Would you refuse to be friends with a girl you wanted to date?

[iris219]

In my opinion, it's just as hard finding good friends as it is finding good partners.

 

Exactly. Why lose a possible great life long friend because she doesn't want to date you?

 

I've yet to meet a woman I showed romantic interest in ask to just be friends & NOT call me every day to bitch about her problems. WTF?!?

 

What guy wants to listen to that crap from a woman he barely knows?

 

That's just weird. I've never heard of people doing this. I don’t want any friend (male or female) who calls and bitches every day, and I’d never call anyone (friend, mom, no one) and bitch everyday. That’s just selfish and bizarre. This is not my definition of a friend. Some of you are using examples of women who don't actually want to be your friends.

 

 

 

you find a girl attractive or you like a girl, you want to kiss her, go dancing with her, hold hands with her etc... we can't just be friends, sit accross a table from a girl we like talking about everyday stuff, pretend there is nothign there

 

 

Are you saying that you want to do the above things with every woman you find attractive? I can find a man attractive (I'm not blind), but that doesn't mean I'm pining away for him or fantasizing about touching him. If he's my friend, I don't think about doing those sorts of things with him anymore than I would with my female friends.

 

 

I guess I knew that men and women viewed many topics differently.

[Darren Taylor]

Exactly. Why lose a possible great life long friend because she doesn't want to date you?

 

 

Because that's not what she was pursued for. Most guys have enough friends.

 

 

That's just weird. I've never heard of people doing this. I don’t want any friend (male or female) who calls and bitches every day, and I’d never call anyone (friend, mom, no one) and bitch everyday. That’s just selfish and bizarre. This is not my definition of a friend. Some of you are using examples of women who don't actually want to be your friends.

 

 

Those types aren't friends. They're using you as a tampon.

 

 

Are you saying that you want to do the above things with every woman you find attractive? I can find a man attractive (I'm not blind), but that doesn't mean I'm pining away for him or fantasizing about touching him. If he's my friend, I don't think about doing those sorts of things with him anymore than I would with my female friends.

 

 

That's the whole point. If you find someone attractive, you don't want just friendship. Girls that I don't find attractive are placed in my friend zone. Girls do the exact same thing with guys.

[627]

Are you saying that you want to do the above things with every woman you find attractive? I can find a man attractive (I'm not blind), but that doesn't mean I'm pining away for him or fantasizing about touching him. If he's my friend, I don't think about doing those sorts of things with him anymore than I would with my female friends.

 

 

I guess I knew that men and women viewed many topics differently

if she's attractive, and I was interested enough to interact long enough for us to be having the friendzone conversation then yes.

 

men don't meet attractive women to be friends with them, if we friendzoned the woman that is attractive it may be a different story, I met an attractive girl last summer, I liked her... up to the second she started talking... anyway I don't mind seeing her now...

 

but anyway if we meet attractive women and keep in contact with them, it is because we consider them as potential girlfriends...

[OliveOyl]

Guys really are different from women in this respect. Women can easily friendzone. I can easily friendzone; I'm one of those people who is "easy to talk to" and as well I can flip that switch fairly easily.

 

But I know from talking to a handful of guy friends about romances, that they just really, really don't see things that way. It's not about seeing someone as a sex object, it's just the way the typical male mind works. Chalk it up to one of the differences between the female brain and the male brain.

 

In addition the guys who who just hang on being your "friend" may have self-esteem issues unless there is "parity" (like zengirl mentioned) in your dating options (e.g., he is dating someone and you are too).

 

It's not a real loss if he doesn't want to be your friend, there are plenty of people around who can be your friends.

[welikeincrowds]

Exactly. Why lose a possible great life long friend because she doesn't want to date you?

 

I'm with you, 100%. But my point was actually that usually, the reasons it didn't work out are also reasons a friendship wouldn't work, either.

 

If you think about it, "not being interested in a friendship" -- how different is that from "not being interested in a relationship"? That attitude is in itself another factor, another reason why it is just as hard to find a good friend as it is to find a good lover. It's all the same.

[EasyHeart]

Saying "We can still be friends" after breaking up is like having your dog die and your mom saying you can still keep it.

[zengirl]

Saying "We can still be friends" after breaking up is like having your dog die and your mom saying you can still keep it.

 

This is totally different from that, though. Being rejected after asking someone out for the first time is way different from a breakup.

[chuckles11]

Exactly. Why lose a possible great life long friend because she doesn't want to date you?

 

 

I guess I knew that men and women viewed many topics differently.

 

How likely is it that there is going to be a great life long friendship? I would venture to say that most men aren't like you and can't immediately switch off their attraction to someone. Wouldn't spending time with you and finding out what a great person you are just make their attraction grow? Won't that make it harder for them to see you going out and date other people, after you told them they weren't good enough to date you? Why would they agree to that?

 

Also I suspect that rather than being great, life long friendships, most of these friendships last until one party or the other gets into a relationship with someone who isn't particuarly comfortable with their SO having an opposite sex BFF that either they used to have a crush on or who used to have a crush on them.

