Friday, 18 July 2008
-
Men and Women Are Not Wired For Platonic Friendship
Way back during my early college years, I had the mentality that guys and girls could be platonic friends. I believed that guys and girls could hold the same friendships that girls do with girls or guys with guys. I even got into an argument about it with this guy I knew who was studying to be a pastor.Then one day I woke up and realized, "Guys and girls can't be friends!"
I suddenly viewed all my previous "guy friends" as acquaintances, and not people who I would consider to be my friends. You see, I concluded that it is near-impossible for a guy and a girl to be friends without either person developing romantic feelings. All this time, I had defended so fiercely the idea that my guy friends were really just that: guy friends. Now when I looked at them, I didn't see friends because I was thinking about my future husband and one day having to explain to him that all these guys were my friends and we could hang out without him worrying about us hitting on each other. I felt like I'd been so naive as to think that two people of the opposite sex could be good friends.
Think about telling your (future) spouse, "Dear, me and *blank* are just friends. We're not going to do anything behind your back. He's just a friend!" I think if my husband were to one day turn around and say, "*Blank female* and I are just friends going out for drinks," I'd be pretty upset.
My point is, there is a reason why God created man and woman. He didn't say, "Man, here's a woman so you can be just friends." I'm pretty sure it was more to the tune of "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." -Genesis 2:24.
Did God create us so we can really be just friends - no attraction or romantic feelings? When it comes down to it, isn't it safer to say that guys and girls can't be "just friends?"
-
recommend
- recs 4
-
share
-
email
- sent 2
Related Posts
Post a Comment
- Back to revelife's Revelife Site!
- Note: your comment will appear in revelife's local time zone: GMT -05:00 (Eastern Standard - US, Canada)
Comments (187)
@DareMom@xanga - I am not missing the point. I am disagreeing with the point. Isn't that the point of a discussion blog? And I think you should also realize that there are Christians out there (me included) that do not have closed-minds and are not full of hate for homosexuals. There is nothing wrong with their lifestyle just as there is nothing wrong with mine.
I think it is possible to just be friends with the opposite sex. I have a few guy friends who I have never had a romantic thought about. I will give you that if I was married and my husband said he was going out for a drink with a friend of his that was a girl i would at first be taken back by it, and a little jealous. However, if I put the shoe on the other foot.. I would be annoyed my spouce would think that of me....Oh well. It is possible to be friends with the opposite sex..my best friend is a guy..however he is gay..but still its the opposite sex..
Depends On Who Your "Friends" Are... Maybe You Have Trust Issues, Cause You Cant Trust Someone That You'd Consider As Husband Material.
This is so simple, it hurts. You don't even provide any examples of independent thought to explain why you came to this realization -- you've only used a Bible verse to explain an irrational epiphany you'd already reached on somewhat of a whim.
That's what trust is about. Of course there's going to be tension between men and women, but not always. You have to accept that your partner doesn't act on these feelings that may or may not exist already. While it's important to stay "best friends" with a spouse, if you both stuck to your own gender of companions, I think there's something to be said for how much (or rather, how little) you trust each other.
Maybe someone's been watching a little too much When Harry Met Sally.
This is retarded.
i don't think that the bible, by neglecting to explicitly say that men and women can have platonic relationships, is explicitly saying that they can't.
but i guess if someone wants to interpret it that way, they can.
@Christie - "Women were meant to be pursued by men, so I don't buy the "just friends" thing, plus a man's eyes are never satisfied."--Amen to that! Lol...
I completely disagree with you. If guys and girls think differently... I apparently think like the wrong gender. I trust my guy friends far more than my girl friends, and enjoy their company more. I will concede that it's hard to be friends without any romantic feelings emerging, but that doesn't mean we can't be friends.
Some of my closes guy friends are guys who either once were interested in me, or I was interested in them. But once we got past that, we became really great friends.
And I plan continuing to have guy friends when I'm married, though I will definitely be careful to not make my husband jealous, and my husband will hopefully be my best friend himself.
But for now. Give me a long heart-to-heart chat with one of my guy friends over a gossip-fest with a girl ANY day.
@rhbailey@xanga - THANK YOU! This is exactly what I was trying to get across in my original comment to this post.
