Can Men and Women Be “Just Friends”?

“Can a man and a woman be friends?” is perhaps one of the most controversial questions since times unknown. As famous movies like When Harry Met Sally or the TV series Friends have tried to explain to us, men and women are ultimately supposed to end up being attracted to each other.

Scientists have had questions about this topic for a long time and have been looking for that chemical that reacts in male and female bodies. While women may stick to the notion of “just friendship” between opposite sexes, men might think otherwise.

Apparently this “just friends” question was pondered by others beginning about a decade ago. Bleske and Buss (2000) surveyed college students regarding the benefits and costs of opposite sex friendships in their lives. In general, many of these benefits and costs were the same for both men and women. For example, both sexes enjoyed opposite-sex friends for dinner companions, conversation partners, self-esteem boosts, information about the opposite sex, social status, respect, and sharing resources. Both sexes also noted some similar costs of opposite-sex friendship, such as jealousy, confusion over the status of the relationship, love not being reciprocated, cruel or mean behaviors, and being less attractive to other potential daters because of the friendship.

Male and female responses did differ on a few key items though. Men were more likely to see sex and romantic potential in an opposite sex friend as a benefit (women primarily saw it as a cost). As a result, men were also more likely than women to say that they had sex with an opposite sex friend (22% vs. 11%). Men were also more likely to report friendship costs of lowered self-worth and giving time to help the friend, while women found their own inability to reciprocate the male’s attraction as costly. Therefore, when friendships did not turn sexual or romantic, men were often left feeling rejected and used (i.e. “friend zoned”), while women felt uncomfortable with the unequal attraction. In contrast, when friendships did turn romantic/sexual, some of these men continued to label the women as “just friends” – at about double the rate of women. This leads to the “other” friend zone women more routinely face, the “friends-with-benefits zone”, where sex is shared but commitment is not reciprocated.

Almost 200 volunteers were asked to choose a person of the opposite gender with whom they were not emotionally attached and describe the relationship and chemistry between them. They had to pick either “We are friends” or “I feel a physical attraction toward him or her” or check both.While 42% of men said that they were attracted to their opposite sex friends, only 29% of women admitted to this fact. 17% of men and 5% of women checked both the options.

It was concluded that a lower number of women have shown attraction toward their male friends. Men, on the other hand, have heartily declared their attraction toward their female friends.