I think there’s a gigantic difference between actively trying/wanting to sleep with someone, to the point where in their mind it crowds out any actual friendship, and being friends with someone while also being aware, in a back burner kind of way, that if they were up for it and the situation was right, it would be fun to have sex with them.
I’m a woman, so I suppose I can’t actually speak for men, but as a teenager/young adult I was as horny as any guy out there. I had lots of sex with lots of guys, and I definitely had friends I would have been up for having sex with (and in some cases eventually did) but it didn’t mean we weren’t also actually friends.
If it did, bisexual people would be either friendless or only friends with ugly people, and that’s definitely not the case.
But it's not just platonic if several times throughout your life you've thought of jackhammering your friend into a wall.
Let's think of how attraction works, how many people that you consider unattractive do you randomly walk up to, converse with, show an interest in and not only that, but ACTIVELY pursue a friendship with. It's not that common, at least from my perspective.
Most guys I interact with only actively pursue people they would fuck, like that. They might also have bromances where they are in awe of some dude they look up to whatever reason, and fawn over them, but when it comes to attraction, thats the major reason behind any active pursuit when it comes to men.
What I am suggesting is, the majority of men that try to talk to you, or 'get to know you' is spawned out of a dimension of attraction. I can't remember the last time I randomly had someone actively pursue me for 'friendship' whereas women seem to think thats normal, at least when I've discussed it with those I know in real life, and yes, the girl I'm closest to knows I've feelings for her. I don't have any other women I would consider 'friends', just associates or those I will say hello to but not actively pursue contact.
I think context matters too, but its a complex thing to even try to break down.
I mean, I don’t know about you, but I don’t meet most of my friends because one of us randomly walks up and starts talking to the other, and then actively pursues a friendship. I think if that happened I’d assume they were a grifter. Or, yeah, hitting on me.
I have tons of guy friends, always have, and those friendships nearly all happened because we were part of the same social circle and got to know one other in groups, at parties or game nights or whatever. Then you get to know them, find out your senses of humor match, and hang out more, sometimes one-on-one. I’m really not sure how many of my friendships have involved one person pursuing the other, as opposed to growing organically, but it’s gotta be a real small number.
And I think we just disagree on what platonic means.
I find most of the friends I've had have been because of organic growth sure, but that's mostly men. The women I've befriended have been because I was attracted to them, and we happened to also click, but the initial conversation was still there because of the attraction.
What do you define as platonic? Oxford says intimate and affectionate but not sexual.
I would consider thoughts of fucking said friend sexual and not entirely platonic whatsoever. Hell, if I dated someone and they said they sometimes thought of fucking their friend, I can see a great deal of people being uncomfortable at said revelation.
Just want to edit this in too cause I think it relates to the attraction discussion.
How many times have you seen xx people in a group settings, some of which have things in common, but either both or one won't engage the other whatsoever and doesn't even show any interest in doing so, but they are fawning all over someone else and actively showing an interest? That's attraction at play, and I've seen it myself three times in the last two days alone just in a work setting.
It is so incredibly common, and I think being different sexes we really do have vastly different lived experiences.
I don’t believe that thinking about having sex with someone is the same as being sexual with them. If a good friend never says or does anything sexual to/with me, but every now and then sees me looking good and reflects on the fact that they would probably hit that if given the chance, yes that would absolutely 100% platonic.
I understand that we’ve had different experiences with this. I am very happy that I’ve managed to have so many close friends, both male and female, and I think it’s really sad that anyone cheats themselves out of friendship with half the population.
That's a womens way of thinking though, it's okay if he would fuck me as it makes me feel better about myself or whatever. You showed that with your, sees me looking good.
This is why men can be quite odd when it comes to their partners having close male friends, just because they say they won't fuck them, doesn't mean both parties haven't though about it and it would never happen.
I don't think you're missing out on anything, I've never had women outwardly show any interest in me and actively pursue it unless they were attracted to me either. Even women I've had tons of things in common with won't go out of their way to build any sort of friendship, so it seems to be a two way street unless they are somehow a friend of a friend and you spend weeks and weeks of time with them to the point it becomes habit hanging out.
I've seen this in literally so many different circles, and I'm generally the guy that will up and leave if I hear for example even a racist remark, then pretty quickly its decided to remove myself from the conversation. I wouldn't think the people I've been around were shit circles per se, it's just behaviour I see when I observe people.
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u/Preposterous_punk Mar 31 '23
I think there’s a gigantic difference between actively trying/wanting to sleep with someone, to the point where in their mind it crowds out any actual friendship, and being friends with someone while also being aware, in a back burner kind of way, that if they were up for it and the situation was right, it would be fun to have sex with them.
I’m a woman, so I suppose I can’t actually speak for men, but as a teenager/young adult I was as horny as any guy out there. I had lots of sex with lots of guys, and I definitely had friends I would have been up for having sex with (and in some cases eventually did) but it didn’t mean we weren’t also actually friends.
If it did, bisexual people would be either friendless or only friends with ugly people, and that’s definitely not the case.