'I like you as a friend'

[Nanny31]

Been told this in the past. Got me thinking in a nutshell it really means........

@MarshaMarshaMarshmellow Yes, that all sounds very familiar! Especially the physical type thing - in my case I seem to be most attractive to men who are physically/genetically the opposite of me and my father. My friend is like my father 2.0!

It is weird (to me) to try and understand the mindset of someone who sleeps with someone twice, and only then declares that they only feel friendship. I couldn't have sex in the first place if I only felt friendship! As I alluded to upthread, when I've had this line from a man, it wasn't quite what it said on the tin.

Haha, yes! Although for me, I like the opposite of me (the same would feel more like a brother), but I have to embarrassingly admit that the colouring I like is basically like my dad's 😂It's definitely true that we're influenced by our dads one way or another!

It's a nice way of saying the spark isn't there. If you've slept with them twice, sexual compatibility wasn't there.

Well, some people have a category of ‘Fanciable enough for a quick shag, especially if I’m drunk and horny, but not more’, and the ‘friendship’ element doesn’t actually usually imply, ‘So let’s go for a drink next week, share our OLD dating stories with other people, and if you need a lift home after your root canal, call me!’

Maybe they thought the sex was a bit rubbish/no sexual chemistry and can't be bothered doing it again.

If the sex was good (or at least more interesting than going to the pub, playing football, watching TV etc), it falls into the FWB bucket.

If they genuinely like the person and the sex is good (subject to the above criteria), it's the relationship bucket.

Yeah, exactly. It's not really friendship at all, is it? It's not wanting a relationship, outweighing the attraction.

You can only bear very few children at a time. If you were sexually attracted to all the male who tick enough boxes it would be unmanageable and counter productive. Literally.

I think people are often more complex and inscrutable than that.

I dated someone over the summer, the sex was great, and he was a decent person and we had a good time together... but something didn't feel right. I just felt he wasn't on the right wavelength for me for a relationship, so I ended things before we settled in to a relationship.

And someone else, we're friends... we dated for a while but things. We get on really well, but there wasn't really that romantic connection... sex was more tender and comfy, than horny and passionate.

You can only bear very few children at a time. If you were sexually attracted to all the male who tick enough boxes it would be unmanageable and counter productive. Literally.

I don't know where you live, but there aren't that many available, hot, capable and normal men to have sex with!

Ditto. Think it’s close to a zero here

I think that a lot of the time we don't "just" feel friendship in these situations. We're complex, conflicted, fickle, and often times a little bit messed up! It's often not a binary friendship vs relationship thing in our minds...

The person who had sex twice and then decided they only wanted friendship probably doesn't really understand their feelings, so there's no point us even trying to!

Oh, I agree, @harerunner . In fact, the older I get, the more I think that many men actually have no idea what they want or how they feel. Therefore, all we can do as women is hold onto and express our own desires and boundaries.

To be honest, I think many women are exactly the same. They often don't know what they want either, and can be even more emotionally complex!

And I don't always have a clear idea what I want or need... Drives me (and probably others) mad!

Yeah I guess, @harerunner ... I do think, in my experience, that it tends to be men who are more detached from their emotions day-to-day, and then appear to have sudden changes of heart (think of all the threads we have about being ghosted or dumped by text, sometimes followed by the man crawling back). But yes, it's not exclusive to one sex. I tend to know exactly how I feel, but then struggle to work out what to do about it! So it always blows my mind when people (men or women) say "I'm not sure how I feel about X". But they are probably better at taking action than I am.

If it's a man telling a woman he has slept with that he likes her 'as a friend' then I would be wondering if the man is in a relationship and just wanted a bit on the side. He says the 'friend' thing because he doesn't want to piss off the side woman too much or she might cause problems for his other relationship.

amongst the other replies I think this is a sinario too that happens. you're kept hanging about.