Right, bit late for me to say anything, but here goes...
I'm not sure about this 'sexual attraction' thing people go on about. That is to say, I'm not sure where it begins. A bisexual friend of mine thinks sex is a driving function disconnected from who you're attracted to - hence masturbation - and that the connection between it and finding people beautiful is part social and part personal. I agree so far as I think social influences dictate who you find attractive - these supposed figures of beauty on the TV wouldn't have got anyway in the 20's, say.
Anyway, the point I was trying to work my way round to is this - I have quite a few female friends, and I do find them, on the whole, more attractive to look at than my male friends (not that my male friends are 'unattractive,' so to speak, but being more my shape, they're more familiar and thus less exciting.) I don't particularly desire to have sex with any of them though. This may be simply because, contrary to the myth about men, I don't spend much of my time desiring sex, but it's still a point. Where is this line that indicates you fancy them? If fancying women is just finding them attractive to the eyes then call me Leonard Cohen. But I'm sure it must be the same for most men, yes?
We are all sexual creatures are we not? Even the ugliest of us.
I think it is a falsity (even a self inflicted one) to deny this important aspect of other peoples emotional lives to the point that we pretend it does not even exist..
I suggest every relationship (man or women) where we enjoy the physicality and presence of another is more rounded if it is a little charged with this acknowledgement of an attraction... generally indulged in by flirting...
Of course as others have suggested above, there are always choices and boundaries as to how far one takes this (and to be self aware about these possibilities is usually to be in control around them)... but these are never to be taken for granted but consistently to be worked on or else peril awaits.
Now to inject a bit of controversy I would also suggest that it tends to be more the premise of women than man to make asexual assumptions on the part of man friends.. when any man would care to tell you if probed deep enough that he would feel belittled (hurt) if he was thought of as zero (or laughable) sexual material by a supposed good friend of his.. (I am sure the opposite must be true too.. Imagine telling a women friend the thought of shagging you (not the consequences of!) repulses me.. and expecting her to smile benignly through that!)
*Has temporarily given up on being the transitory bug on ABC*
Younger brother's words of wisdom for this morning are: 'They're all wrong. I am a powerful man, and there's nothing anyone can do about it, coz I'm the boss.' Insert evil laugh here.
There's probably a moral here somewhere.
Have to agree with Tony on When Harry Met Sally. In fact, if there's a worse batch of films than the rom-com genre, I've yet to see them. This one is one of the most pointless and mawkish of all of them (save the obvious exception of Groundhog Day which adds tedium and two heavingly-ugly leads with no charisma to the mix). And as for 'has Billy Crystal ever been better in anything else?' - that seems up with saying 'I've never seen Tony Blair be so sincere before'.
He was passably average in SOAP, but woefully smug, self-absorbed and charmless in everything else. As for Meg Ryan... I think Mavis Riley had more big-screen charisma than her.
As for the core topic - sometimes I think they can be friends, but mostly there will be at least a day or two where one person thinks whether there might be anything more. Once it passes, you can have a very good friendship.
Ari, sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. just remind him of some embarrassing incident from his past. from the sound of things, one shouldn't be too hard to come up with.
How do you make friends? Do you go to a shop and say I'd like a mixed bag of friends, including one who is very good looking, another who has a lack of self confidence, a couple of comedians and someone who will stroke my ego if required. No, of course not.
You make friends by engaging other people in conversation, or correspondence or just by meeting them face to face. But if you have no idea what they look like, you make friends with them, and then about a month or so later you meet for the first time.... that can be quite scarey for some people. Imagine you are on a bus and someone asks you the way to the cinema from the bus station, you would tell them and think nothing of it, then if that person said, oh, I know you, I've spoken to you on chat... you have already spoken and it's too late to check whether you have bad hair or a zit on your cheek, or worse a small item from lunch on your lip.
I went out briefly with a girl when I was 18 and she was a bit older than me, I met her in a pub, then because we got on well, she said why not pop round to her flat next week? So I did, armed with my Betales EPs. We sat and listened to the EPs, and then she told me she liked the Doobie Brothers, so we listened to the Doobie Brothers, and while I was listening to the band, I made a pass at her, although I had kissed her before, once, and then well okay it was just rolling about. At the end of the evening I had to borrow £2 to get a bus home, and she lent it to me without hesitation. The really really sad thing is that I liked her a lot, but she thought I was only 17 and too young for her. I was upset but I got over it. I remember her name as well, and the fact that she was Irish, but I have never seen her again. That was 22 years ago, I think she would be 42 now or something. We were just good friends but my age came into it somehow, which was a pity but life is like that sometimes....
iceman
I think it's possible for friends to sleep together; but I guess it depends on what sort of person you are; and whether you agree with the idea. And also whether it's going to affect the friendship for you.
