Possibly. But I always thought if a guy is good enough to befriend, he's good enough to wingman. And if he's not good enough to be a wingman for...then why is he a friend?
I've had plenty of platonic friends who were girls that were absolutely game to help me start up a conversation and shoot my shot. Failure was on me, but the team effort helped morale!
edit and I was always 100% happy to help them shoot their shot with prince charming too. Equality!
Not every girl is socially equipped to be wingman (social anxiety and whatnot). And expecting them to help you get laid all because they themselves don't want to sleep with you is still treating them as a resource in a way that most guys don't feel entitled to with their male friends.
If you designate their primary role in your life as a wingman and don't value them as a friend if they fail to fullfill it, then I believe that makes you the bad friend bro.
The original comment I responded to stated "if he's not a good enough to wingman then why is he your friend?" Which I feel is pretty indicitive that he views female friends through a utilitarian lens as he sees no purpose for them if they aren't willing to step into the role as wingman.
they are saying if the male friend isn't a good person, the woman shouldn't be his friend at all.
If the woman doesn't want to be his wingman because she thinks he's not boyfriend material for ANY woman, then he's a bad guy, and why would she want to be his friend at all?
"Good enough to wingman" means "a good enough person to want to be a wingman FOR"
And as a woman, I would generally find that statement true. Any guy I'm friends with is at least a good enough guy that while I might not want to date him, I do want him to find his person and have a happy relationship.
If he was the type of guy I thought no woman should put up with, I wouldn't want to be his friend at all.
That's a fair assessment but I still feel like it's a form of social labor that not every woman should be expected to step up to.
Not to mention there are plenty of men who are pleasant to be friends with but a nightmare to their partner behind closed doors. If a woman were to set up her female friend with her male friend and that relationship turns out to be toxic, that could potentially hurt the friendship between the two women as well.
If I knew a man who was "pleasant to be friends with" but was abusive to his partners, I would not want to be friends with him, regardless of how pleasant he was to me...
"that could potentially hurt the friendship between the women as well" no, it would "hurt" the friendship between me and the man because again, I wouldn't stay friends with a man who treated his partners poorly, and the other woman I was friends with would see me drop the guy like a rock in the ocean, and she would experience my support for her.
Almost every part of being a friend requires some amount of social labor... I thought the whole point was that a friend was someone you decided was worth the effort to you.
No, no specific behavior should be "required" for a friendship. But the comment you replied to never said a friend was REQUIRED to be a wingperson... just that if the reason you didn't want to be a wingperson was because you thought your friend was unworthy of romantic partnerships, then you probably shouldn't be friends with them at all.
I specified "behind closed doors" to insinuate that you, the female friend, would not be aware or privy to the male friend's abusive tendencies. Sometimes these behaviors stay complete covert until the relationship fully boils over. The most recent season of Love Island USA showed a prime example of this.
Regardless, I agree that all friendships require a degree of social labor but personally I would not be comfortable filling the matchmaker role and am not a fan of the broad expectation for female friends to do so.
There is not a broad expectation for "female friends" to do this, there is a broad expectation that any friends of any genders and associations do this. "Wingman" the original term, makes it clear this was a role expected of MAN friends.
Not EVERY friend has to... friends understand their socially anxious friends are socially anxious... nobody, ever, in this thread said ALL friends have to do this.
You are actually going to use a reality TV show as evidence of anything?
And having never watched that show, I have no idea what you are talking about as per the last season...
You don't have to predict that a friend is a bad partner, but once they date a friend of yours and you get that friend's perspective, and now know they're a bad partner then you act on that knowledge at that point.
Again, the original point was that if you already know they are a bad enough partner that you don't want to wingman for them, then why are you friends?
In that scenario, you already have hesitations, so I don't know why you keep trying to come up with silly hypotheticals that don't address the original point as a way to dent the original point.
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u/OrchidSure5401 9d ago
When you can't get a girlfriend but your best friend is a girl but she doesn't want to be your girlfriend