@Andrealana@xanga - This is exactly what I am saying if you are married or in a similarly committed relationship and your spouse/SO is uncomfortable with you having opposite sex friendships. Basically, think of someone besides yourself once in a while. You can have all the history and trust you want in the world but that doesn't change the fact that affairs happen, especially when you are confident that they won't. It's just plain selfish to continue to take this risk, however seemingly nonexistent it may be, when your spouse/SO is not comfortable with it. If they are comfortable with it, good for you, enter at your own risk.
Spouses who aren't comfortable with this type of thing are not wrong - again I say the risk is always there. I've known someone who you would have never, EVER thought would have an affair and they did - me. I didn't even think I would myself, but it happened and it happened fast and guess where it stemmed from? A "platonic" friendship with someone whom I originally thought in a million years I would never even consider being attracted to. It nearly ruined my marriage. In fact, my marriage is still in bad shape. Not just because of that, but it has a lot to do with it. And to think, it could have all been avoided if my husband had been uncomfortable with platonic friendships with other guys on my part and I had avoided starting one because I, like you, foolishly thought it would never happen. Message? IT HAPPENS.
And gay, lesbian, bi, tran, etc has nothing to do with any of this and none of what I wrote was meant to be offensive to them. It isn't even just about God and Christianity. If a lesbian asked me the same question, I'd tell her that for the sake of her partner who is uncomfortable with the risk of an affair, she should only be friends with guys and straight girls - but even straight girls are risky because there's always the chance they could change teams (I've noticed this often among the ladies). Gay guys with a partner who is uncomfortable with the risk of affairs should only be friends with girls or straight guys. And so on. Bisexuals, well I'll let them decide the safest course of action, but I can bet it can be worked around still to avoid that risk. It's just not a risk worth taking.
So yes, I feel that if even if an affair was NOT in our past, if my husband were uncomfortable with me being friends with straight men with whom there is a risk of an affair, however minute and unthinkable (it's ALWAYS there no matter what) - I would take it upon myself to only be friends with girls and gay guys which pose no threat to him. It's not wrong of me to give up friends or avoid making new ones of any other kind, and it's not wrong for that to be what it takes for my husband to be comfortable with all the friends I hang out with individually. As I said in my original comment, I still can have all the ice cream I want, and I don't mind avoiding certain colors of ice cream for the sake of my husband because I care more about him than I do about myself, as it should be.
I'd also like to add that you WERE missing the point - because my point was to make a sacrifice for the one you love by caring more about their feelings than your own and not being selfish. You missed the point because you countered that directly with a response all about how you should be allowed to be selfish and not consider the feelings of your spouse/SO and it should be ok because it's his fault if he doesn't trust you completely just because you've got a great track record. Yup. Missed the point.
@BohemianLamb - All I'm getting from you, besides a whole bunch of sarcasm, is that it's selfish of me to want to keep a very important friendship in my life but that it is NOT selfish of my partner to ask me to give that up. That just doesn't make any sense to me. Then again, what's right for me is not right for everyone. All I was doing was simply giving my opinion (which is what was asked for, correct?).
If my SO/spouse does not trust me with someone of the opposite sex, that is a problem and the relationship will probably not work. Trust is huge in a relationship and without it, you're doomed from the start. My point was that your spouse/SO should be able to trust you with men, women, animals, cheese, etc... If he/she doesn't, you guys have a major problem.
I think homosexuals have a lot to do with this because you can't say that men and women are not wired to be platonic friends and not include them. They are men and women after all, correct?
My point is that I think it's just as selfish of my SO/spouse to expect me to give up that important relationship simply because of their gender as it is for me to want to keep it. And I actually don't think that keeping a friendship that is that important is selfish at all...I think it's natural. There are no problems with the situation as a whole as long as there is TRUST. That is my point.
This is ridiculous and completely unfounded. Please don't assume that just because you can't maintain platonic friendships with men, that no women can. A great number of us can and do. Don't ascribe to us a smallness of mind that we don't possess.
If one person isn't thinking something, the other person usually is -- even if they refuse to admit it. I know a lot of people will disagree, but for the most part -- it's the truth.
Even a marriage counselor will advise that it is unwise to develop close friendships with those of the opposite sex when one is married, especially if the spouse feels uncomfortable with it.
My spouse and I have a very happy, secure, healthy relationship, but only a fool wouldn't be cautious of another person's intentions.