Is it possible for a man and a women to literally just be platonic friends?

[me88]

With no feelings or thoughts of something more. On both sides. Ever?

Your thoughts?

Yes of course it is!
I’ve got a couple of very close male friends, one of which I’ve known pretty much my whole life because our mums took us to the same baby group, then the same nursery, primary school and secondary school. I talk to him about literally everything - I even rang him and cried down the phone after the birth of my first child because my stitches were stinging so bad. He’s an amazing friend, and I’m as close to him as I would be with a female friend. We’ve seen each other naked more times than I can count, we’ve discussed our love lives in detail with each other, we’ve spent many nights in our younger days in the same bed etc and it has never once crossed my mind that I would be attracted to him in a sexual way. He’s always said that going there with me would be like shagging his sister!
My DH knows him very well too, and trusts us both 100% that our relationship has only ever been as best mates, nothing more.

I used to say yes when i was young

I had a lot of male friends

Over time all of them tried to get off with me or similar

It was always a real shock and made me question whether the friendship had been genuine on their side

Also as I have grown older I have realised that most men really do see women as women first and people second (unlike men who they see as people). And realised / observed that it really is very rare to meet a man who sees women as people first.

So in short yes it's possible but time and experience have shown me that it is rare. At least while we are young, maybe different when we are older? eg I have a male friend who's over 10 years younger than me, I am fairly confident that neither of us fancy each other!

Obviously it's possible, pps above have plenty of examples.

BUT I get why people think it isn't. So so often you see that in a close mixed sex friendship one obviously fancies the other. And the other one is either oblivious, or has an inkling but enjoys the attention.

Its easy to see why. If someone is a close friend, you usually think they are nice, kind, funny, cool, etc. That's why they are a friend. And if someone has all those qualities, and is of your preferred gender, why wouldn't you be attracted to them. In fact that's the very definition of attraction.

Only if there’s no sexual attraction on either side.

I find lots of men kind, funny, & nice, but I don’t find them sexually attractive.
So no, for me it wouldn’t work.
Too much temptation.

Yes providing he's a grown up and not a manchild that thinks he's fancied by every female on the planet.

Yep. My best friend since I was 4 years old is male. Never anything more to it. My husband is friends with him now, just like I’m friends with his wife.

I have a few other close male friends who I’ve met in later life through work etc too.

I find it completely ridiculous to think that men and women can’t just be friends.

Yes- definitely

Some people are gay you know

Yes, I have one in particular, a married male ex-colleague (I'm also married). One example of the 'line' for us is that we don't talk about our relationships in anything other than chatty terms - so we'll have lunch together and I'll tell him what DH and I were up to at the weekend, and he'll tell me about his & his wife's holiday, but we never talk about any marital problems we might be having or bitch about our spouses to each other or confide in each other about emotional matters that would be better served talking through with our partners. We became friends through a shared sporting interest and that, and what our ex-colleagues with whom we're still in touch are up to, and holidays/decorating/gardening/TV programmes we both watch form 99% of our conversation. I've been on work nights out with him in the past when we were both drunk and shared a taxi for part of the route home and nothing happened, because we don't fancy each other.

Unless both are gay there is always a chance the straight one fancies their friend.

Unattainability is no guarantee of non fanciement

Omg nothingontelly NO THERE IS NOT! Unless you fancy literally every single person of the opposite sex you see? Obviously it’s possible but I wouldn’t say there’s ‘always a chance’

Yes 100%
I've always had lots of male friends & my husband has some great female friends too.

Instinctively I would respond to this “why yes, of course!” because I have so many very close male friends who I adore and would never, ever want to take anything further with (including a couple that were my brosmaids.) But, like a few other women on here, when I think back, each and every one of them has either made a pass or declared their love at some point! That’s not me being vain I think it’s just a result of our closeness or them misreading my friendliness (or them being a bit desperate at the time lol).

However, with them all I’ve laughed it off and we have remained very close. DH doesnt care how much we talk/spend time together/go out/go on weekends away etc, because he knows if I wanted to be with them I would have gone for it years ago! In fact, he was one of those very friends many moons ago and I rather liked him :)

The only time problems have arisen is when they’ve actually got girlfriends and settled down. The friendships have become noticeably distant, and the only reason I can see is because the new partners don’t like their boyfriends having female friends.

So in answer to your question, as much as I want to say yes it can, in my experience it very rarely is completely platonic on both sides. Even with my GBF, we’ve had a moment somewhere down the line..!

Also DH and I have a female best friend between us, she is equally close to us both. But even she once told DH she was in love with him when we were teens.

Yes of course! I have several close Male friends!

Even if you do find someone attractive I think it's a big jump to assume people want to sleep together?!

I'd not swap the attraction and love I have with my husband for satisfying a mild curiosity about how it might feel to sleep with someone I sort of find attractive..
When people do this I dont think it's the close friendship that's to blame I think its them and their choices...

