To be worried my best friend is male, and what this means for future romantic relationships?

[FairTurtle]

I'm female. My best friend is male. We hang out a lot, are close, know each other's families, etc. He's the person I call if I need help with something, or just need to talk about something. I also have lots of other (and women) friends btw, he just happens to be the closest. We are also geographically close, which has probably contributed to it.

There is zero attraction between us, romantically, sexually, or emotionally. I see him as a sibling/cousin. Always have, for the 8 years since we met. We share a background, are very used to and comfortable in each other's company, like similar films etc, but have wildly different worldviews, interests, and life plans, and desires of a romantic relationship. Nothing he could do, or say, would ever change the fact that I see him like a sibling. And vice versa.

Most of my exes have been pretty cool about this, and I don't necessary see it as an issue. He, however, has exes that have really disliked this. It makes me a bit sad, as it makes me think when he does meet someone and it becomes serious, he and I won't be able to be as close anymore. It would feel like a huge loss, like losing a family member. In the past I've perhaps been a little naive and thought it's odd to care about this - surely lots of people have opposite-sex friends - but I've since realised that it maybe is a bit unusual to have such a close personal friendship with someone of the opposite sex, when it's not part of a wider group, etc?

What do people think? Do you have a male best friend? Just looking for reassurance, I guess.

It will only matter if any future partner you have has controlling and old fashioned ideas about friendship between men and women.

My (male) partner has always had female friends. From my perspective this is a good thing as it shows he treats women as equals and is able to communicate with them as opposed to putting them in a “sex only” box.

There are some situations where people have romantic relationships which masquerade as friendships and where there is emotional dependency. But this doesn’t sound like one of those. You will probably have to scale it back a bit if you get into a new relationship because you will inevitably want to prioritise the partner but that would apply equally with a close female friend.

It doesn’t have to be a problem.

You are clearly EXCELLENT. ✨

A question that never gets acknowledged or answered by the "men and women can't be friends" crew.

I guess if you only socialise with other heterosexual women, and the men around you only socialise with heterosexual men, and you think this is the natural order of things and anything that deviates is cause for suspicion, then the importance you place on traditional gender norms probably excludes bisexuals by default.

Yes, the 'men and women can't be friends' posters scoff at the question, but they never answer it. (Though I suspect what they would actually say, if being frank, would be 'Bisexuals are weird, anyway, and such a tiny percentage of the population that we don't have to consider their social lives and whether they cry themselves to sleep nightly because they're not allowed to be friends with anyone, and MY TIM is NOT ALLOWED bi friends, anyway.')

Mind you, the other thing that comes up all the time on these threads is 'I USED to have male friends until they all betrayed me one by one by making a pass at me -- they're only in it for the sex!'

Which is clearly intended as some kind of 'gotcha!' but I don't see why someone expressing a sexual interest in you is any kind of big deal, provided they back off if/when you say no. People have sex. People find other people sexually attractive. Sometimes someone you've known for forever can suddenly attract you. If everyone involved is free, just asking is no harm, IMO.

@TeenageSwans😂😂😂😂😂😂

Love this! And yes exactly re the second part. As if someone who might one day express sexual/romantic interest in an opposite-sex friend invalidates the entire concept of opposite sex friendships (in heteronormative contexts).

I'm so glad most people don't limit their lives and social circles by these silly rules.

Friendships change throughout life. As long as you're prepared to flex to suit the circumstances there's no need to lose friends.
As a single person you can spend unlimited time with friends, you have complete freedom on spending evenings alone together, staying at each others homes, sharing bedrooms.
Once you have a partner, these things should probably stop and it will be more a case of less time together, spending that time as part of a larger group, including your or their new partner.
I am not willing to put up with a partner who bans all contact with male friends. On the other hand I wouldn't be getting drunk with male friends or going on holiday alone with them if I had a partner.
Once you have kids all friendships take a battering... You have no time and limited energy for some years. Family naturally becomes more important for a time.

@DinosaurMunch You wouldn't get drunk with a male friend if you had a partner? Like, you wouldn't go out for a few drinks (either with or without other people) at a pub etc.? Why? Because the sexual possibility would be too tempting?

I just don't get this. Unless you fancy them, what's the issue?

