To think somewhere down the line male friends either want to date you or sleep with you?

[MaleFriend]

I have started dating a male friend after he told me how he felt. I don't really have many close male friends but have had a few in the past over the years and thinking about it they have all either asked me out on a date or tried it on with me after a few drinks. This goes back to my late teens to my current dp. It doesn't really bother me but just got me thinking about the old adage that men can't really be friends with women.

What's other people's experiences ?
It would be interesting to hear from men and their perspective?

Of course, this is MN, the home of victimhood. There are good and bad of both sorts, can't be bothered with the sex/gender nonsense by the way.

Tend to agree. People in general like sex and like their friends. Win win.
I don't think it's even much to do with attraction sometimes, just if it's available then why not

Not my experience at all. I have a few good male friends I’ve known for decades and over that time we’ve been on holiday together, slept in bed together after nights out, they and I have both dated other people and introduced each other to partners. No male friend has ever confessed feelings to me. There are a couple of people I can think of that I had a ‘thing’ with that began as friendship (but a very short friendship of months before it became something else) but the sexual attraction was mutual - in fact in one case it was me pulling the moves on him, not the other way around. Long-standing make friends of years - no, it’s platonic. I don’t fancy any of them and wouldn’t date them in a million years.

I’m bisexual, it’s also possible to be platonically friends with other bi and gay women. My current boyfriend is also bi, his best friend and flatmate is a gay man and they go on holiday together and share a room, as I have done with male and female friends. There’s nothing going on between them either.

Why can't it be both?

I’m male, I’ve had plenty of female friends at various stages of life that I had zero sexual interest in, they were just really great company. That includes female friends at university and at times in my 20s when I was single.

I don't care if one of my male friends has a wank about me just as long as he keeps it in his head (and pants).

Wow! What did he say/do when you told him!?
What a bizarre reaction!

Maybe I'm not sexy enough, but my male friends are not the least bit sexually interested in me

My best friend is a man. We met in school reception and still as close today nearly 40 years later. Never anything romantic.
I’ve got quite a lot of male friends, never think of them romantically and I presume vice versa.

Apparently he was waiting for me to get the 'bad boys' out of my system before I realised I needed a 'nice man's like him. And if I had come to me sense and realised I was ready for a 'nice man' I should have done him the courtesy of letting him know first as he had known me longer (by about 8 months)

It was so out of the left field it was bizarre. My exs could not have been described as 'bad boys' by any stretch. They were nice men who just weren't quite right/wanted slightly different lifestyle etc

I wasn't a silly little girl who had come to her senses and realised she needed the love of a nice man. My DH and I were suddenly both single at the same time and acknowledge that there was a spark that was worth exploring.

It's was all incredibly patronising with that hint of aggression that 'but I'm a nice man' men can bring. He would definitely have fallen down the incel hole if he hadn't met someone not long after.

No, this hasn't been my experience at all. I have about a 70/30 split of male to female friends in a group of about 20 people who've known each other for years. Most of them are single (both male and female.) Lots of drunken situations, staying at each other's houses, many weekends away together etc. One has asked to date me and two of them have a FWB arrangement. Other than that, to my knowledge, not of the men has made a move on any of the women.

YANBU that your personal experience causes you to question whether a new male friend might have a sexual interest in you. YABU if you think that the old adage that men can't really be friends with women applies universally. And IMO the posters insisting that NO ONE has ever had a real platonic male-female relationship (and posters who say they have/do are naive/deluded) are indulging in the sort of high-handed obnoxiousness that in another context would be criticised as "mansplaining".

