A Man. A Woman. Just Friends?
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
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. :)
Taken literally, this is a pretty absurd claim. I think your post would be more convincing without it.
Which might still be stretching it a bit, but I believe it to be mostly true
At my workplace, there are probably 30 or 40 women I come into contact with during the course of my job, out of maybe 60 or 70 people in my area. One or two are over 50, and hence not very attractive to me (I'm 40). One is probably over 400 lbs, and I am not especially attracted to her sexually, but as she's a great person otherwise, she may be the only example of a woman I get along with at work with whom I would not have sex (were I single, etc...). So, I'm sexually attracted to all these women, though of course I have no way to know which are attracted to me -- certainly I hope they have no way to know that I'm attracted to them... it's the workplace, after all.
So, my experience bears out the author's assumption that if circumstances permit, sex would almost always be "in the way" of a friendship between two mutually possible sexual partners. I can only imagine how much more this must be a problem for those who are bisexual.
My point is that with a very few exceptions[1], apart from the occasional mis-fire or unrequited crush, we go through our life sorting people into "romance target" and "not-romance target", we tend to be very discriminating in our sorting, and gender is not the only criteria used for sorting.
[1]: The exceptions mostly involve very high hormones and/or very poor social skills. Example: A heterosexual male, borderline Asperger syndrome, 19 years old, just off to university to study computer science, far far too shy to actually talk to a girl is very prone to being quasi-obsessively attracted to a large number of inappropriate targets[2]. But this is not really a typical human experience[3].
[2]: Yes, I do speak from experience. :)
[3]: At the risk of stereotyping, it's probably a little more common among the HN readership than elsewhere though. :)
Agree.
That's partly because you're attracted to a cartoon. A star's media image is very carefully crafted. People like that are much less impressive in person.
And that's partly because Lazare is right. You can be eternally attracted to a media image because there's a broken feedback loop. If you were displaying your attraction to an actual person, you'd be getting either positive or negative feedback. Eventually things would either heat up or cool down.
Think about all the people you know that you once felt strong sexual attraction for. How many of them do you still feel that way about? For me, the percentage is tiny.
Also: continuing to display attraction signals to somebody who isn't interested in you? That comes across as creepy. As would fantasizing about someone you know who doesn't find you attractive. For your sake, I hope they don't find out.
If the author's black-and-white statement still is bothering you, go ahead and insert some nuance. E.g., "normally" or "for non-creepy people".
But in an article about male and female relationships and sexual attraction? It's a pretty bad sign that the author just assumes heterosexuality for everyone, especially when anything else would defeat (or at least greatly complicate) their argument.
For example, the majority of the USA is white, and not black. It used to be the case that all TV shows would have fully white casts, and never really have black characters. Sometimes people make this mistake when dealing with homosexuals (etc.)
And yes, there is some porn aimed at gay men that shows 'straight' men engaging in gay male sexual acts, and there is porn aimed at straight men showing women engaged in same-sex sexual acts (just look for "girl-on-girl"), and there is porn aimed at straight women showing men engaged in same-sex acts (just look for "slash-fic"). The vast majority of porn consumed by gay men is gay male porn though.
It is completely wrong to presume that heterosexuals are constantly at threat of advanced from gay men.
I think that is a very interesting point. I have mentioned that as well in the past a couple of times. There was a difference in how friendships worked in my old country (in Eastern Europe) and how they work here. Here "friendships" are just acquaintances as you said. People gather lots of acquaintances but no or few good friends.
I'll propose a couple of reasons:
* People are more mobile. They move more so they don't have time to really make friends. This starts in childhood when kids move with the parents from school district to school district from neighborhood to neighborhood. There is a non-negligible network effect here and that is even if you don't move and live on one street and go to one school, chances are your friend's family will.
* Education system. At some point kids stop being in one class and are allowed to pick individual classes and schedules. So they stop seeing or spending time with the same classmates. There is extracurricular activities of course but it is not the same as starting with 1st grade and potentially being with the same group of people until the 12th grade.