Well this is true but on the other hand most people are looking for a life partner and will put them before a friend. There's nothing wrong with that. If he completely ghosts you obviously that's not great but it's highly unlikely he will prioritise you.

I wouldn't spend an evening at their house just the 2 of us with 2 bottles of wine, or go out till the early hours with just them. (A couple of drinks is not getting drunk. A night out with a group is also fine. )

Why not? Because experience tells me that when the opportunity is there, things can happen. Especially when alcohol is involved. I have seen it so many times. Being part of an adult relationship is to ensure that these kinds of opportunities don't happen.

Even more so if married or committed to a serious partner.

@DinosaurMunch Not even a very close friend you've known for a decade, who you have never felt any sexual/romantic attraction to? Is a few bottles of wine all it takes to change that, just because he happens to have a willy?

Yes! Sexual attraction is really mundane and commonplace. I have attractive male friends. Maybe 15 years ago in different circumstances I might have hit on them, but I didn't, so it's been 100% platonic all the way. I've since also realised that much as I love them as friends, we'd have been gigantically incompatible.

I saw a post on a different thread yesterday where a poster likened the men she used to find attractive to the hairstyles she thought looked good on her in the 80s and that's a perfect way of putting it. I couldn't even compute the idea of going there now. And part of that is also because we're all in relationships (with people we find more attractive) and while sexual attraction is a fact of life, acting on it is always a conscious choice.

I've also been hit on by men I thought were "just friends". One or two took it badly and it wasn't a great experience. They were outweighed by the ones who just moved on normally and didn't make the friendship weird. (One of those I'm still friends with, though oddly I get on much better with his wife now - we're very different and I think he realises how incompatible I'd have been for him.)

Obviously I don't know you personally. Maybe you would never do such a thing. There are definitely plenty of male friends of mine that I would definitely never fancy (and vice versa I'm sure)

But no I don't think someone in a committed relationship should put themselves in that position.

@DinosaurMunch But I don't think hanging out with a male friend that I've known for more than a decade, that I don't fancy, and vice versa, is putting myself in any sort of "position."

@DinosaurMunch This came up a few posts ago, but what if someone's bisexual? Are they always in a "position"?!

Don't mean to target you personally, but I'm just totally stumped tbh.

I'm male with a best friend who's female. We've known each other since the first day of reception, so a very very long time. We're literally like siblings, absolutely no romantic feeling between each other. We had one very very drunken snog at age 18 in order to win a bet and it weirded us both out so much that it put a dent in our friendship for months afterwards.

With new potential girlfriends, I always made sure I worked BF into the conversation by date two, so they know they exist. A couple of months later, I'll check with them how they feel about it, and sometimes I'd agree to a couple of reasonable constraints. DP for instance is fine with me and BF going to the pub just the two of us, or going for a curry, but would feel a bit funny about a more romantic restaurant. Which I get. She also didn't like the idea of us going to the cinema, just the two of us. Which I get less, but it wasn't really a problem, so I agreed readily to it.

Various girlfriends have been various levels of OK with it. The ones that said they were OK but weren't really generally revealed themselves pretty quickly, within a month or two. They had once chance to get over it, (which they never did), and then they got dumped. I'm not giving up my BF for someone who doesn't trust me, any more that I'd stop talking to my brother. Other girlfriends have become firm friends with BF (which has been awkward when we've broken up!)

Current DP (It's been 19 years, so more "Permanent DP") is somewhere in the middle. Her and BF aren't really friends, they're very different people and don't have much in common. But they'll happily spend the day chatting to each other at a wedding, or in a group situation.

Even with a DP who's fine with the situation, it's still a bit of a balancing act. I'll happily go round BFs for a coffee during the day, but I would go round alone for a drink in the evening. DP's never said I can't, but it wouldn't feel right. And BF is currently going through a very messy divorce, so is a bit more vulnerable. As a result I'm on the phone or messaging her more, so I make sure DP's kept in the loop with the broad strokes of what we're talking about.

I once had a bf friend whose best friend was female. She used to help him get his house ready for when I went to stay.

They are married now.

No it doesn’t.

Just because some men and women can’t be friends, it doesn’t mean it’s that way for everyone.

@OpalUser I mean, there's always a risk of everything. There's a risk your husband might secretly be gay, or bi, or one day find himself attracted to a man.

