Men and Women: Just Friends?

As someone who has had male friends her entire life, I find it extremely disturbing and completely unenlightened when someone says that it is impossible for men and women to be just platonic friends and never take anything into the bedroom. Now, I know as an erotic romance writer that there are all kinds of stories out there about friendships turning into romances and that the friends to lovers thing is a staple theme in the Hollywood romcom world. Jason Bateman seems to agree with this notion. Check the article here.

In my own life, my two oldest friends are both men. Men I've known since we were five. And before you say a word, no neither one is gay. You would not believe how many times I hear that when I tell someone my oldest friends are both men. Well, they must be gay, Melissa. Either that or they find you ugly. Yeah, that's the other thing I hear all the time. They or I must be completely unattractive. Really? Nice to know that men and women will only be friends with someone they find physically unappealing. Never mind about things like brains, common interests, sparkling wit and genuinely cool personalities.

I've also heard tell that men and women will only be friends with one another if one or both of them is in a relationship. I see. If they are single and pretty, they won't be able to help themselves if they remain in the same room long enough. Wow, I had no idea that hormones trumped good conversation and a few good laughs.

I'm not saying that more can grow out of the seeds of friendship or that I have never found one of my male friends attractive. I would be lying. I have had and still have some male friends who are damned hot. Had any of them ever found me attractive at one point? Maybe, I don't know. There's also this little concept called friends with benefits. Whereby single male and female friends do sexual favors for one another when they get an itch that needs to be scratched. It happens and so what. Just because you have one particular friend like that doesn't negate platonic relationships with other men/women. When I look at all my guys friends in my life at this point, they are all like brothers. It never crosses my mind to think of them in a sexual way and not all of them are in relationships, some of them are quite single.

Maybe I'm just weird because when I meet a new man, I'm not automatically thinking of dating him. I just like meeting new people and widening my circle of friends.

In my opinion, men and women can and are strictly platonic friends all the time. There is nothing sexual about these relationships. When someone tries to read more into the friendship or dismiss it as a "yeah, right, you just haven't acted on it" situation, they are projecting their own issues, insecurities, jealousies, etc. on to it. I think if one doesn't have friends across the board gender-wise, they are missing out.