Can heterosexual men and women truly be friends with no hopes or expectations of anything more romantic?

Can heterosexual men and women truly be friends with no hopes or expectations of anything more romantic?

by Gladys Seracarpio

Introduction:

                Friendship is something that everyone needs. We need friends so that our life will not be boring. We are comfortable when we are with them. No man is an island as they say. But can a girl and a guy be ‘just friends’without any romantic stuffs involved? For me, it’s a No.

Body:

                It may sound stereotypical, but men do have sex in mind. Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology surveyed 308 heterosexual undergrad students between the ages 18 and 30, asking them about their friendships, sexual attractions and experiences with misread social signals.

                The result was that men commonly over perceived sexual interest from women, with female participants saying they’d had their friendly actions misunderstood by men about 3.5 times over the past year on average. On the flip side, women reported under perceiving sexual interest from men, although markedly less so.

                On the other hand, Scientific American noted, “Women, too, were blind to the mindset of their opposite sex friend; because female generally were not attracted to their male friends, they assumed that this lack of attraction was mutual.”

                “While man and women can be friends, it is difficult for the relationship to be entirely platonic. Our genetics simply drive our attraction to the opposite sex! The likelihood that at least one party is drawn to the other sexually is very high, regardless of whether or not anything ever comes of it. This is the reason jealousy and infidelity exists; we are not wired to be a monogamous species.” Dr. Soroya Bacchus, 51, Psychiatrist

                April Masini, relationship expert and author, disagrees and believes that at some point in an opposite sex friendship, one person usually develops romantic feelings for the other.

                “This idea that men and women can be friends is fraught with obstacles,” she told Medical Daily. She added: “They can’t be friends, and if they think they are, the clock is ticking. Eventually one person will have a crush on the other.”

                When we point out our friendship is deep but neither romantic or sexual, we’re often told we’re lying or hopelessly naive.

Conclusion:

                The things that are mentioned above are the proofs that men and women cannot have a platonic friendship some may say that it can be possible but there is a big possibility they will fall in love. Others become friends but they first undergo the “falling in love with my best friend” stage and they chose to talk about it and settle with being “just friends”. So, it’s definitely a No. If you want to be really friends with a man, then you can at least choose a gay one because surely, he’s not going to fall in love. And if he will, there’s a small possibility.