Yep. Agreed. I have had three male friends, all of them I met when I was too young to know better, only one I really keep in touch with now, to be honest, as I moved away. Every one of them put the moves on me at some point in the friendship 😂
The reason we remained friends was I ignored their persistent, repeated and often clumsy attempts at seduction as I wasn't offended or frightened by them, and beyond that found something worthwhile in them, and after a long while they finally got it.
I guarantee though that if I offered my long time male friend a romance even now, many years down the line, he'd go for it (to be clear he's single and a bit lonely) he was just wise enough to stop trying and I moved away so we are mostly friends online which cuts down on the chance for attempted romance. If we still lived close by I could no longer be friends with him, as what I was willing to put up as a young woman, hints and the knowledge that he wants more than I do, would no longer be acceptable to me. Haven't tried to befriend a man in a long time, because I KNOW what straight men want from women and it is NOT friendship.
Oh I should say women they find attractive, or acceptable as a sexual partner. If a man finds you absolutely totally sexually repulsive it is possible he might be able to be friends with you, I suppose.
And no, there's nothing sad about this, and it's not weird, strange, bizarre or anything else, just clear eyed. There are shit tons of women out there to be friends with, fortunately.
There are (almost certainly) no straight men who are "friends" with straight women who would not have sex with them if it was on offer/possible. I mean, I suppose there might be one in a million, but it's safe to assume that the man they want to befriend is not that one in a million.
it seems some women do manage to trick themselves into thinking men are their friends though - but not for long, usually.
When I was young I'd briefly made the same claim to my mother when she pointed out that James had a crush on me. Oh no we're just friends mum! Wisely, she let it go.In past years, I have heard my daughters make these claims. I told them the truth, kindly and matter of factly, and then left it.
As they enter their mid 20s, they are no longer trying to hang out with men as friends. I haven't asked why, no need to say I told you so, we all have to learn.
There are studies backing this up, but all I need is once source: reality and observation.
"The results suggest large gender differences in how men and women experience opposite-sex friendships. Men were much more attracted to their female friends than vice versa. Men were also more likely than women to think that their opposite-sex friends were attracted to them—a clearly misguided belief. In fact, men’s estimates of how attractive they were to their female friends had virtually nothing to do with how these women actually felt, and almost everything to do with how the men themselves felt—basically, males assumed that any romantic attraction they experienced was mutual, and were blind to the actual level of romantic interest felt by their female friends. Women, too, were blind to the mindset of their opposite-sex friends; because females generally were not attracted to their male friends, they assumed that this lack of attraction was mutual. As a result, men consistently overestimated the level of attraction felt by their female friends and women consistently underestimated the level of attraction felt by their male friends."
https: // www dot scientificamerican cot com/article/men-and-women-cant-be-just-friends/
psycnet dot apa dot org/record/2012-23628-001