I DO think that a lot of people, male and female, LOVE the idea of falling in love with/becoming a couple with an old friend. Look at Monica and Chandler, Forrest and Jenny, Jenna and Matt, Ron and Hermione, Dan and Vanessa ... you get along great, feel comfortable, trust each other, know each other's friends and family (and that s/he's not an undercover serial killer), have seen each other at your best and worse, know each other's quirks and history, have common interests and values ... just add sexual attraction and stir, right? This desire even manifests in same-sex friendships where neither person is same-sex attracted ("why can't I be a lesbian?!" "If only you were a man!") It rarely works, but it's tempting for a lot of people (although there's also the opposite pole: for example, the poster above who said that kissing her friend was like kissing her brother). But if people want to try it, I don't think that means that either or both people entered into the friendship fraudulently, just waiting for the sex. Or even that they had sexual or romantic feelings from the beginning.

And of course, loads of people don't even want to try.

I love all the women saying "well I have a male friend who hasn't crossed the line".... There's huge a difference between haven't crossed the line because the right opportunity never presented itself/unavailable vibes" and not interested So if someone here says she's confessed her undying love to a hetero/bi male friend and he's said sorry, I love you as a friend but that's all ... he's just playing the long game, biding his time to make his move? Or she must be a hideosuly awful physically unattractive beast? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. There's always some excuse to deny something you're determined not to believe even when it's happened all around you and people who have experienced it first-hand are telling you so.

I seriously doubt it. I look like a space hopper.

Sigh. This thread comes up so often.

Yes, you can be friends with males without them wanting to sleep with you. I have more male than female friends. I have not slept with any of them, been propositioned by them, or been given any indication they feel anything towards me other thab sibling level love.

From school to now, my late 30s I have always had more male than female friends. I have slept with one male friend in that time and being honest I really fancied him for years but he had a gf so settled for friendship (we slept together long after they had broken up)

I think a certain type of women feels she cannot be friends with men and I dont fit that mold.

I have a male friend for over 3O years and I am 100 percent confident he has never been interested in a sexual/ romantic relationship with me, nor me with him.

How sad to live such a naive and sheltered life… read the replies to this post, I’m hardly in the minority with my comment!!

One of my best mates is male.
We've shared a bed together after drunken night outs... nothing has ever happened and never would...he's like my brother almost. No sexual chemistry at all..ewwwwww

YANBU, OP. I’ve found that eventually they get that look in their eye, even the married ones

I only have gay male friends now.

@eldora - I can only imagine this is because you are so staggeringly attractive that, much like the Sirens of Ancient Greece, you draw men inexorably toward you, even to their eventual doom.

@Pandor I’m a veritable Helen of Troy

Sadly not!

Had plenty of male friends. The majority have tried it on (when drunk of course). I have mostly female friends now.

I think that some men are capable of platonic friendships and others are not. I have a male friend that treats me like a big sister and comes to me for dating advice. He has never shown any attraction towards me and it much more emotional and sensitive than me. Some men are just better suited to female friends for this reason.

There are other male friends that I have had in the past that would probably dated me if I were single. I'm good at keeping my boundaries though and I wouldn't be friends with anyone that didn't respect me enough to not overstep them.

Some yes, some no. One of my oldest friends was my first serious boyfriend, but over a quarter of a century after we broke up, I can't imagine seeing him in a sexual way now. Another friend, I crazy about him at uni, but I just wasn't his type. We're still friends now we're in our 50s, and again, I can't imagine anything sexual with him now. I have another male friend I can imagine being in bed with, but I would hate to lose the friendship more. Others I have never even considered it, let alone done anything.

I don't know which if my male friends might have thought about having sex with me. I'm fairly sure they don't all think about it, because once when a group of us were out, I pulled one of them up for saying something sexist, and got the response, "you don't count, you're one of us!" (Which still doesn't make it acceptable to make sexist comments about other women around.) So I suspect some see me as friends at the expense of seeing me as a sexual woman at all. I know at least one definitely would if I ever let him (I won't.) And one whose mother would absolutely live us to, but oddly doesn't make him sexually appealing to me, and he and I have been on holiday together, so we've probably had opportunity to find out, especially as we're both chronically single.

In summary - in some friendships it would happen if there were opportunity, in others it never would. It's almost like every person and every friendship is different because we are all different.