Best Friends... with a Straight Guy, for reals? In a Perfect World? No, Silly This One
If you've already had the various iterations of the boy-girl relationship, friends to serious relationship, crushing break-ups and reconciliations, blinding hatred, moved on to acceptance and a polite silence from both parties for a long while, to friends, to friends with bennies, to nothing at all again. And then, you become good friends again, besties even. Is this a relationship you can trust? This is not a when Harry Met Sally situation or any number of movies when the main characters realize that they should be together after being friends forever and suddenly they are struck with the idea. No, I'm talking reality.
I've been told time and again by my male friends that most guys are friends with girls because they're waiting for the chance to sleep with them. And my response is, still? How old are we already, aren't we mature enough to have moved passed that? Or I am secretly holding a few in the pocket just in case? A there's the rub! Because as much as I've chided male friends for their sentiment of the "friendships" between heterosexual men and women, don't we women use these males as surrogate boyfriends? If you have a wedding to go to but not a date, you call up a good male friend to go just so you don't feel like a loser at someone else's nupitals?
Once on a dating website, that I'll not mention, as small talk a guy asked me if I thought men and women could be just friends and I said yes. It wasn't an easy answer it was something that I weighed considerably. See, I'm friends with my ex. And while I have great affection for my friend, I don't find him to be particularly suitable as a mate for me. I'm a different person than I was from when we were in a relationship and it's been practically a decade since we broke-up, we've both changed. And obviously we broke up for a reason.
So yes, I think it's possible. Should you have to bed all of your male friends to get the sex out of the way, no don't think so. Can you get past that if it happens and still be friends and not slip into old habits, for sure. Time, distance and perspective. I feel like we all have these worse-case scenarios about falling for your best male friends and imagining what would happen if it didn't work out. But think of this, friendship don't always work out, you lose friends for a variety of reasons, friendships change over time, some get stronger some weaker. So really is there a reason not to go for it? I've dated my best friend and lived to tell the tale. Was it painful and crazy at the time, did I think all was lost for sure. But it's over and we both survived.
The wise ladies at Jezebel are the dispelling the myth that all hetero men will sleep with any woman.
I've been told time and again by my male friends that most guys are friends with girls because they're waiting for the chance to sleep with them. And my response is, still? How old are we already, aren't we mature enough to have moved passed that? Or I am secretly holding a few in the pocket just in case? A there's the rub! Because as much as I've chided male friends for their sentiment of the "friendships" between heterosexual men and women, don't we women use these males as surrogate boyfriends? If you have a wedding to go to but not a date, you call up a good male friend to go just so you don't feel like a loser at someone else's nupitals?
Once on a dating website, that I'll not mention, as small talk a guy asked me if I thought men and women could be just friends and I said yes. It wasn't an easy answer it was something that I weighed considerably. See, I'm friends with my ex. And while I have great affection for my friend, I don't find him to be particularly suitable as a mate for me. I'm a different person than I was from when we were in a relationship and it's been practically a decade since we broke-up, we've both changed. And obviously we broke up for a reason.
So yes, I think it's possible. Should you have to bed all of your male friends to get the sex out of the way, no don't think so. Can you get past that if it happens and still be friends and not slip into old habits, for sure. Time, distance and perspective. I feel like we all have these worse-case scenarios about falling for your best male friends and imagining what would happen if it didn't work out. But think of this, friendship don't always work out, you lose friends for a variety of reasons, friendships change over time, some get stronger some weaker. So really is there a reason not to go for it? I've dated my best friend and lived to tell the tale. Was it painful and crazy at the time, did I think all was lost for sure. But it's over and we both survived.
The wise ladies at Jezebel are the dispelling the myth that all hetero men will sleep with any woman.
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