{"id":183,"date":"2002-07-06T11:14:00","date_gmt":"2002-07-06T16:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/?p=183"},"modified":"2002-07-06T11:14:00","modified_gmt":"2002-07-06T16:14:00","slug":"just-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/?p=183","title":{"rendered":"“just friends”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I decided this was an obnoxiously long comment, so I turned it into a post of my own. shoebox_bird<\/a> posted the entry that got me thinking on this topic<\/a>: Can women and men be just friends and what happens to friendship with men for women if\/when they get married. <\/p>\n

Well, obviously this isn’t targeted at me, per se, but it does bring up an interesting question. So, I’m pretty physically affectionate with my close female friends who are open to it, and I am pretty hesitant in alot of cases to go on giving the casual affectionate backrubs and the like to them. <\/p>\n

I mean, obviously this is something that’s physically, but not sexually, intimate. And as such, I want to be careful not to invade people’s space and be like that obnoxiously clingy person who hugs me inappropriately, and won’t. stop. touching. me. But I also try to consider how the spouse will react. So, I do tend to be a little more cautious about that kind of thing with my married\/partnered female friends than the unmarried ones.<\/p>\n

But, to take the question and twist it appropriately, “Can I be ‘just’ friends with a guy?”. I think I manage pretty well with my straight friends. But I don’t have alot of straight male friends, probably because around a generic guy, I have the showoff\/flirting urge, and at the same time, I don’t want to offend\/discomfit said generic guy or any observers for that matter. So, to avoid the internal tension, unless they’re really exceptionally cool, I avoid straight guys, especially the ones I’m attracted to. <\/p>\n

As for gay guys, single and coupled, it’s easiest if there’s no sexual\/romantic attraction either way (like, say tardis<\/a>), but I can think of examples of good friends where we have both one-sided interest (separate examples for each of the two possible permutations), and mutual attraction that we don’t\/won’t act on. Plus all the typical ambiguities. =) <\/p>\n

Abstracting out the individual (a quintessentially foolish simplification for this question, but I’ll roll with it anyway =), symmetric setups are easier, with the lack of attraction being easier than mutual attraction. When it comes to the asymmetric setups, it’s easier to start friendships with those who are attracted to me, but I find the friendships with those I’m attracted to more rewarding (go fig).<\/p>\n

In summary, is it impossible to be friends when attraction rears its head? No, but it is harder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I decided this was an obnoxiously long comment, so I turned it into a post of my own. shoebox_bird posted the entry that got me thinking on this topic: Can women and men be just friends and what happens to friendship with men for women if\/when they get married.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}