife: "OK! See you in a few hours. What's your friend's name?" And tell me with a straight face that it makes no difference if the husband says "Bob," or "Sally." The problem with opposite sex friendships is that even with the best of intentions, they won't survive when one of you is in a long term sexual relationship. And deep down, you both know that.
- Groxx 15y agoNone. Zero. My wife has quite a few close male friends, and I feel absolutely no threat from any of them. She's a snuggler, and semi-consciously leans on anyone in the vicinity when we're all around watching a movie or something. Usually that's me, but not always. Why should I feel threatened about this? This relationship isn't a game to be won, and they aren't my competitors.
- drblast 15y agoScenario #2: You and your wife have a big argument. She storms out of the house, and says either: A. "I'm going to go hang out and watch a movie alone with Dave." B. "I'm going to go hang out and watch a movie alone with Sally." Still, no difference? I get that people can be open-minded and trusting, but I think there are some basic things that most people just don't do. And those things have everything to do with the underlying assumptions about the relationship between a man and a woman. Sure, there are exceptions. But in general, there are more problems with platonic opposite sex friendships than same sex, and I think there always will be because of the scenarios I've mentioned.
- Groxx 15y agoNo difference. A. Fights happen. And they're very very different than a divorce. We're not together just for sex, or just because we never fight. B. I trust my wife. C. We've had fights, she's gone to male friends to cool off. They have helped. What, don't you trust your friends? (edit: of which a wife should be one)
- kanchax 15y agoI agree that a purely platonic relationship between a man and a woman is impossible. If exists I suppose not that the brain of the people implied is fundamentally different than mine but rather they have developed a part of their brain that masks their now unconscious desires. From those desires will grow a head-start appreciation for the other sex (or same) that those of the your sex (or other) will not have. If your desire is quenched then not much will happen. If it is not, then you will of course search for ways to quench it. Dopamine. The result depends on vision of the world. I have personally left behind the race for women and now focus on the race for coolness, if you will. Ultimately it is the same either way to my feelings but in my tribe coolness is better than sex.