Genuine friendship between single, heterosexual opposite-sex adults is rare. Why? The answer’s not just “sexual tension”. Platonic friendships are common in teenagers, who are just as horny as adults. Nor are same-sex platonic friendships uncommon among gays. I address the causes opposing opposite-sex platonic pairings, and discuss solutions.
I took a psychology course in high school where the teacher described patterns in friendships according to age. He said that most of us, at 17, had as many opposite-sex friends as same-sex friends. (In my case, this was true.) He also told us that, starting in our mid-20s, we’d have many more same-sex friends, and very few opposite-sex friends. This I didn’t believe, but he was right. As a 25-year-old man, I probably have ten times as many male friends as female, and most of the latter I’ve known since college, if not before. Making a new female friend is an extremely rare event, friends’ girlfriends aside. It seems to be harder, for most people in their mid-20s, to become genuine friends with a single person of the opposite sex, than it is to get into a relationship.
After college, opposite-sex friends are harder to come by. Usually, when it happens, it’s through couplings considered sacrosanct. For example, most of my female friends are girlfriends and wives of close male friends; sleeping with them is out of the question, and would be so even if their relationships ended. For a single man and woman to become friends, on the other hand, is very rare. The often-blamed culprit is “sexual tension”. This assumes that all men want to fuck all reasonably attractive women at all times, or that women suspect this of men. This is not entirely true. The problem is more subtle.
The “sexual tension” explanation is, nonetheless, half-right. For a man in his 20s, celibacy is painful. Men are expected to be in control of “the situation” at all times– at least traditionally, they make the first call, choose the venue of the first date, and move in for the first kiss. So a long dry spell, even when it can be attributed to a busy work schedule, high standards, and a run of bad luck, feels like a manifestation of inability. Failure to procure. A man who has not had sex in 6 months is, invariably, constantly thinking about it. Like money and health, sex is one of those matters that settles into its right place when abundant, but that people obsess over when it’s lacking. All of this said, to assume such a man will eagerly hop into bed with the first willing woman is patently ridiculous. As with many women, a large proportion of men, and possibly a majority, are “nice guys” do not have sex outside of a committed relationship.
The average single “nice guy”, when he meets a woman he finds attractive, doesn’t begin with the idea of her as a sexual object. Instead, he evaluates her as a potential girlfriend. Often, the potential for a relationship is simply not there. Sometimes he’s the first to recognize this; more often, it’s the woman who is more perceptive, the result being rejection. The not-nice guys– assholes, if you will– will try to sleep with a romantically incompatible woman anyway, in order to gratify their own egos. We can be thankful that they’re uncommon. By contrast, the nice guy will often want to remain friends with her. If nothing else, there’s a long-term romantic benefit in having a strong social network, since friends of friends are the most common source of romantic introductions. The woman might also desire his friendship. Alas, it’s very unlikely that genuine friendship will happen.
There are at least two prerequisites for genuine friendship to exist between single heterosexuals of the opposite sex.
1. Disinterest in a romantic relationship is mutual, and known by both to be so. If the man is sexually and romantically attracted to the woman, and the woman has no sexual feelings for the man, this is a problem. The same holds if the reverse is true. If the friendship becomes painful for either party, or if suspicion and discomfort enter it, it will invariably end.
When a woman rejects a man, his romantic and sexual interest in her will usually dissipate over the next few days. Rejection implies a discrepancy between how the man perceives the woman and his relationship to her, and what actually is. So a rejected man, if he’s introspective, will step back and re-assess the situation. Sometimes, she’s just a bitch. Much more likely, she’s a fine person, but she believes there’s no romantic potential between the two of them (and she’s probably right). If this “re-assessment” results in the extinction of the man’s romantic desire for her, friendship is possible. (If he finds himself deeper in unrequited “love”, friendship is not possible, and he should break off all contact with her for his own sake. He should also grow a pair.)
2. The woman considers the man to be an attractive person. The woman may have absolutely no sexual feelings for the man. She may have rejected his advances months ago. This is not a problem. In both sexes, but especially in women, there’s a difference between (a) considering someone attractive and (b) being personally attracted to that person, the former being a necessary but not sufficient condition for the latter. If the woman considers the man to be “a catch” and would eagerly set him up on a date with her beautiful, single best friend, they can get along, even if she has no sexual interest in him. If she would never set him up with a beautiful and potentially compatible female friend, then she considers him to be inferior and genuine friendship is not possible.