* More individualism. Being a friend means sharing more and means relying on other more. In other words it means asking for help and offering help. This means "being in other people's business" which is a no-no in U.S. But the other side of being too individualistic means never really opening up to a friend. And at the end of the day one can only get so close talking about the weather, after some time it gets boring. So there is the wall that people don't let others through.
* Affluence. I think in countries where it is harder to survive on your own. People will stick together better for support. They have to have a support group to survive. In richer countries people can get by easier living alone and being more independent.
* It is not as much countries as times. In other words in the past, people used to have fewer but closer friends anywhere in the world. And, say, in the last 30 years people started to become more isolated. Could be technology, or globalization (people have to move because of jobs).
* It is not the world it is you. You just got older, more paranoid, and more withdrawn. The perception is that there just aren't that many friendly people around. But maybe other people just don't want to be friends with "you" in particular. They are still people with very good close friends but because you don't have them now, it seems like nobody does.
Is she what you'd call a close friend? Haven't seen her in years. And surprise! I'm a straight guy with a wife and 3 boys of my own.
And I've driven my tractor 12 miles to her place (when they lived nearby) to open her driveway after a snowstorm. And gave her a car when her middle boy needed a way to get to work.
So I guess it works lots of ways, not just the way it did in your home town.
This is not the norm, in my experience.
Worth noting that America is a big place, with lots of variety. You know this of course.
I can see what you describe being the norm in a large city. Where I live now - small town, middle of inner-nowhere - it's not.
Not to be an ass, but to recap your "rebuttal": in the places which are dying this isn't the case, but I could see it happening in the places that are becoming increasingly prevalent and important it might be.
I think the change is undeniable, you're just in one of the last places that will get hit.
In what sense do you mean 'dying'? 'Prevalent and important'?
I will allow this is the case for some areas. It it not universally true.
It sure isn't where I live.
Statewide statistics here: http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.wi.htm
I live in this met region: http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.wi_oshkosh_msa.htm
I am sort of afraid that the last point holds for me and I just got paranoid and old and people don't want to be friend with me. To me, it might seem like it is a old-world vs US or other such things, but it could be just me rationalizing all along. That is why I am interested in getting others perspective on this.
I don't know. It seems to me that desire expects to met with desire. There were and perhaps still are quite a few men out there who thought that lesbians simply needed some attention from a good studly guy (themselves) to straighten them out.
In cultures with a greater social separation between men and women, men can have intense and emotionally intimate friendships with other men, because there isn’t the same kind of expectation regarding women, and because a man will understand what another man is going through in a way that women, living in a “separate sphere”, would not.
I personally don't really want that kind of intimacy from other men. The kind of association I want with other men is more of a "playing on the same team" sort of thing, like you'd get from playing sports together, maybe working on a side project together, or even just forming a group that always meets at the same bar on a certain night. The focus isn't on sitting around talking, it's half having a group identity and half working together towards a common goal.
I thought it was because we replaced our communities with networks, is that not correct?
Wait, what now? I mean, I'll be the first to admit that most of my ~250 Facebook "friends" are acquaintances of varying degrees, but there's a good 10-20 people who I'd consider great friends, who I feel a great emotional affinity for.
Are you saying this is rare in American culture? It certainly doesn't seem so to me, but of course all I have is my experience.
What? The author of the article specifically addresses this and does not conclude that the sexual attraction is unavoidable: "But it doesn’t always get in the way." "I don’t see that platonic friendships are actually rare at all or worthy of a lot of winks and nudges." Etc.
> "it's a remarkably heteronormative idea"
Yes, the author agrees: "Close friendships between members of the same sex, after all, are also suspect." He specifically deconstructs the exact issues you seem to be worried about. I'll assume you did actually read the article, because you said you did, but you are radically misportraying the author's claims in order to make your own points as if arguing against his (when actually, he's already made many of them himself).
I think that in any long-term business or personal relationship between two people, you're going to have a point where at least one of the two has some level of attractiveness to each other. Whether that manifests into a sexual relationship depends on the people and their circumstances.