I honestly think it's a massive excuse. 'Oh we were such good friends it just happened' no it didnt you decided to let it happen!! It's the same as any other type of cheating. You cant guard against it by worrying about someones friendships. If someone wants to cheat on you they will, friendships with the opposite sex make it no more or less likely in my book.
It just feeds into the sexist myths that men cant control themselves and sex is the motivation behind their behaviour to women... and that women all crave to be loved and desired by all men close to them... utter nonesense

Hmmm I used to have a lot of close male friends when I was younger although most of these did end up with an attraction or more at one point
The only male friends I have now are friends of dh or husbands of my friends - I'm not sure if I would have a single male friend now
Dh has never had a female friend that wasn't connected to an existing friendship or me

Yes absolutely it's possible.

What an odd question, of course it is

I admit I do struggle to know where the line is in regards to friend or emotional affair. To me if my intention is in no way anything but platonic then it's not any kind of affair. But if it's upsetting Dp does that make it so, even if we're nothing but friends?
I honestly don't know.
My male friend from primary I'd tell anything to we're very close, as others have said we've seen each other undressed, shared a bed, been away together, all that. I wouldn't even be ok with Dp reading all the messages we send, because some of the stuff is personal to him and that wouldn't be fair and very occasionally I do tell him things I haven't told Dp.

At the beginning of our relationship Dp said he didn't like the idea of us sharing a bed and he didn't want me talking to my friend about our sex life. Both fair enough and I didn't mind that. But the rest he said he was ok with. We recently argued about my friend staying over and it seemed he wasn't quite so ok. Although it's resolved now, when I posted for advice on here it was quite a mixed response. And if I'm still not sure myself. Does Dp's feelings trump my friendship? I don't think so because it would inadvertently change my relationship with Dp anyway.

Sometimes I've got myself in a pickle with this when I was younger but I do have a male friend that I really adore and I don't find him remotely attractive (far from it, though friends of mine have had a pop at him many years ago!) Recently he and his wife stopped in to see us and I could see how interested she was to see us together and I felt she was somehow relieved to see there was nothing there. She and I have a lot in common because he is the most annoying person in many ways, whilst also being salt of the earth, true friend, very genuine. If I saw more of them, I think she and I would be great friends as most people she knows can't stand him and their social life is limited by that!

If you'd asked me a few months ago I'd have said without hesitation, of course it is. However my best friend (who is a bloke) appears to have dropped me from a great height and I can only assume it's due to overt or not so overt pressure from his GF, as I met her late last year for the first time even though they'd been dating for ages (she's not local to me). It's utterly shit and it's making me question everything about the friendship, including whether it was ever 'just' friendship on his part or whether I was more to him and now that he is talking of moving in with his long term GF, he is cooling our friendship suddenly and dropping me.

It really really hurts and to be completely honest, has affected the way I will approach any man who seems to want to be friends with me in the future. Because I will fear this happening again. Honestly, I don't want to do him but I fucking love this guy and he's basically just ghosted me. It's shit.

So - no. Perhaps not.

It just feeds into the sexist myths that men can't control themselves and sex is the motivation behind their behaviour to women... and that women all crave to be loved and desired by all men close to them

Absolutely to this.

You know, it's really nice to see so many people discussing their happy, close opposite-sex friendships on this thread. So many threads on Mn about male-female friendships seem to operate in a climate of sexual paranoia, according to some rules I certainly never signed up to, like no one-on-one contact, spouse always along, going for dinner with an opposite-sex friend forbidden because that's 'date' territory, male-female friendships needing to become more distant out of 'respect' when one or both people are in a relationship etc etc.

Rhubarb, well, it seems to be a common view on here, that male-female friendships should either end or become much more distant when one of the friends is in a serious relationship, and lots of threads have endless posters saying 'Well, I wouldn't stand for that!' about a partner with a close female friend.

I don't see any reason at all to assume he always wanted a sexual relationship with you -- some women (depressingly, to me) see sex where there is none, based on replies to threads on here. His girlfriend may well be one of them.

You're right, Par and I know that it may not have been like that for him, but the way he has throttled back makes me wonder why he is so worried about continuing our level of regular contact once his GF moves here to live with him, and I'm not sure that's just coming from her. Maybe some people are one-person-people and I just need to accept that.
Because they were/are in a long distance relationship, I think there may have been a level of compartmentalising on his part which now can't continue and our friendship, such as it is, became a victim of that.
It hurts the same as any other loss including romantic ones, worse in some ways as I have known him for over 7 years and our friendship has remained constant and steadfast through three relationships of mine and a few of his. It seems such a fucking waste...

I’ve been mates with a couple of blokes for 25 years and I have never once found them remotely attractive. I love them dearly.