What men need to do: If a man realizes that a woman is never going to be his girlfriend (she rejects him, or they’re just not compatible) and wants to remain friends with her, he needs to have been, and to remain, utterly respectful of her. Pick-up artistry is a great way to project oneself as the type of psychosocially dominant (to use Roissy‘s terminology) man that weak, vulnerable women want to have sex with. It doesn’t make a girl want to spend time with a man.
Above-board, “nice guy” approaches to attracting women do not inspire raw sexual attraction in as large a number of women as pick-up artistry, and they take much more time to develop. If being friends (“LJBF”) with a woman is held to be of zero value, and therefore equivalent to being outright rejected, PUA is the way to go; but if the man’s goal is to expand his social circle and improve his odds with women in the very-long run, a respectful approach is a much better idea. I’ve been both a “nice guy” and an unbelievable asshole in my time; I know this much from experience.
What women need to do: Men are rarely subtle about their romantic and sexual intentions. Once these become evident, the woman should ask herself if she has similar intentions. If not, the next decision is whether she wants to be friends with this man. If she does, she has to make a bold and very rare move. First, she must diplomatically but firmly reject him. Not returning calls is an unacceptable method of doing this. What does she say, in rejecting him? “You’re not my type” and “I don’t want to ruin our friendship” are a massive pile of buttfail; the first is extremely insulting, and the second is transparent. I’m just not interested in dating anyone right now. That’s all she needs to say. It’s not insulting, it’s plausible, and no one can argue against it. (If she pairs up with anyone in the next three months, she’ll certainly lose the friendship. This may or may not be a bad trade.)
Her next move is a bit dicier, but equally necessary. For a single and celibate man to be around desirable women can be painful, and if she’s not “on his team”, he doesn’t want to be friends with her. She doesn’t need to sleep with him or be his girlfriend to be supportive of him, of course. (Obviously, if she doesn’t want to sleep with him, she outright shouldn’t.) She must, however, offer copious assistance to him in his search for a mate. I’m not talking about advice; he can get that on the internet. She needs to make introductions. She needs to offer time as his “wingman”. After formally rejecting him, she probably shouldn’t contact him for 3-4 weeks. When she does, on first in-person contact, she should offer to set him up with a desirable and potentially compatible female friend. He won’t ask for this; she must volunteer. (The reason for the 3-4 week waiting period is to avoid casting her friend as the “replacement”. By this point, the man should have recognized his incompatibility with the woman who rejected him and be out of love infatuation.) Men generally assume that women enjoy playing “match-maker”, and that if a female friend doesn’t offer to set a man up with her desirable single friends, she actually thinks he’s a loser. So introducing a man to her desirable female friends is the only way a woman can signal that, despite her lack of romantic interest in this man, she seeks genuine friendship– not the sort of post-rejection pity-friendship that makes both parties miserable– and considers him a desirable person.
This is difficult, of course, and can be awkward. It’s not unusual or awkward for a single man and woman in their 20s to be friends, but it’s very unlikely for them to become friends. Combat dating inspires men to approach women, and women to react, in a manner that is rude and inspires either immediate sexual attraction or bitter contempt– but never friendship. Most women, also, lack the social skill necessary to turn a guy down without making him dislike her.
Obviously, the goal of finding a romantic partner is rightly placed, by people in their 20s, higher than that of making an opposite-sex friend. It’s much more valuable to have a great girlfriend than a girl friend. On the other hand, when romantic potential is not present between two people, there’s value in forming a genuine friendship, since a strong social network makes the search for a mate substantially easier. I hope that I’ve illustrated how this is possible.
Interesting advice. I think a lot of it is spot. I especially like the idea of a girl setting up the guy with desirable friends. Nothing distracts a guy like another girl, plus this does indeed make her a wingman of sorts.
Thanks. Admittedly, almost no women do this. My reply to lordzorgon, I think, explains why.
Ahhh, friendship and its decline. I do wish I had a better social network. There is something fundamentally weird to me about a “friend” who never initiates contact with you (you invite them to do stuff, they sometimes accept, but they NEVER invite you to do stuff, they never email you, they never call you, they never even post on your Facebook wall). I have a bunch of those. And I’ve don’t think I’ve ever had a real opposite-sex friend of any significant closeness. I can’t think of a time when a girl ever tried to set me up with another girl.
