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+--- Thread: Article Can men and women be just friends? (/showthread.php?tid=1291)
Can men and women be just friends? - Elsacat - Jun 20 2025
https://www.economist.com/international/2025/06/19/can-men-and-women-be-just-friends
https://archive.ph/pN3fe
Quote:Dr Kretschmer found that having more opposite-sex friends made boys become more egalitarian, while not affecting girls’ opinions. He speculates that girls are less malleable because they have more at stake. If they want a career and a helpful husband, they are unlikely to abandon this dream to please a peer. Boys, by contrast, learn from socialising with girls that girls expect to be treated equally. They come to respect this demand, not least because most would like to be in a romantic relationship with one.
The answer, in my view, is "kind of" and it depends on women and men being able to socialize around each other in just-friends situations, frequently and preferably from an early age.
RE: Can men and women be just friends? - StarTea - Jun 24 2025
I have had many male friends who are good people who I've been glad to have in my life. In my experience, if a man has no female friends, it's not a good sign. It's very easy for men to form deranged views of women when they are in all male circlejerks. There's some research backing up that having more cross-sex friendships leads to less bad views of women, though I don't have access to it on hand.
RE: Can men and women be just friends? - autumnrain - Jun 24 2025
(Jun 24 2025, 7:49 AM)StarTea I have had many male friends who are good people who I've been glad to have in my life. In my experience, if a man has no female friends, it's not a good sign. It's very easy for men to form deranged views of women when they are in all male circlejerks. There's some research backing up that having more cross-sex friendships leads to less bad views of women, though I don't have access to it on hand.
Very much agree. Knowing a prospective male friend has female friends makes me feel safer and makes me feel more likely to be taken seriously, especially because my hobbies and career both lean more male-dominated. I'm also happy that my husband has good female friends as well.
RE: Can men and women be just friends? - Ari_Savari - Jun 29 2025
I have found that men usually use friendship as a pretext to try to get into a relationship with the woman. They only are friends with women they actively want to sleep with.
RE: Can men and women be just friends? - StarTea - Jul 1 2025
(Jun 29 2025, 1:40 PM)Ari_Savari I have found that men usually use friendship as a pretext to try to get into a relationship with the woman. They only are friends with women they actively want to sleep with.
I know this happens to some women. I will say, it has never never happened to me. I've actually been friends with a man and asked him if he'd like to go on a date with me and he turned me down. I have plenty of male friends and I'm sure many of them find me sexually attractive, but none of them have made a move on me.
I wonder if there's a context that causes people to run into these kinds of men, because I seriously cannot think of a case where a man has tried to use friendship to have sex with me. It's usually easier for them to just flirt and make their romantic advances explicit than to try to develop a full friendship and then try to turn it into romance.
RE: Can men and women be just friends? - Ari_Savari - Jul 1 2025
(Jul 1 2025, 10:31 AM)StarTea(Jun 29 2025, 1:40 PM)Ari_Savari I have found that men usually use friendship as a pretext to try to get into a relationship with the woman. They only are friends with women they actively want to sleep with.
I know this happens to some women. I will say, it has never never happened to me. I've actually been friends with a man and asked him if he'd like to go on a date with me and he turned me down. I have plenty of male friends and I'm sure many of them find me sexually attractive, but none of them have made a move on me.
I wonder if there's a context that causes people to run into these kinds of men, because I seriously cannot think of a case where a man has tried to use friendship to have sex with me. It's usually easier for them to just flirt and make their romantic advances explicit than to try to develop a full friendship and then try to turn it into romance.
I feel like plenty of guys do that, the term "friend zone" describes this exact thing.