One of my friends is really good mates with this girl; yet they don't want to go out with each other, or have a relationship; yet sometimes they sleep together just for the hell of it.
They say that they're just friends who shag. And nothing more. They seem happy enough about it.
So I don't see a problem as long as both people are ok about it; and nobodies feelings are gonna get hurt.
I hope this doesn't spoil the thread - but I wanted to address the problem of what, exactly, are friends?
I've written a short, imaginary, poem to express the difference between drinking companions and friends.
I had some friends. I thought them friends. I met them in the pub.
Most every day I’d drink with them till once - now here’s the rub.
One certain day, I was in need, of a friend both loyal and true.
I asked them for a favour and not one, for me, came through.
We’d drank and laughed and laughed and drank, talked of love and life.
Until I confided in them - that I had, a problem with the wife.
“She say I waste my money - buying you all drinks.”
“I told her that you’re worth it - no matter what she thinks.“
“She’s locked me out!” I told them, “I need somewhere to stay.”
“Sorry” they all said in turn “perhaps another day.”
We’d like to help, we’d love to help, anything for you!
It’s just that we’re no room at home - there’s nothing we can do.
Why is it that you cannot help? What keeps you from my aid?
Well, to be quite honest mate, we’re not sure that we’ll be paid!
A friend in need...
interesting points, Henstoat. i sometimes wonder if, despite all the talk on the tv, humans aren't becoming desexualised. i am always surprised at how little courting goes on in clubs, and when it does occur, the driving motivation seems to be social advancement, rather than sexual desire. i am surprised at how few pheromones are given off.
perhaps this is a very recent phenomenon. or else in history all that dressing up to cover their bodies that women were forced to do was enacted under a huge misapprehension about the male sex drive.
"sex is a driving function disconnected from who you're attracted to." this may be true. if you had a human functioning purely at the lower brain level, they might just shag anything.
it would then be the higher brain that arbitrates who you fancy, when what is meant by that is who you wish to interact with at an emotional, as well as physical level. this would be finding the person (as well as their body) exciting. (perhaps your female friends just aren't that interesting!).
"I don't spend much of my time desiring sex."
have you considered that you might be channelling your sex drive elsewhere, into, say, the drive for domination.
sex does involve a certain loss of control, and i have noticed that control is very much at the top of the modern agenda. (i don't know whether or not that has always been the case). now, people, in particular young people, seem to desire control especially, and feel the lack of it especially.
I was friendly with this girl once, but we never slept together. I think she wanted me to move in with her very quickly, but it was a big step. We used to walk to Bank tube station but I said goodbye to her there and then went back to my station.
I was on holiday and I used to write her love letters. I would sit there in the afternoon, on the boat between locks and write how much I loved her, and how much she meant to me. With my daily lunch of pot noodle as I really hated Fray Bentos pies.
What begins as a platonic friendship ends with Plato moving out.
And whispered words of love ensue but end with scream and shout.
Friendship ends and hearts turn sour - leaving only hurt and pain.
And then you meet another friend and off you go again!
A platonic friendship...
"oh it's just platonic"
"oh we're just good friends"
versus
"my friend"
"my special friend"
the first seems artificial, the second seems to be more honest.
SueLynn has just pointed out to me that we are still special friends (platonic though) but we started out as lovers - I think it works better that way around. If you start out as friends usually you end up on bad terms but, strangely, lovers often end up as special friends. Any idea why that might be?
I hated When Harry Met Sally almost as much as you hate Fray Bentos pies. It was mawkish Holywood pap of the worst order. Ho Hum. I'm slightly weird in the film dept. and only like things that are at least four hours long with subtitles where nothing much happens.
Still, to the main point.
I like women, I get on with women, I have spent all of my working life in jobs where the majority of the staff are women. I have lots of female friends. Some of them I fancy a bit and others I don't fancy at all but I've been married now for 27 years and intend to stay that way (with the same person!) It's fine to find someone attractive. I think that some of my male friends are very good looking and I don't believe I'm gay. Attraction is a many layered beast. It's about smell, looks, touch, sound - the lot - and it isn't necessarily sexual. I sometimes wonder which of my female friends I might have married if I hadn't married my wife and I don't think that it would have lasted with any of them. I like them, they are friends and that is all.
