Can opposite-sex friendships last? Only if the two are mutually deceived:
The results suggest large gender differences in how men and women experience opposite-sex friendships. Men were much more attracted to their female friends than vice versa. Men were also more likely than women to think that their opposite-sex friends were attracted to them—a clearly misguided belief. In fact, men’s estimates of how attractive they were to their female friends had virtually nothing to do with how these women actually felt, and almost everything to do with how the men themselves felt—basically, males assumed that any romantic attraction they experienced was mutual, and were blind to the actual level of romantic interest felt by their female friends. Women, too, were blind to the mindset of their opposite-sex friends; because females generally were not attracted to their male friends, they assumed that this lack of attraction was mutual. As a result, men consistentlyoverestimated the level of attraction felt by their female friends and women consistently underestimated the level of attraction felt by their male friends.
At some level this is automatically true. Assume simply this: all men are attracted to all women. Then which women will the men be friends with? The ones they expect to be able to hook up with. Of these friendships few will survive: if she figures out he is attracted to her she will either hookup with him (if its mutual) or run away (if its not). Either way the platonic friendship ends. The only surviving friendships will be those in which he thinks she’s attracted to him, she’s not attracted to him and she hasn’t yet figured out he’s attracted to her. QED.
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6 comments
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October 26, 2012 at 5:46 am
Anonymous
What about friendship when each party already has a partner?
October 26, 2012 at 6:48 am
Craig
That’s the worst reasoning I ever heard. Are you not embarrassed by this?
October 26, 2012 at 6:53 am
Craig
Ah, it’s a species of joke, I am told. Joke’s on me I suppose…
October 26, 2012 at 7:00 am
Matt
A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy. – F. Nietzsche
October 27, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Lones Smith
Awesome. When I was in grad school in Chicago, this point was classically made by a move whose characters started out at U of C.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJz1f8hPRGc
October 28, 2012 at 4:23 am
WhatsNew
The bit where it says “because females generally were not attracted to their male friends” especially interesting when contrasted with “Assume simply this:all men are attracted to all women”
There is good evidence (for example http://blog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-online-dating/ is quite clear) that of women are only sexually attracted to a small percentage fo men, and I think that is because most women are only sexually attracted to men that are a couple leagues above their own (I think that happens because they reckon that possession of a reprodutive, not merely sexual, organ is worth a couple of leagues premium).
The result is that the few men who are a couple of leagues more attractive than average women get inundated with often very forward and even abusive demands for sex from average women, and average men, who are deeply unattractive to average women, being a couple of leagues below what average women want, get “friendzoned”, and since men project and think that most women are attracted to most men, they mistake that for a first sign of sexual interest.
Which may be the opposite, because I think that for women sexual attraction and friendship are mutually exclusive. Most women don’t feel any sexual attraction for their “girlfriends”, even the male ones.