Thursday, June 21, 2012

NPR - Can Men And Women Be Friends?

An old debate - can men and women ONLY be friends? Personally, I think it's lame - most of my friends over the years have been women, and yes, some of them I found attractive, but no, contra the research, I did not think they were attracted to me. Just because a woman (or a man) is attractive does not mean there is anything other than friendship in my mind (but your results may vary).

Where do you fall on this question?
June 17, 2012
Couple looking out of a window.
 
It's a question that kicks around endlessly without resolution: Can men and women really be just friends? On Weekend Edition Sunday, NPR's Rachel Martin talks to Faith Salie and Mario Correa, hosts of WNYC's RelationShow, about this very topic.

As it happens, Faith and Mario are friends, but they put that down in part to the fact that Faith is straight and Mario is gay – they describe some research that makes them think perhaps platonic friendship between straight men and women is not, in fact, really possible. Some of the research indicates that men, in particular, are somewhat likely to both report some level of attraction to their female friends and to believe their female friends feel some level of attraction to them.

Now, I will make a confession: I have very little patience for this debate under normal circumstances, because my male friends include straight guys, gay guys, married guys, single guys, flirty guys, not-at-all-flirty guys, and yes, even the odd guy I've dated here and there. (Exes are a much more controversial question in my experience, and, I admit, a trickier proposition, but it absolutely happens.) But I am always willing to listen to research. If it turns out that I am not actually friends with any of them, that would be sad, because I would have to return a lot of dudes to the Friends 'R' Us store at once, and that would be very disruptive socially. On the other hand, they're worth quite a lot, so I'm sure I'd get good trade-in value.

1 comment:

Ashe said...

I've always thought this debate was silly. Saying men and women can't be friends basically says that one will be attracted to every person of the preferred sex that they meet. I have definitely had male friends that I did not find attractive so it seems only logical to think the same occurs with men. I personally make better friends with males than females and always have - I highly doubt every single one of them wanted more than friendship. That's fairly offensive, I think.