Can Men and Women Be Friends?

There is a question that people have been asking for ages, a question that has many possible answers. There are as many answers as there are people and opinions. No one answer is right, and no one answer is wrong. Can men and women be friends?

Throughout my days, I’ve had many female friends. There isn’t a time that I can think of when I didn’t have plenty of lady friends. Except maybe when I was a kid, I was kind of awkward and shy. Though I still am a bit timid, as I learned at the gym today; I’m much better at talking to anyone.

By the way, when I say that I have female friends, I mean women whom I regularly hung out with alone. Be it for dinner, a movie night, or just hanging out at the crib. I’m not talking about ladies whom I just saw in a group, or escorted by either of our partners. These are straight-up friends and we spent plenty of time alone together as friends.

When I was a single man, I always had ladies coming over to my place. It obviously is not the case these days, but I always had someone over back then. I think I hung out with way more women than I did men.

So you probably think that I was getting a lot of “action” during those days, right? Since there were always different women at my place?

Well… That would be both a yes and a no!

Maybe half of the time, we had some form of romantic interest in each other. Be it for a serious relationship, or just a fun fling. Most of the time it was for more than just a fun fling, even if not a serious relationship. I didn’t often waste time or sexual energy on women I didn’t have a connection with. And the type of women I like, normally don’t waste their time playing around without some connection either. Although on any given day, I suppose we can all be a little playful, you know what I’m saying? Sometimes things became romantic or sexual, sometimes they didn’t. That’s how it goes in life boys and girls.

Sometimes we never advanced pass just friends and have remained that way for decades. Other times we tried going forward as a couple, and if things didn’t pan out in the relationship sector, we just grew to become closer friends. Sometimes they’d just up and disappear, and every once in a great while we were just friends who decided to hook up and remained just friends. I had a few of those. It was interesting how we could simply do that and still be cool, as if nothing happened. That’s friendship right there! Sex can often complicate things, but to simply overlook it, that’s an interesting dynamic.

I still remember hanging out with one girl in particular. We were sitting next to each other in my living room. We were talking, and I came in close. I gazed at her eyes, she gazed back, I parted her hair which was covering her face.

“Don’t hide your pretty face behind all this hair!”

She smiled, she was so very beautiful. The moment seemed right and I was preparing to go for mine! That is hood speak for “I was going to kiss her.” Then she pulled back from me, and she kind of tilted her head as if to say “Not today pal.” I got the message loud and clear and backed off. However, not one to leave any room for misinterpretation, adults talk to each other, I asked her if I was being romantically rejected, she said yes. Ouch, that sucked! You are rejecting me even after that cheesy dope ass line I just dropped? Yes, though the line was apparently appreciated.

Okay, now that we have that dynamic settled, let’s pick the movie we are going to watch and enjoy a relaxing evening. That was my style as I got older. Rejection sucks, and it stung for a second, but once the cards were all laid out on the table, then you could just enjoy each other’s company.

Uncertainty sucks!

If you are interested in dating someone, once something like the above happens, the pressure not to let an opportunity slip is off. I remember getting dumped by a girl because she said, “You were too slow to make a move, Angel.” I vowed to never experience that again, so I became more up front.

This information doesn’t apply to every man, or every friendship. However, I believe that it does a lot of the time. Once you know where you stand, you can proceed accordingly. Some dudes will sell you on the bullcrap that they only want friendship, but believe me, usually they are full of crap. The dude is probably attracted to you, and he CAN be your friend, but that’s because you won’t allow him to be anything more.

Today at the gym, I saw a man and a woman arguing. He was upset because she was talking about other guys the whole time. She was saying that he asked about the guy. To which he responded, I asked for an overview, not to spend the entire time talking about him.

I told them to read this blog post for some advice. Sounds to me like the guy is down for her, otherwise he wouldn’t care if she talks about other dudes the whole time.

Want to test if the dude wants more than a friendship? Cancel on a “hangout,” tell him this great new guy asked you out on a date and you accepted. Watch how he reacts. If he is truly your best friend, he probably won’t mind too much.

I almost lost a friend once because she left me in a club alone to go hang out with someone else. Once she told me that was her plan, I became highly upset, and pretty much pulled away from her for the little bit of time she was there. That was mistake number one. Then after that I went into an embarrassing drunk texting tirade. That was mistake two and that cost us two years of talking and certainly killed any future chance for romance. In my defense, she had sent me some very strong signals that she was interested in something more. I kind of thought we were headed towards dating so I took it pretty hard when she said, “I’m going to be leaving you to hang out with the UPS guy.” I got really drunk and common sense went out the window. That was not cool on my part.

I got better at dealing with disappointment as I aged. It always sucks when you get rejected, or canceled on, but as I get older it doesn’t matter anymore. It still bothers me a smidgen when someone cancels on me last minute, but it passes nearly instantly. I have so much that I can do these days, and I am much more comfortable doing things by myself so it’s easier to shrug it off.

I know I’m all over the place with this post. I actually renamed it too. It was originally a post about a specific situation, and branched out into this.

So, can men and women, “Just be friends?” Yes they can, but ladies, if he’s hanging around you, odds are he’s interested in something more.