Closeness, in my experience, seems to require a certain amount of regular face time. Out of school, that often seems to require working with a person. It’s hard to have more than 2 or 3 friends outside of work who you spend quality time with on a regular basis. Maybe 25 folks who you might reasonably call/email and invite to do something without it being slightly weird, but you probably don’t actually see most of those people all that often if you’re like me.
Parties help. But I rarely get invited to any, so my only real option is to throw them myself. And it’s usually the same basic groups of people, so you don’t meet a lot of new people, and the girls are all Very Taken (spouses, LTRs of friends, etc.).
And yeah, ignoring a guy’s calls makes it basically impossible for a friendship to develop. I can deal with rejection. Actually, I would have no problem with a girl saying “You’re not my type.” Whatever. You’re not going to get the real reason anyway.
Anyway… you’re on to something. It’s not just the dating market that’s broken these days. Social institutions where people ought to be meeting and interacting are failing, too. I’m definitely an atheist, but I respect the value of something like church for forcing a bunch of people to get together once a week in a shared experience. Even better if they all stay afterwards to chat and catch up with each other. My parents certainly have a bunch of friends through church.
It’s extremely rare. Women either (a) don’t understand that a single, celibate guy is single-mindedly focused on one problem, and therefore considers it painful and useless to hang around a woman unless there’s a benefit to it (although this could be the indirect benefit of introductions being made), or (b) they do understand this, but mistakenly believe every guy they try to be friends with will make moves, and therefore judge it unwise to be friends with a guy under any circumstances.
Yes. One thing I dislike about urban life is that people get away with rude and sociopathic behaviors that simply couldn’t go off in smaller communities. In college, a girl knows that she’s likely to see you again, and that her reputation is on the line, so even though she’s not interested in dating you, she’s not going to be a bitch about it. She’ll return your call, turn you down, you’ll both move on with your lives, and she may become a friend (or change her mind) later on. In a large city, there’s nothing that forces women to return calls and emails, so they don’t.
I’ll get more into this on the other comment you made, but not returning calls became the default method of rejection because it allows a woman to be indecisive. She never has to verbally reject you or formally give up the option; she still has your number in her back pocket and, in her mind, you’re still on her back burner. Even if you’ve moved on, reality will never intrude on this perception because she’ll never actually call you.
Rejection rates for most men are 75+%, and that’s normal, but if you’re not a complete asshole, the woman is usually never sure enough about her feelings to reject you outright. She’d rather just avoid the decision entirely. In the ideal world, if she still liked you as a person, she’d turn you down immediately, hook you up with a friend of hers, but very few women do this. I think the woman’s fear is that, if she turns you down and then sets you up with her friend, you might turn out to be really great, leading her to deeply regret rejecting you. So she’d rather you vanish from her life entirely, in which case she never has to know about the great guy she turned down.
People are less, for lack of a better word, integrated. Religion and community were the glue that unified business, sexuality, ethics, philosophy, and education. Those are disappearing, and people are more able to separate their lives into relatively independent spheres. So a girl who would never blow off her boss or a co-worker has no problem not returning calls, and a person can be “spiritual” but still commit all kinds of crimes in the workplace.
I tried setting up an acquaintance once with a single female friend of mine. The problem is that I tend to meet acquaintances through video games, and most women I know do not play video games and do not like them much either. Those who do are usually already taken.
Your post also inspired a post of mine on opposite sex friendships. I think deep, genuine friendships between opposite sexes are impossible. Things are easier when they are more casual, though.
Excellent blog post, Hope. I’ll reply to you (and all the others) in detail later; I’m at work.
Link to Hope’s post: http://hope.gameurb.com/lets-not-be-friends/
The average single “nice guy”, when he meets a woman he finds attractive, doesn’t begin with the idea of her as a sexual object. Instead, he evaluates her as a potential girlfriend.
Uh, whut? This is backwards. He begins with the idea of her as a sexual object and then evaluates her potential as a girlfriend. If she’s not hot, she’s not going to make the cut as a girlfriend. If she is, she still might not make the cut as a girlfriend – she could be a pump and dump.
Often, the potential for a relationship is simply not there. Sometimes he’s the first to recognize this
Yeah, but he still might want to fuck her!