Now the crucial question, I think, is how do you relate to your male and female friends. Do you behave differently with them? When I'm just with my male mates I'm sure that I'm different from being with my female mates or with a mixture of the two (when I behave as I do with my female mates). I like doing 'blokey' stuff, arseing about and being silly - but I am normally glad when it stops as it gets boring pretty quickly.
so my answer to the original question is that yes - you can be 'justgood friends' with members of the oppposite sex. Sometimes it will stay that way, sometimes it won't but what's the point in worrying about it. Life happens and so do its inevitable ups and downs (in all senses!). Go with it, see where it takes you, trust your heart and your honesty (both with yourself and with others) and you may find that it's good fun in the end!
Tony,
I left the pair of them fighting and throwing party hats at each other (eventually).
It transpired that she was dumped that night and cast as the evil one in all this. I was the second of seven people she bedded that night. It seems she had some bet on with her friend and decided to go for it at her engagement party (she claimed she was just getting all the guys she fancied out of the way before being in a long term relationship). This helped my cause as it wasn't just me and, after several long sessions of drink and tears, I was considered a friend again.
Objective firgiveness, that's what friendship is all about...and before anyone says "well, mister sincerity, if you were such good mates how come you played 'where's Johnny?' with the love of his life?" The answer is because I was weak and not as decent a bloke as I had previously thought. I spent the next 6 months living with him, I did all his laundry, washing up etc. He insisted I shouldn't and it was a shallow gesture really but it was all I could think of and it helped me sleep at night. I also had some payback in that I had to get tested for AIDS and the wait for the results seems like a living nightmare.
[I should point out that, of the other six blokes, one was also a friend but showed no remorse and they never spoke again]
I saw him recently after a gap of ten years. It was at the funeral of a mutual friend's baby son so the atmos was dark anyway but we talked about it and he seemed to be almost grateful she had done it to him as it saved him from potentially years of infidelity and it galvinised several friendships, although there was the slightest pause before he introduced me to his new wife.
third it.
I like to think that I don't act too differently with my female and male friends. Obviously there are things I can say to the gals that I can't say to the guys (except the gay ones), but on the whole, we're a close enough group that the whole 'You're a man!' thing doesn't get in the way.
Ely: horrendous! It’s an interesting point though - that we all think we are better than we are until it comes to it...
Pioden: I take your point but surely if you have been friends for quite a while you should know each other quite well - perhaps it’s that you can pretend as a friend but it’s harder to do so as a lover.
out of pure interest - cause I was involved in this discussion elsewhere about this isssue
Do you think that a male who has sister/s finds it easier to relate to other women and therefore finds it easy to have female friends whereas one who doesn't finds it hard and the same for women - if a woman has a brother/s does she find easier to have male friends than one who doesn't?
Maybe for some men, but if my brother has female friends I doubt if he treats them like he does me....unless they too are of the emotionally screwed up kind (see vibe thread)
For instance, last night my darling brother told me I was selfish for wanting to go back to university (funded completely by myself) because I would be putting him in a position in four years time, when I'm "unemployable" where he would have to give me hand outs. Oh and he told me that the last two years where I went home to help my mum when she was dying, was my mum bailing me out from insolvencey.
He washed his hands of me (actually said that)....do you think I be get that lucky?
There was this girl. I'll start like that because it did have some serious ramifications with my life.
She (I'll call her Felicity) was going out with my best mate who I'll call Dave, at the same time I was going out with Caroline (who I have written about elsewhere). Then she decided she really fancied my other best mate who I'll call Adam, and promptly dumped Dave to go out with Adam. The night it happened down the pub I was out with Caroline, anyway, Dave and the rest of the guys piled round to a guy I'll call Joe's house. Dave was threatening to kill Adam, despite Adam being his best mate. Caroline wanted to do something out by the cliffs, but I told her no Dave's a mate I have to help. When we wre at Joe's I went for a piss and came back to find her snogging another of my friends, or as if she had just been like. Shortly afterwards I broke up with Caroline. Spin on a couple of months to July. Everyone is friends again due to my sterling efforts during the England vs Czechoslovakia game (that dates it, June 1982). We all go to a toga party. I mean the full Animal House sort of thing. All evening Adam had been drinking till the point he was completely pissed. The previous week he had done the same thing and I eneded up talking to Felicity, who I did fancy too. Felicity went to bed and had been all over me the whole evening, not that Adam cared due to being pissed. I ended up in bed with her and we did it. The following morning Adam had gone and Felicity left soon after. I felt a bit cheap at making it with Adam's girlfriend. The following week, we were down the pub again. I sat down at his table. He looked at me over his beer. I gave him a Jam badge ( i think) and said that I was sorry I had shagged his bird. The fact that I gave him the badge incredible as it sounds was probably the only reason he didn't punch me out.