[EasyHeart]

This is totally different from that, though. Being rejected after asking someone out for the first time is way different from a breakup.

It's the same principle. You can't be friends with someone you want to date.

[iris219]

How likely is it that there is going to be a great life long friendship?

 

I'd say friendship is more likely than a dating situation working out.

[irc333]

Agreed, I once tried agreeing to be friends with a woman that told me the thought of me as such.

 

You know what happened?

 

She stopped staying in touch pretty much. lol

 

I had an instance where she told me to kind of back of being around her presence at parties, because OTHER men might mistake us as a couple, and men would never approach her.

 

Turns out attempting to be friends, still wound up being problematic, even for her.

 

"Sure, we can be friends, but we can only email each other once a year, sound good?"

 

"Nah, see ya!"

 

 

 

I agree with what everyone else said. It's just too much to handle. Plus, some use the friends card just to make themselves feel less guilty about rejecting the other person.

[iris219]

You can't be friends with someone you want to date.

 

I still don't understand why mature adults can't put this aside in order to have a rewarding friendship with another person. I think most women could.

[Darren Taylor]

I think most women could.

 

 

No chance. A woman that has high interest in a guy is not settling for friendship.

[iris219]

No chance. A woman that has high interest in a guy is not settling for friendship.

 

She would get over it and therefore have no interest in him. Personally, I don't think it's hard to get over someone you've never dated or been in a relationship with.

[irc333]

I had to sever a friendship with a woman that was a pretty decent friendship, but then

Prior to that, when her boyfriend moved in with her, she asked that I stop calling her, and just limit to emails.

 

THen, her jerk boyfriend saw us chatting on AIM one time, and he went off on her about it.

 

So I had to cut ties immediately.

 

Also, once they get married, you'll never see them again.

[zengirl]

I still don't understand why mature adults can't put this aside in order to have a rewarding friendship with another person. I think most women could.

 

I think it really depends not so much on male vs. female but on how invested the person is. A lot of the assumptions from men on this thread seem to assume they had sort of 'built up' the connection with this woman and were pretty darn bummed after she rejected him. In that case, I agree that friendship will likely never be possible and certainly not right away. And I'd go with the same idea if you reverse the genders.

 

However, if it's just a sort of "Hey, you're cute and interesting, we should go out" type of thing, and it's sort of, "Eh, I'm not really seeing it, but we could totally be friends and hang out sometime on that level" then that's a VERY different situation.

 

I couldn't be friends with a guy who I really, really wanted to go out with. However, I just couldn't see feeling that way if I'd JUST asked the guy out. I mean, I wouldn't hang around a guy for ages, waiting to express interest if I was into him. It's the guys that do this (hang around a girl, get to know her, THEN express interest) that seem to be so against being friends with women. If they just expressed interest from the get-go, they might not have such strong feelings -- a friendship may or may not develop, depending -- because the woman isn't 'built up' at all in their minds. She's just a pretty girl who was kind of interesting.

[somedude81]

Men are romantic than women. We fall in love faster, and often harder than women do.

 

When a man has strong feelings for a woman and gets the friend line from, all he really hears is, "I don't like you as a man at all. I will never love you, never have sex with you and never kiss you. But since I'm such a nice person, I can pretend that we are girlfriends. That way I can get everything I want from you. And you still get to be near me, tee hee"

 

Once I stuck around a girl after she friendzoned me and that was only because I wanted to try out a new approach. I tried to just be her friend but slowly try to get closer to.We were both single so I thought it was worth a shot. I had very strong feelings for her and considered her to be a good friend. I didn't want to give up without a fight. And of course I lost. The only thing continuing to be her friend did, was cause my feelings to get even stronger.

 

That seems to be a way that men and women are different. A man can fall for a woman just by spending time with her. And the more time that passes, the stronger those feelings get. Women don't seem to be that way at all.

[627]

men and women have little in common to be friends anyway...

 

with my guy friends, we talk about women, lord of the rings, cars, computers, guns, politics. we also fix each other's computers/TV/cars and we can spend an entire night drinking or driving or whatever till 5 am, without fearing our friendship might be in danger

 

I have no idea what women do or talk about together, it probably involve shoes and george clooney...

 

anyway and you cannot go too far with a male female friendship fearign things might get missinterpreted etc... the whole thign is just meaningless...

[EasyHeart]

If I've decided to ask out a woman, I've already decided to sleep with her. I don't want to be friends with someone that I want to sleep with, because I would always be thinking of ways to get her in bed when we were being "friends". I don't need that kind of distraction. I have plenty of friends if I want to go do something. Heck, my biggest problem is finding time to maintain the friendships I already have.

 

That doesn't mean I'll be rude to her in the future. If I run into her, I'll still stop and chat with her, but I'm not going to ask her to a football game or to go out for a drink --- I'll do that with a friend or a date. She will become an "acquaintance", not a 'friend".

[threebyfate]

…but who doesn’t want to date you?

 

You must have liked something about her, so why not remain friends? It seems really immature to reject someone’s friendship because you’re not going to get exactly what you want (i.e., sex). If you remain friends, maybe she could introduce you to one of her friends (or vice versa).