The not-nice guys– assholes, if you will– will try to sleep with a romantically incompatible woman anyway, in order to gratify their own egos.
Oh please. You are not necessarily an asshole if you don’t want an LTR with every girl you have sex with.
Besides, it’s not that black and white. I have dated chicks that I did not intend to pump and dump, but after some weeks it became clear the relationship did not have long-term potential, so I pulled the plug. My intentions were not “deceptive” or “assholish” (IMO anyway), it just didn’t work out.
By contrast, the nice guy will often want to remain friends with her.
Wait, you mean with the ones I have no interest in? Why? What’s the point? Women are lousy friends, and there is no point in investing time in them that should be invested in a girl you intend to fuck or actually are fucking.
If nothing else, there’s a long-term romantic benefit in having a strong social network, since friends of friends are the most common source of romantic introductions.
Meh. I keep hearing this, but have never found it to be true. More often female “friends” try to sabotage your relationship with their female friends for various twisted reasons (jealousy).
If a man realizes that a woman is never going to be his girlfriend (she rejects him, or they’re just not compatible) and wants to remain friends with her, he needs to have been, and to remain, utterly respectful of her.
If a man realizes that a woman is never going to be his girlfriend. he needs to walk away, never talk to her again, and go find a woman who IS a romantic partner.
Men are rarely subtle about their romantic and sexual intentions. Once these become evident, the woman should ask herself if she has similar intentions. If not, the next decision is whether she wants to be friends with this man.
If I do, I can use him as an errand boy and emotional tampon while I’m banging other dudes, yaaay!
When she does, on first in-person contact, she should offer to set him up with a desirable and potentially compatible female friend.
And the first question of that friend is, “if he’s so great why aren’t you dating him?”
The fact is that if she does not find you hot, she cannot be a good advocate for you to other women. Most likely she will sabotage you with other women rather than enable you. You’re better off flying solo.
I disagree. “Nice guys” tend to look at a girl as a prospective girlfriend first. They have the same high standards, for relationships, as the men who take the approach you described, but they don’t sleep with a woman until they’re pretty sure she passes those standards. This is one of the reasons nice guy’s don’t get laid often.
“Women are lousy friends” is a U.S.-specific generalization. It’s true, in this country, at least 85 percent of the time. Perhaps luckily, the 85% of women who make shitty friends aren’t very likely to return your calls anyway.
If it happens, cut the saboteur out of your life. If the girlfriend leaves as well, she wasn’t worth your time in the first place.
That’s not really a friendship. It’s a pity-based relationship that has no point. Friendship requires equality.
With my female friends, and I have few of them, I don’t have any sexual attraction to them, so I don’t care who they sleep with (although I’d end the friendship if they had bad taste). I also avoid the “emotional tampon” role by being much better at the “male style” friendship– sharing interesting stories, having fun together– than the “female style” support friendship. If anything, girls find the male-style friend more interesting, and he’s more likely to be able to “convert” the friendship into a relationship. Except in times of actual crisis– death, lost job, severe breakup– I’m not providing emotional support to anyone I’m not sleeping with.
I’m not so sure. I think that, in women, there’s a distinction between (1) considering someone attractive, and (2) being personally attracted to that person. 2 requires 1, but 1 doesn’t necessarily apply 2.
If 1 and 2, she’ll want to date you. If not-1, she thinks you’re a loser troll and will only sap your confidence; cross her out of your life. If 1 and not-2, I think she can be a good wingman.
I disagree. “Nice guys” tend to look at a girl as a prospective girlfriend first. They have the same high standards, for relationships, as the men who take the approach you described, but they don’t sleep with a woman until they’re pretty sure she passes those standards. This is one of the reasons nice guy’s don’t get laid often.
I couldn’t disagree more. Even a “nice guy” is going to appraise a girl’s hotness first, and will not even consider a girl as girlfriend material if he is not sexually attracted to her. He may not take action on that attraction immediately, but it must still be there even while he is waiting to see if she meets his “high standards” for a relationship.
“I’m not at all attracted to her physically, but I’m going to date her for a while anyway and if she’s good enough to be my girlfriend I’ll have sex with her then, but not before.” — this makes no sense at all, no guy would ever think this way.