We are still the best of mates as he is with Dave. Despite all of us making it with Felicity at one time or other. And the end? I stupidly told Caroline that I had made it with Felicity, and if there was any love left in her for me it went straight out the window.
Two years later I met Caroline coming back from seeing my girlfriend and we stopped and chatted, and I think she still cared for me, but that was all. I saw her maybe 12 years after that in my local town, she was married and had a kid and was very happy.
Not that I continually look for patterns, but it did strike me that if I hadn't have slept with Felicity I might now be married to Caroline and not my wife. Weird that, innit ?
iceman
I have two brothers. The older one has more lesbian friends than any man I've ever met. He's the male version of a fag hag. Not sure what that would be?
The younger one is utterly sexist. He calls me 'woman', refers to his girlfriend as his bird, genuinely believes women belong at home in the kitchen, and thinks men rule, basically.
I don't know if this is anything to do with me or not, but I hope not. I would hate to think I'm responsible for his attitude.
I take your point, Stormy, but I think a lot of people now-a-days expect too much. You know that you have to work hard for a relationship to blossom but many people who get married now expect a "Hollywood romance" and don't want to make the effort. I think this is why a lot of arranged marriages work - there is a lot of pressure on them to make it work!
Oh Vicky - I've had a similar experience - with my big brother whom I've really close to otherwise
Why is it men seem to think that because we go out there - we become a big threat besides the only job suitable for us is scrubbing tables and whipeing up other people messes !
I don't talk to my younger bro. well we talk in single silables (excuse spelling recovering form late night just hope you get the jist)
but having said that I find I get on better with other males - whereas a friend of mine, who has no brothers finds it really hard to relate to them - now if she'd been a tom boy then maybe things would have been different
wouldn't it be interesting to have a male point of view
I wonder if its becasue we don't get on with our brothers that we find it easier to get on with other males mmmmm
god my spellings bad this morning
Strangely, I get on better with younger brother than older, despite his rather heinous attitude. But I think a male perspective would be nice.
Matt (younger brother) says he doesn't feel threatened by powerful women because he's never met any. He also says 'will they think I'm a chauvenist pig? They'd probably be right.'
He's gone now. Insightful, I'm sure you'll agree.
mykle, my post was a general blathery comment and not aimed at what you said.
yes, I am confused too, Iceman. What happened to the ferret and why was the badger covered in jam?
Will you be bringing it with you tomorow?
wish I was a powerful woman
I could ask my eldest he's home - but he's in the bath and I wont get much from middle one a part from the normal censure - I have noticed that daughter has more male friends than her other female friends - apparently Bed's is one hell of a best friend and nothing more - must admit he is a luv - they nearly did but decided not to - her age and so on
Juts asked Eldest - ' yea have female friends but all girls want is comtiment and I'd don't want that ' his passing comment was 'never mind the B~ll#### ' - he also confirms he finds it easier to get on with other girls than with his sister
what you think
She moved to Brighton in 1983. I have no idea what Felicity is doing now. She has a brother but I havent seen him in years. Having said all of that, before she abandoned Dave and my life for ever we all sat and watched Rod Stewart sing Maggie Mae and bawled our eyes out. It was a passing of something into something new.
I liked Felicity.
iceman
Mykle I am not sure where my badges are now, I've moved twice since 1982.
ice :)
powerful women?
how about asking your brother if he knows any powerful men, Ari? i know i don't.
*surprised that the power of men is being treated as innate, and has not been brought into question.*
Stormy: my poem was really imaginary but I was deeply wounded by your alimony joke when Sue and I split up.
Anyway, water under the bridge! I hope you all have a great day at Liana's party and please drink a slivovice for me ;o)
Best wishes to all that attend - wish I could be thereTell Missi I really like his Steamers - he might know what I mean ;o)))
that's a dam good point - Chant
Do powerful men scare women - mmmmmm
know one or two powerful men - do they scare me - naaaaaar
Was their power innate ? mmmmmm
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