 

I can understand not wanting to friends with an ex (though I wouldn’t mind if he wasn't a jerk), but why would you not want to be friends with a woman who you’ve never dated? This makes no sense to me, especially when you’re over the age of 19. My friends are so important to me at this point in my life, so I can’t understand why a guy would say, “If we can’t date, we can’t be friends.” This makes me feel like they only see value in me sexually.

 

I just don’t get it. Are they doing this out of spite? (As in “Ha, Ha, if I can’t sleep with you, you can’t hang out with me.”) If a guy does this, I know I made the correct decision in not wanting to date him.

There are all kinds of reasons why some guys can't be friends with women who they've been rejected by. Listed below are some of the reasons where it might also be a combination of some or all:

• View women as sexual objects.
  
• Have no commonalities to be friends with women.
  
• Male ego and pride issues.
  

I don't think anyone has to be anyone else's friend, no matter what gender.

[zengirl]

Men are romantic than women. We fall in love faster, and often harder than women do.

 

Disagree that anyone can make this generalization. I think there's wide variation between men and between women. Perhaps the more sensitive men in this area are more likely to be on LS.

 

When a man has strong feelings for a woman and gets the friend line from, all he really hears is, "I don't like you as a man at all. I will never love you, never have sex with you and never kiss you. But since I'm such a nice person, I can pretend that we are girlfriends. That way I can get everything I want from you. And you still get to be near me, tee hee"

 

The key word there is "strong feelings." Most 1st dates don't start with strong feelings, would be my point.

 

Also, "pretend that we are girlfriends" is weird. I guess because I have male and female friends (mostly I have several groups of friends that are generally mixed).

 

men and women have little in common to be friends anyway...

 

with my guy friends, we talk about women, lord of the rings, cars, computers, guns, politics. we also fix each other's computers/TV/cars and we can spend an entire night drinking or driving or whatever till 5 am, without fearing our friendship might be in danger

 

I have no idea what women do or talk about together, it probably involve shoes and george clooney...

 

I've never had a very long conversation about shoes or George Clooney. With women AND men, I've discussed politics quite frequently. I sometimes talk about cars (love Top Gear), I've had conversations about Lord of the Rings, and I can fix a computer or drink and chat till 5am (not while driving, but neither should guys). I talk about mostly the same things with male friends as female friends -- in general, certainly depends on the friends. It's generally about art, music, politics, local stuff, science, comics, movies, TV shows, video games, books, philosophy, sports, etc. It's silly to think men and women have nothing to talk about.

 

If I've decided to ask out a woman, I've already decided to sleep with her. I don't want to be friends with someone that I want to sleep with, because I would always be thinking of ways to get her in bed when we were being "friends". I don't need that kind of distraction. I have plenty of friends if I want to go do something. Heck, my biggest problem is finding time to maintain the friendships I already have.

 

That doesn't mean I'll be rude to her in the future. If I run into her, I'll still stop and chat with her, but I'm not going to ask her to a football game or to go out for a drink --- I'll do that with a friend or a date. She will become an "acquaintance", not a 'friend".

 

That's a totally understandable viewpoint. Personally, I'm not terribly comfortable being real friends (not friendly) with someone who expressed interest in me, because I'm worried he wants to sleep with me, so I 100% get that. It's just the guys that attach some emotional reaction to it that I don't get; it's not generally that big a deal when you first meet someone and want to ask them out.

[Yamaha]

B/C most women do not hang out with guy friends and do mutual ativities together. Most women want to talk to their guy friends abt life and relationships. This causes emotional intimacy with men and men can fall in-love with her based on emotional intimacy (Not so much with women).

[iris219]

men and women have little in common to be friends anyway...

 

Then how do plan to ever date a woman if you have so little in common with them?

 

I have no idea what women do or talk about together, it probably involve shoes and george clooney...

 

OMG! I guess you're kidding. If not, then you don't have to worry about women wanting to be friends with you.

[chuckles11]

 

 

 

That's a totally understandable viewpoint. Personally, I'm not terribly comfortable being real friends (not friendly) with someone who expressed interest in me, because I'm worried he wants to sleep with me, so I 100% get that. It's just the guys that attach some emotional reaction to it that I don't get; it's not generally that big a deal when you first meet someone and want to ask them out.

 

Well, there is also very little incentive to try to maintain a friendship with someone you just met. Unless I just moved to an area and don't know anybody, I don't see what the impetus would be for me to begin a friendship with someone who I barely know who just turned me down.

[iris219]

I've never had a very long conversation about shoes or George Clooney. With women AND men, I've discussed politics quite frequently. I sometimes talk about cars (love Top Gear), I've had conversations about Lord of the Rings, and I can fix a computer or drink and chat till 5am (not while driving, but neither should guys). I talk about mostly the same things with male friends as female friends -- in general, certainly depends on the friends. It's generally about art, music, politics, local stuff, science, comics, movies, TV shows, video games, books, philosophy, sports, etc. It's silly to think men and women have nothing to talk about.

 

Thanks for clearing this up for some of the men on here, zengirl. I'm sorry you actually had to bother explaining this at all.