Can men and women be friends?

Let me start by saying I hate when men and women go out of their way to look for friendships with the opposite sex. The label “male/female friend” itself has always been cringe worthy to me. It just seems fake and put on. You could even say performative. I don’t know, maybe I’m the weird one here. I don’t refer to the women I’m friends with as “female friends.” They’re just my friends. Imagine if people were going around saying “gosh I really wish I had a black friend!” It’s just weird. I could have 0 “female friends” or 100, the gender doesn’t matter to me. I just want the people I think of as friends to be people who I like, who I feel comfortable with.

Now onto the main question, can men and women be platonic friends? The answer is obviously yes, but there are caveats. Here’s the thing, I understand women don’t want to feel sexualized  by men 24/7, and I respect that. That being said, why would you look for male friendships on an app like Tinder? Why would you expect a man who has expressed interest in you sexually to be the platonic friend you’re looking for? From the other perspective it’s very weird to befriend someone hoping to one day get with them sexually if the other person is explicitly not interested in that. Borderline predatory. Like any relationship, lack of openness and honesty with the other party involved can lead to manipulation, animosity, and people being taken advantage of. I believe people incorrectly think of sexual attraction as the issue in male/female friendships, when there are other more significant issues.  

There was a tweet I saw saying that men aren’t really friends with women because the second the woman asks to have sex, the man would jump at the opportunity. That’s just silly. Relationships change over time. What may have started off as something strictly platonic could naturally evolve under the right circumstances. You may have started off as not being attracted to each other but proximity is one of the leading factors of increased attraction. If there’s mutual attraction and the situation naturally evolves, there’s nothing wrong with that. That doesn’t mean that the 2 people were never really friends. Sometimes things just change. 

I’m the type of person that has trouble being friends with people I’ve had sex with or pursued romantically. I’ll probably always view them with that lens. However I do have some really close friends who are women who I’ve just never seen romantically. I recognize that they’re attractive but I just don’t think of them that way and never have. I just think that in most healthy friendships between a man and a woman, whether or not you would have sex with the person just isn’t even taken into consideration. At least not at first. You’re just enjoying each other as people. The foundation of the friendship should not have any underlying sexual thoughts or desires involved. Maybe one day your perspective changes for whatever reason, and that’s ok. The development of sexual feelings over time doesn’t discredit the established platonic base of the friendship. People and relationships don’t remain static over time. 

I think the idea that men/women friendships should be like brother/sister relationships is very naive. The fact that you and your friend are not blood related inherently ruins the brother/sister dynamic, because unlike blood relatives, the sexual energy and attraction can develop at any time. Even if it isn’t present at the start. The only way to completely avoid this is to befriend your family members or people of the opposite sex who are gay. Long story short men and women can be platonic friends as long as both people are on the same page about where things stand. You have to be mature about the situation, and understand the reality of our society and the nature of the dynamic between men and women. Honesty and communication are key.