Can Men and Women Be Friends

If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, it may explain at least one of their shared beliefs; Men and women can’t be real friends. Is it true? What do you think? Does platonic, friendly love really exist between the sexes? Or it just some kind of mask for someone who hidden their true feelings or maybe another easy step to get into their dreams love. If men and women really can’t be true friends, you can blame the sexual tension that almost inevitably exists between any red-blooded, heterosexual man and woman. Hahahha…Is it possible? They’re so much unexplainable chemistry between men and women to debate for and some of them really can’t make sense and unbelievable, however the truth never lie and when it comes to times for changes, the questions of inherent differences between the sexes will be answered.

“The belief that men and women can’t be friends comes from another era in which women were at home and men were in the working place, and the only way they could get together was for romance,” says Linda Sapadin, PhD, a psychologist. “Now they work together, share sports interests and socialize.” This culture shifts are encouraging social experts to put forth a new message: Though it may be tricky, men and women actually can successfully become close friends. And there are good reasons for them to do so. How to define these platonic male-female relationships? Sometimes, it’s hard to say because almost male-female relationship we known often winds up turning into romance. It’s no wonder our mentality stick into expectations that men and women are always on the road to romance. It’s really challenging to maintain the platonic relationships because closeness and a lot of similarity between men-women friendship give more points for them to become more intimate and loving which can change that friendship into loves. Here we find out whether men and women can be friends or these couples kidding themselves?

Friends or lovers… When it’s come to think which your relationship are more into: Friends or lovers? You can’t gives the answers in the spot because you can’t explain how much you feel towards your partner – you know you love someone and enjoy them as a person, but that feeling is not strong enough to date or marry them. What does this mean? For some people, it’s hard to distinguish between romantic, sexual and friendly feelings, however, can be difficult. Sometimes, their true feelings was actuate by desires to posses the other partner and confusing themselves to reveal the truth that beneath inside. Study shows that a connection devoid of lust or longing is a bona fide type of bond people experience.

Friendship is not equal opportunity. Cross-sex friendship are started from pre-matured where puberty really draw boys and girls together, which then continues into college. But as people grown up, develop romantic relationships or get married, making or maintaining cross-sex friendships becomes harder. The number of cross-sex friendships continues to decline with ages. As people getting older, the less of cross-sex friendships form because they are more into loves and intimacy. Else, who want to see their spouse close to other person with different gender?

Different sex attraction… If you say, you don’t have any sexual attraction towards friends in different gender, you’re lie. Then why are you interested becoming his/her friends? Even a simple, platonic hug could instantaneously take on a more amorous meaning whether it unwelcome or not, the attraction is difficult to ignore. In one study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, shows that men are more frequently replied that sexual attraction was a prime reason for initiating a friendship, and it could even deepen a friendship. So, is that possible to overcome this attraction so that the true friendships find its own road?

And men get more out of cross-sex friendship than women do. Women spend most of their time together discussing their thoughts and feeling, while men tend to be far more group-oriented and rarely share feelings or personal reflections. In Sapadin’s study, men rated cross-sex friendships as being much higher in overall quality, enjoyment and nurturance than their same-sex friendships.

Establishing equality… Friendship should be a pairing of equals, but when the power plays, male dominance, prestige and power are baggage both men and women are likely to bring to a relationship. Women, however, unconsciously playing submissive role in these cross-sex friendships – as time goes by, the relationship become more open as society begins to accept and treat both genders more equally.

But it’s also not all about men conquer the whole goodness, women have the benefit too. Even women like all that sharing and comforting each other, however, sometimes they need someone who can joke and banter without any emotional baggage. And men attitudes – simple, easy and not so sensitive indirectly alleviate women complicated, cold feelings. Women also liked the protective, cares and casual warmth they got from men, gives them a very friendly, secure and comfortable feelings. And what we, girls liked most of all; however, was getting insight into what guys really think. So, it’s fair, right?

Dealing with society… Friendships between men and women is not are new thing in our society, but not all of people are ready to accept the closeness of different genders without sexual subtext. And the most famous questions to be ask is, “Are you really just friends?” and whatever is your answers to convince them, they won’t believe and still barraged you with nudging, winking and skepticism at your back. The most hard people to deal with is older adults, where their minded is still in era when men and women were off-limits to each other until marriage.

Appreciating each other as a good friend, most male-female friendships are more into emotionally-involving. Although men with light-hearted attitude is not what they really like, but when it comes to friendships, all this thing was put aside and they prefer having talk one-on-one style. It’s was emotional rewarding for both and men really appreciate this because it’s different and never be a part of their same-sex friendship. So, when the other is comfortable with the other one and they’re enjoyed the time together, nothing on earth can break the trust between them even the whole society talk about them. The most important is you know what you do and the biggest deal is you have to face your own feelings. True friendship is to be true to yourself and your partner.

Finding friends… Sometimes some concepts which separate boys and girls from being together such as boys or girls school only, bring a different meanings to kids while these things was practice from their childhood times. So, this minded of being together only in their own gender group in school make them find their own ways relating to each other. And when they do get together, they’re shy and don’t know how to interact, so they only can see each other as dating partners because they’ve never really known each other as friends. This is like culture impacts when it’s continue into adulthood. We still can see it at some occasions when men and women are divided into different groups subconsciously by themselves. However, these days, male-female friendship can’t be avoided in our modern society: As we can see, men and women have to work together and now, women do involves a lot in men working area, so they must learn to understand and communicate with each other.

Actually, in reality, sex isn’t always on the top of priority. If it’s been for long time of considering someone as a friend, it often becomes difficult to see a cross-sex pal as a romantic possibility. Friends who are attracted to each other might be due to sexual attraction but as they get to know each other deeper, that feeling of infatuate will disappear over time. Feel comfortable with friends is different from a feeling of loving someone and it’s really hard to turn it over into a romantic relationship. The best way to make the cross-sex friendship survives is by ignore any attraction factors and to make it work, communication is the most important just like in romantic relationship. Whatever the challenges of male-female friendship, researchers agree that to succeed as friends, both genders have to openly and honestly negotiate exactly what their relationship will mean – whether sexual attraction is a factor and how they’ll deal with it – and establish boundaries. Once they get past that, there’re home free.