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.
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.'
I find it perfectly acceptable to be having casual sex with someone and still consider them your friends.
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.
"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.
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.
I really hate articles like this.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
I would argue that every relationship with every human being has both emotional drivers (chemistry) and surface dynamics that don't necessarily reflect those deeper emotions and feelings at play, but rather serve a utility or provide some sort of mutually beneficial value.
In other words, why can't someone be friends with someone, get whatever value they hope to get out of the relationship (i.e. shared interests, working relationship, etc...)and also have deeper sexual drivers at play, which many times will not only never surface, but they would never admit to others and many times even to themselves.
I think someone tying feminism and equal rights into this discussion not only has no understanding of human nature and how and why we have seek out friendship and relationships, but may very well be the root of the discrimination and objectification that leads to sexual harrasement, etc...
Every decision we make meets an emotional need and is justified after the fact with logic and reasoning. Why would relationships under any context be any different.
Just to be clear, I am not saying you cant have a relationship without someone being sexually interested, I am just saying it really doesn't and shouldn't matter and really isn't relevant unless it is on the surface or comes to fruition.
By the way, I would argue that man/woman are more than sexual definitions. They are also social, moral in some religions, biological...
There are loads of reasons to be 'attracted' to someone without it being sex - we're stuffed into lots of social situations where we want to find somebody 'friendly' to pass the time.
It works the same way any friendship works with the same sex for heterosexual men. I have positively no desire to sleep with my closest male friends, but they are my friends because we challenge each other, support each other or just otherwise get along and have similar interests (preach to the choir to each other).
Of my female friends, my emotional/sexual desire ranges. I opt for transparency. I don't do booty calls or casual sex because it doesn't work for me. But I have admitted my feelings to several of my female friends (both as "I'm not interested in anything other than a platonic relationship" to get it off the table and the opposite). In one case I dated a close friend for a short stint, and in almost all of the others my feelings were not reciprocated (I think American women where I live anyway don't see long term friends as sexual objects as I have no problems attracting good looking women that are otherwise strangers -- topic for another reply). In all cases, sharing my emotional/sexual feelings strengthened the friendship after a short period of awkwardness. It simply takes the issue off the table.
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.
Why should I feel threatened about this? This relationship isn't a game to be won, and they aren't my competitors.
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.
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)
I watch my local soccer team with a female friend (she's both the ex-wife of an old school friend of mine, and an old college friend of my wife's). We all used to go together to watch them, but since my daughter's been born my wife tends to stay at home with her, so it's usually just me and Helen now.
Admittedly we're not watching it on the sofa, we're at the ground. But we often meet up at her house before the game - she lives about 5 minutes from the ground - and my wife's got no actual way of knowing that we're not staying there for the entire game. At no point has she ever expressed the slightest concern that we're up to anything.
We've been friends for over 20 years now (starting with her in a relationship, then both of us in relationships, now me in a relationship) and it's never been anything other than the sort of platonic friendship that I have with male friends.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
I've been in this situation without anything physical happening. Seems like the default state.
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.
Love to hear your thoughts on http://laddertheory.com As they so crudely note half-way through:
Yes Virginia, They all want to bang you
That is the problem with something like this: it isn't intellectually rigorous, it just has the facade. The cost of simply holding the belief is higher than what you get out of it. It is not a truism, it's some kid writing on his blog.
(Sorry if I seem acidic, but there's very little critical discussion of the implications of ladder theory for one's belief system.)
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.
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.
Indeed it seems foreign to me that you couldn't be friends with someone just because you find them attractive. If I were bisexual, would I have no friends at all? Could I only be friends with ugly people?
But the point is not whether you can be friends with a member of the sex you are sexually oriented towards, but whether you can be just friends.
Take your list of female friends and think about each one in turn. Please only include people that you invest in a relationship with, not just acquaintances or additional people that happen to be around or in your social circles. For each, assume that both you both have no social/practical/ethical/moral constraints keeping you apart (other relationships, for example). Further assume that somehow this person is the best reasonable prospect for a mate available to you. Would you pursue a romantic relationship with her?