I really don't think the "overwhelming majority" of long-standing male-female friendships result in sex. You are deluded.

Also, these things i.e. going out to restaurants, to the cinema, etc are fine for many people, as you'll see from the posts in this thread.

Because I've been there before. I was dating a guy once who was friends with a girl. They had been friends for years. I "had nothing to worry about" they were "like siblings" etc etc. After we broke up (not because of her) within a few months they were together. They are still together 12 years later. So the whole "like siblings" thing was either bollocks or it changed.

Yeah, me too. Twice. First boyfriend's best female friend developed feelings for him about 6 weeks after we got together (funny, that) so he dropped me. She lost interest after about 4 weeks. Current husband had a good friend at uni and one night about a year into our relationship they were both at a college formal and she hit on him. He left and walked to mine in the rain!

Once you've been burned it's quite hard to trust that your OH's friend has no interest because let's face it, the whole point is that you think they're attractive and want to be around them. But if you're not happy with the situation then it's fairer to end the relationship than try and stop the friendship.

I guess it's maybe that those are the ones you hear about. People don't talk about male:female friendships when there's no drama because why would you need to highlight the gender differences? Only brought up when there's a reason to talk about it...so disproportionate attention given to the negative stories and suddenly it's 'an overwhelming majority'.... overwhelming majority' of the stories you hear, absolutely!

I guess some of the problem comes from the fact a best friend is a very emotionally connected friend.

Normally let’s face it if your husband was very emotionally connected to another women you would say they where having an emotional affair because of how close and connected they where. Then add say a trip to the movies that now sounds like a date, out for dinner after… definitely a date.

It’s the blurry line I guess.

Men as groups tend to just go to the (sport / hobby ) pop for a few beers after. Don’t hear much of male friends going out to the movies and for a meal for two if she was one of the men or a near sibling surely the relationship would be the same as the normal men trips.

Dh has never taken his sister for a movie and meal either, or his best buds. Bowling in a group, pub in a group, racing days as a group, curry and pub in a group for a stag. But never do they do things one on one, unlike where there seems to be a female best friend she’s not in the group it’s one on one.

But again that’s only what I’ve seen.

@OhmygodDont I have brothers, and regularly go for meals with them, one-on-one. Not all men are into beer and sport.

Most of my past boyfriends have also spent time with their male friends in this way. They go for dinner, go to see films, and get brunch together, etc.

And no, I wouldn't consider being emotionally connected to your friends, male or female, as having an "emotional affair."

I think his sister would think he had hit his head if he invited her out for dinner tbh 😅

Just goes to show though it’s how we all see what’s around us to what’s normal and how we perceive that as the norm.

also never gone out for a meal or movie with my brother. He would prob think I was about to tell him I was dying or something.

I'd actually agree with @OpalUser that the majority of male-female friendships have at least some potential for sex.

I would never ever sleep with my female best friend, but I would have slept with most of my other female friends had they suggested it to me while I was single.

I think men divorce emotion from sex a lot more than women do. Sex is fun, sex is more fun with someone you get on well with. I get on well with my friends, therefore some casual sex with a friend is likely to be a lot of fun. I could probably have casual sex with a friend and then continue being friends with that person afterwards, so why not try it?

To be clear, that doesn't mean I'm only friends with them because I want to have sex with them. I'm friends with them because they're fun, we share similar interests, I enjoy their company. But if they said "Fancy a shag", I'd likely say yes. (Again, if I was single)

So yes, that potential is there, and maybe most men won't take it because they're faithful, or because they've been friends with the other person for too long and it'd just be weird. But some men will take that chance if they're given it.

@VimesandhisCardboardBoots Well, yes, I agree. Lots of friendships and relationships have the potential for a lot of things. But if there's trust in a relationship, and if it's a long-standing friendship that's only ever been that, you should be able to spend time with both your male and female friends, regardless of gender and sexuality, however you like (within the bounds of normal, platonic behaviour ofc - i.e. going out for meals, seeing a film, helping each other with stuff, etc.).

I'm just not understanding why the "but if you're both straight, sex isn't completely totally forever 100% excluded" means that normal friendships can't be maintained. There's the potential for a lot of things in life.