In my view, a lot of “nice guys” want to bang the chick a lot faster than they actually do. They are inhibited for some reason; they have the wrong ideas about women (e.g., “nice girls won’t hop in bed right away”); or they have no game and don’t know how to get quickly from where they are to where they want to be (in the sack). In short, the reason they don’t get laid quickly and often is not because they don’t want to, or because girls don’t want it, but because the guys in question have internal mental restraints.
“Women are lousy friends” is a U.S.-specific generalization.
Maybe, but I can’t say, since I only have experience here.
Friendship requires equality.
Friendship requires reciprocity. Every guy understands that if his relationship with another guy is unbalanced – i.e. one person is investing more time, money, and effort than the other – then eventually the guy who is getting used is going to get pissed and cut loose the slacker. To stay friends, you pull your weight. Women simply do not have this understanding of friendship, and probably cannot have it with a man, since they are used to relationships where the man chases them. They are surrounded by men willing to go to great lengths to get into their pants, who will invest more money and effort into the relationship than they do in order to achieve that objective, and who will put up with shit (like being a flake) that no guy would ever accept from another guy. Women still expect male “friends” to commit more resources into the so-called “friendship” than the woman does, and still expect male “friends” to accept flaky female behavior. Why should a man put up with this if he’s not getting laid?
If anything, girls find the male-style friend more interesting,
Well yeah, but what’s in it for the man being friends with her? I find male-style friends more interesting, too, that’s why all my genuine long-term friends are guys.
and he’s more likely to be able to “convert” the friendship into a relationship.
Once you’re in the LJBF box, you’re never getting out, so don’t waste your time trying. Assuming you achieve the goal of converting a friend into a girlfriend, think of all the time and effort you wasted on the “friendship” that you could have used to find and keep a real girlfriend (i.e. one you’re banging). Every minute you spend with a woman you don’t get to have sex with for whatever reason is a minute you’re not spending trying to convince a woman to have sex with you or maintaining a relationship with a woman who actually is having sex with you.
Female “friends”: Big. Waste. Of. Time.
in women, there’s a distinction between (1) considering someone attractive, and (2) being personally attracted to that person.
Eh maybe. The only female wingmen I’ve had were both 1 and 2 but were dating someone else at the time.
No disagreement there.
That could be. Tomorrow’s post is on the r- and K-selective sex drives. “Nice guys” certainly have the r-drive, but they seem to wait for the K-drive to kick in before they make any moves.
Completely solid analysis.
I generally agree. That applies to probably 95% of opposite-sex “friendships”.
On the other hand, do you not allow for some exceptions? First of all, you’re right that most women make terrible friends on account of being so spoiled, but don’t you think it’s possible for some of the smarter ones to see through the bullshit/phony kindness and have a high value for what is genuine? Second, what if the woman has a boyfriend and the man realizes he’s not very interested in her? In this case, is male/female friendship still impossible?
Finally, it’s possible to be friends with a girl first, before a relationship forms, but not get LJBF’d. I’ve had great relationships start out as friendships (for about a month). However, it goes without saying that, once you hear a single girl say, “Let’s just be friends”, the only way she can make it worth it for you to keep her in your life is for her to set you up with an attractive friend of hers.
I allow for exceptions. I am friends with some of my guy friend’s wives, and it works because they are off limits and they know they can’t impose on me (and also the husbands trust me so it doesn’t cause any tension in the marriage). On the other hand it is a very limited sort of friendship in that only rarely do I have any interaction with the wives that does not also involve the husbands.
I did have a female coworker one time who I was friends with, and the instant she got divorced she jumped on me. I am pretty sure I could have been more than friends with her while she was still married, but I didn’t make any moves because I think marital infidelity is immoral. However I think that’s not quite the same as being LJBF’d by a single girl.
Seems about right. Usually, LJBF means that she just wants you to go away. She doesn’t want any genuine “friendship” with you, because she thinks you’re a loser (which is not to be taken personally; women think most men are losers).
In this essay, I’ve been giving the benefit of the doubt quite liberally. In practice, I realize that 95% of women who LJBF men view the man as a loser and there’s absolutely no reason the man should stay around her, and that most women make horrible friends, because they’re spoiled by the glut of male attention.
The other 5%, however, could be interesting. I’d argue that it can be valuable for a guy in his 20s to have legitimate female friends– NOT LJBF pity-friendships. For example, what’s the most effective way for a guy to meet women? Go out with a group of attractive girls. As most men have few or no real female friends, this extremely effective boost is not available to most of us.