You seem to suggest that you find some of your friends attractive. I can take this no other way except to mean attractive as a potential mate or sexual partner (though you don't intend to act on this in your current situation - that is understood). For those you consider attractive I will assume that the answer to the question is "yes", you would pursue her. I think we are getting into the definition of attraction here and I can't think of another way to look at it.
Are there any in your list that you would answer "no" to? Why? I suspect that an honest assessment would yield very few or not any "no" answers for female friends that a man has developed a friend relationship with beyond the acquaintance level. Am I wrong?
I think it is natural that the things that draw you to a woman in friendship probably correlate strongly with your list of what makes women attractive to you, so you will tend to be friends with women you consider attractive. Please don't read any suggestion of ill intent into this - that's not the point. Again, the point is that we are talking about whether you can just be friends. The sexual attraction and potential for romance, even if very theoretical, will often or nearly always be there and will color the relationship, perhaps even in a very subtle way. It does not mean you have any conscious sexual designs, but it is still part of the relationship.
That's a phenomenally contrived hypothetical that circumscribes the applicability of your argument to the narrowest possible domain. Yes, if one of my female friends was the last woman on earth I would pursue her. What does that say about real relationships between real people where that contrived premise does not hold?
> For those you consider attractive I will assume that the answer to the question is "yes", you would pursue her. I think we are getting into the definition of attraction here and I can't think of another way to look at it.
Under your hypothetical yes, but that doesn't prove much. All it proves is the definition of "attractive" which is someone you would have sex with.
> The sexual attraction and potential for romance, even if very theoretical, will often or nearly always be there and will color the relationship, perhaps even in a very subtle way.
By your reasoning, no bisexual could have people whom he is "just friends" with, using your definition of "just friends." To look it it another way, there are always emotional undercurrents coloring friendships, regardless of the gender of the friend. Why single out physical attraction? Is it the case that you can never really be friends with a guy you work with, because there is always the underlying competitive tension? Is it the case that you can never really be friends with someone whose politics or lifestyle you strongly disapprove of?
Friendships exist at the equilibrium between competing forces. Forces like physical attraction can make friendships difficult, but so can forces like jealousy or competitiveness. People form real friendships despite those forces because the countervailing forces are stronger.
I think we might agree but are talking past each other. You say "Why single out physical attraction?" No reason except attraction in friendships is exactly what we are discussing.
Where I believe we are getting hung up though is that you believe that inherent in the assertion that men and women (assuming hetero again) cannot "just" be friends implies that they cannot be "real" friends. Nobody is saying that. Nobody is saying that attraction implies malicious intent. Nobody is saying that because there is attraction that a friend relationship is based completely on false pretenses or merely serve an ulterior motive. Furthermore, I believe you are a "real" friend to all of your friends - I have no reason to believe otherwise.
Your concluding paragraph is wonderful and I agree. "Friendships exist at the equilibrium between competing forces" is a great way to put it. My point is that, in almost all cases, one of those forces pulling a man to a woman in any kind of relationship is sexual attraction. I believe vice-versa is often true, but the man to woman attraction almost invariably will be a factor in the relationship.
Again, the friendship can be real and contain good intentions and real cooperation. It does not suggest an ongoing campaign of seduction. The poorly stated thought experiment was merely to ask if you acknowledge the force of sexual attraction as an important one in the equilibrium you describe.
Can you honestly say for any of the friend relationships you have with women that attraction is a negligible component of the equilibrium? Are there any from which you are not deriving at least a little bit of ongoing benefit from the good feelings of being liked by or associated with an attractive woman?
All that I am saying is that I believe the attraction is almost always there and has a big role in who we choose to befriend and keep as friends. Even if it is completely innocuous in most cases we should acknowledge it.
Hopefully I have clarified sufficiently. Do you still believe you disagree? I am very interested in your answers to my previous questions. Thanks for reading.
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.