May 25, 2007
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Can Men and Women Be Friends? A Socrates Cafe Post
Can men and women be friends? I think they can. I can remember when my son was single and looking for “Miss Right.” He seemed to have definite specifications in mind. He wanted someone athletic. He also tended toward shorter women (he is tall) and dark hair (he is blond). He wasn’t having much luck in his search. I can remember telling him that he needed to be looking for a friend, a person he could not imagine not having in his life. I think he took my advice, because I now have a tall, blond, nonathletic daughter-in-law whom I think is a perfect match for him.
I still think that friendship is the best basis for a marriage. My husband and I are very close friends. We have been married for 38 years. I would say that that is an indicator of success. Of course, in a marriage, you also need physical attraction. Some marriages seem to succeed without it, but I think that is rare. To me, a marriage without romantic love would not be a good marriage.
Can men and women just be friends, though, with no romantic attraction? I think that some can. Friendship is an interesting phenomenon. You can’t form friendships with just anyone, anymore than you can fall in love with just anyone. There has to be something that draws two people together as friends, whether those two people are of the same sex or of opposite sexes. Often, that something is a common interest or a common belief system. That is not enough to form a friendship, though. Friends’ personalities have to mesh. They have to compliment each other in some way so that the friends each find the relationship satisfying. I think it is a little difficult sometimes to identify just what that glue that holds a friendship together is. It’s very much intertwined with the way that the members of the friendship relate to each other and to people in general.
Several years ago, I did a correspondence course to earn CEU’s to renew my RN license. The course was about the difference in the way men and women relate to other people, particularly in the workplace. The premise of the course was that it is helpful for men and women to understand these differences in order to work together more successfully. Women, it seems, have communication rituals that need to be respected and accepted in order for them to feel comfortable in a relationship, no matter what that relationship is. For example, women need to talk about how the kids are or what they did over the weekend before they can get down to the meat of a business conversation. Men are more direct. When they talk business, they want to stick to the topic. There were many other examples of the differences in male and female communication styles in the text for that course. I am not sure that I bought into all the theories presented, but I did think that there was some validity to most of them.
I think that those differences in male and female communication are key in determining whether or not a particular man and woman can be friends. In order to have a successful friendship, a man and woman would have to have similar communication styles or at least be able to understand and relate to each other’s communication styles. There is a theory that all of us have both male and female characteristics and that masculine and feminine are more like points on a continuum than like polar opposites. I think for a man and woman to be friends, they have to have elements of personality that are positioned similarly on that continuum so that they can relate to each other and find the relationship mutually satisfying.
I really do think that the difference in the way that men and women communicate is a factor in determining whether men and women can be friends. I do not think that every man is able to relate successfully to female communication. Likewise, not every woman can relate to male communication patterns. For those who can, though, I think friendship is possible and that it can remain platonic.
I have always had male friends. My son has always had female friends, and my daughter has always had male friends. Those relationships are very rewarding.
Comments (14)
Hi Nance, Welcome back. I’ve linked you.
As usual, you’ve hit the nail right on.
It seems to me that there are some cultural values which have been re-interpreted recently so as to make M-F friendships more difficult. There is no doubt that our (American) culture has become more sex-focused in the last several decades. If you’ll look at most of the comments we’ve gotten so far, they seem to define friendship as a very close and intimate relationship, sort of like “best friends”. This idea is probably also encouraged by the media. I hate to thing that “Friends” and “Sex in the City” are the models which we use to define friendship, but apparently many viewers do take them seriously, even if only subconsciously.
Any comments on this idea?
I don’t believe that it can be called a friendship if there are “benefits” involved. Too many emotions come into play after sex, that it can’t ever turn back to something platonic. I do, however, believe that males and females can have wonderful friendships together, and be friends after sex IF it turns into a monogamous relationship. If it’s just a sexual thing, then no… it’s not really a friendship.
Welcome back Nancy , yes I agree men and women can be friends as I had experience of this. I would never say that my husband is my friend as although there is always a element of friendship in a marriage its a different kind of friendship
wecome back
Hi Nancy!
Thank you for dropping by and commenting on my site… I wrote back! Great post! We have a lot of similar ideas. I agree that communication is the key to any good relationship, no matter who is involved.
Take care and I hope you have a great day!
Brianne
Hi Nancy…welcome back!!! I have just returned to this site and am in need of a little help in establishing, again, how to post my response to the ideas posed on Socrate’s Cafe. Please drop me a line and refresh my grey cells! Great post, by the way. You’ve got me thinking and that’s what this is all about! Good to see your smiling face again!
Lisa.
Dick, that’s a very good question. I do agree that our culture teaches us that the only relationships that can exist between men and women are sexual. Culture also establishes the communication rituals of the two sexes which in turn makes communication between men and women difficult. I think that Friends and Sex in the City just reflect ideas that were already present in the culture. I grant you that those ideas are a pretty pathetic statement about the potential for different kinds of relationships between adult men and women.
Difficult to answer with a few words to this .You advice tor your son was to search a friend and he married her ! So friendship became love .
But this being said Nancy I agree with you and fortunatly . If not , would be still there married people ?
Welcome back . You come when I take a small break in the posting . But I will come back soon .
Love
Michel
Hi Nancy!
RYC: posted back!
Take care and have a great day!
Brianne
Welcome to your return! Please stay awhile, you write well.
I think as we age and move beyond the constant hype of sexual matters, married couples darn well be friends or their last years together could be miserable ones.
I think the best relationships begin as friendships, because as BLB says, in the end it may just come back to that! And also I think that you just need it to weather all the ups and downs in a realtionship.
I think that men and women can be “just” friends, too.
Oh, and long time no blog! Welcome back! : )
There’s an out-of-print paperback, which has an honored place on my bookshelf, called “Styles of Loving: Why You Love the Way You Do,” by Marcia Lasswell and Norman M. Lobsenz and published in 1958.
Nobody ever explained more clearly how we have to understand that there are differences, not just between the sexes, but between people. And the self-test that I took showed that I’m definitely in the “Best Friends” category. Other “styles” are given the names of “Game Playing,” “Logical,” “Possessive,” “Romantic,” and “Unselfish.”
People can feel unloved (even though they ARE loved) because the person who loves them has a different style of expressing and feeling love.
Great to have you back posting. I think you know how I feel about you, regardless of our styles.
ryc- Thanks for asking. My mom is doing fine, just busy. She’ll be coming up here this weekend.