As I found myself inadvertently sitting at the “When Harry Met Sally” table yesterday at Katz’s Deli (where the “I’ll have what she’s having” scene takes place), thinking about my own dating life, I couldn’t help but ask myself the question that serves as the whole premise of that movie: can men and women really be friends?
Only I asked it with a caveat: can men and women be friends after they’ve dated? Not seriously, but at least gone out a few times. And what if they’ve had sex? Is it possible to keep a friendship going after that?
The reason I ask: there’s a guy I was seeing, briefly, whom I had no intention of getting into a relationship with, who decided he wasn’t “ready to date”. So, I suggested we be friends (I may have added “with benefits” somewhere in my suggestion) because I genuinely think we get along and have a good time together (even without the benefits), and that’s kind of all I was interested in anyway. I’m interested to see what other people have to say about the potential for that kind of a friendship to work. (For now, ignore the “with benefits” part. That’s a whole other topic of conversation.)
Men and women can definitely be friends, in my opinion, but once dating or sex comes into the mix, I think it gets harder. It may be a little awkward at first, or it may take a little time to get used to the new confines of the relationship. In my case, it may not even be worth the effort.
LemonVibe 
[One of my friends dated this guy for a while casually, and then she realized…she just didn’t really find him all that attractive. So they broke up (for what it’s worth, HE actually dumped her right around the time she was going to break up with him) but they remained friends. He got another girlfriend and they’re not BFFs or anything but they do hang out occasionally. So I think it can happen.
[Personally, I find it to be easier to be friends with someone I’m physically attracted to if we just get that out of the way! It tends to put a strain on every part of the relationship, in my opinion. Was that hug just a hug? Are they being nice just to try to get closer? There’s a phrase that I’ve heard a few times that sums it up perfectly: Just fuck and get it over with.
Of course, I’d only suggest this if both parties are physically attracted to each other, just make sure everyone involved knows what’s up and why.
Other than that, I’m with Kier. Not every woman I meet is someone I want to have sex with, so in those situations, friendship is all it would likely ever be in the first place.
[In my experience, yes, but I don’t think there’s a blanket yes or no answer – it all depends entirely on the two people involved. One of my ex boyfriends was my best friend for years after we dated, and distance is really the only reason we aren’t as close anymore. However, I don’t think I could ever really be friends with my most recent ex. Sadly, I haven’t done much casual dating, so I don’t really know if I’d be able to be friends with someone in that scenario.
[This is definitely something that varies from person to person. I have plenty of friends that are both male and female, but I never go after the female ones. Just because someone is a member of the gender that you are attracted to (women in my case, if there was any doubt), it doesn’t mean that ALL women are suddenly objects of attraction. I will concede that for some men it is this way, but not all. It varies on a case by case basis.
Look at it this way. If a man or woman is bisexual and attracted to both sexes, can they have no true friends? Of course not. Because the possibility of attraction does not mean there definitely is attraction.
[I feel like once you’ve been intimate with someone, and you got to know them through dating or sex (it wasn’t as though you were just friends first), it would be hard to just be friends afterwards. Unless a decent amount of time has gone by, then it might be possible. Romantic/sexual feelings like that sometimes linger for me, unless the guy was a huge asshole or did something to really hurt me.
[I think it depends on a lot of factors – the personalities of the two people involved, how emotionally vested in the situation each of them were, if the two want the same or different things for the “friendship”, etc. I definitely think they can be, but those factors must be “compatible” (for lack of a better word) in order for that to be the case.
[I get in trouble every time I broach this subject because my answer is simply “No” — just like in the movie — because the sex thing almost always gets in the way — again, like the movie. Trouble is, it is usually only the man who knows this, and of course, usually never reveals it for fear of losing the friendship completely. So, the woman goes on thinking she has this great non-sexual friendship while her male friend is home taking cold showers and/or getting off on her Facebook pictures. This is harmless AS LONG AS NEITHER PERSON IS IN A COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP.
Are there exceptions where a man and a woman can be true friends? Sure. If there is a considerable age difference, or they are physically separated in a permanent manner, or they are both devout homosexuals or otherwise physically repulsed to each other. (That is pretty much it without getting weird.) Note I didn’t say “if one or the other or both are married.” Your feelings don’t care about your marriage, and it WILL be challenged by the relationship.
Funny you should tie it into the FWB discussion because that is a common myth too. You have platonic friends, and you have boyfriends. (To be complete I should add that if you’re a “working girl”, you also have clients.) Sex is a defining act. You can’t be “a little pregnant”. But, the FWB myth is designed to make you feel better about rushing into a sexual relationship with a boyfriend. Likewise, the “opposite sex friend” subconsciously justifies you keeping a backup partner without challenging your current relationship. It is all self-serving, but we are often too busy serving ourselves to see this.
The great thing about the “friends” discussion is that it always comes down to this: The 20-somethings say “of couse you can do it”. The 30 & 40-somethings say “it works until it doesn’t”. It’s kind of like living with a time-bomb in your house. I’m saying, “Don’t do it because it will eventually blow up and hurt you” and the opposition is saying, “once it blows up, it’s not a bomb anymore…. so you CAN do it”.
My advice: Decide whether this person of interest is someone you could come to love in a romantic way, and if he is ready, embark on a wonderful dating relationship. As long as you don’t have a committed partner, you can have as many friends of whatever sex you want, and some of those will become boyfriends. That is the natural dating process. It is only after you are in a committed relationship that you need to practice disgression and keep male friends at a distance.
[It depends on the people and how emotionally involved they are at the “let’s be friends” point, I think.
[Absolutely. I’m still GREAT friends with a guy I dated seriously for a year. But I think the difference was that we got together KNOWING it wasn’t going to last since I was graduating college and moving on. I loved him, but it was never as emotional as a lot of my other relationships.
I certainly possible. I’m friends with a lot of guys, some I’ve dated / slept with and some I haven’t.
[Yeah there are only one or two guys that I’ve dated that I can honestly say I’m friends with now. And I am not entirely sure if they feel quite the same way. It has to do with the amount of time you dated, how strong the feelings were, and why you broke up. Shorter relationships are generally easier to transition to friendships, because chances are things never got that emotional between you.
And, if there’s any more than negligible hurt or resentment left over from the breakup, I’d say it’s pretty tough to be friends.
[Ah, the age old question. Yes, it is certainly possible for men and women to remain friends after having had a relationship, or even sex. Is it typical? No. There are so many variables: were you friends before you started dating? Was the sex just a drunken night of “whoops”? Have you known each other long?
As others have said, it really depends on the people involved. Some people simply have an inclination to become emotionally attached, no matter what the relationship. Some have no problem maintaining romantic distance.
Happy Pants, in your scenario, it seems to me as if you haven’t known this guy very long. Therefore, you haven’t really established your “type” of relationship as truly solid. In my opinion, this situation lends itself to friendship quite easily providing the guy in question is on board. To further clarify, because as I read that I realized it sounds totally confusing… If you and this guy have been hanging out casually, and had the occasional bumparump, but haven’t talked about “status”, then there is every reason to believe that friendship (without benefits) is an option. Sometimes people get together thinking they would be a match only to discover that they are more compatible as friends.
[I absolutely believe they can be friends. Probably not close friends. But definitely friends. You just have to redefine your boundaries. Sometimes it may take years, but if there’s something about the person that you value enough, you’ll figure it out.
So… yes, I believe that men and women can be friends after they’ve dated.
The Musings author list is a testament to this fact. 😉