If we admit that men really areMars, and women are from Venus, then this may help explain one of the common beliefs: friendship between a man and a woman is impossible. This is always due to sexual tension, which almost inevitably arises between any healthy heterosexual man and woman. Agree, many quite reasonable and rationally thinking people are overcome with anxiety and jealousy when their husband or wife acquires a friend of the opposite sex. It is simply hard to believe that all this will end in just friendly relations. Right? Right, but not always. Psychologists believe - the belief that a man and a woman cannot be friends came to us from the era when women spent all their time at home, and men worked. They met in the rare free time for men from work, and this time was set aside for romantic relationships. Now men and women work together, play sports, relax, are fond of art, and so on. This cultural shift has led to men and women having many points of intersection in interests and occupations, and their desire to communicate with each other to exchange opinions is quite natural today. If men and women are to coexist in the modern world side by side both at work and during leisure, then they must communicate and learn to understand each other. It may be hard to believe for some, but according to some psychologists, men and women can quite successfully become close friends.

It was not us who started it-is it not for us to change it?

On the other hand, society has long since identifiedromance as a prototype of relations between a man and a woman. This is the most natural type of relations, because the division of the sexes is explained by the necessity of procreation, and romantic relations allow to continue the life cycle. Each of us has ideas about certain rules of conduct in love relations (flirting - serious relations - getting married - having children), and it is same-sex friendly relations that have been familiar to people for a long time - boys are friends with boys, girls - with girls. But as soon as friendship between a man and a woman looms in our field of vision, we become perplexed and cannot decide how to treat such relations. Most people treat such friendship with caution and even hostility. Our society is still not fully ready to accept friendship between people of different sexes as relations that do not have a sexual connotation. This is especially true for older people, whose worldview was formed at a time when men and women were still closed to each other and became close people only in marriage. So, it's all about our stereotypes that have been formed over the centuries. Books and feature films also contribute to the confusion. Television is not far behind. Almost every time we see a friendship between a man and a woman on the pages or screens, it invariably ends in a passionate romance. Readers and viewers find it difficult to overcome such an impact of artistic images, and it is not surprising that in life they expect that men and women are always on the path to romantic relationships. So what is the reality - can a man and a woman be friends with each other, or is it impossible? Try asking this question in any company - most likely, a heated discussion will begin that will last several hours. Let's try to figure this out together.

Definition of relationships: friends or lovers?

If we talk about friendship, then this is the attitudepeople to each other when they enjoy spending time together, when they trust each other and can always rely on each other. Love is something more. It is the desire to live together, physical attractiveness, boundless trust... But sometimes it is difficult to draw a line between romantic, sexual and friendly feelings. In reality, sexual attraction can suddenly intervene and take precedence over friendly relations. A simple friendly hug can instantly acquire a love subtext when a spark suddenly runs between a man and a woman. Nature is stronger than the arguments of our mind, and there is constant sexual tension between a man and a woman, which is not always possible to ignore. We should not forget about platonic love. Not always, but quite common is the state in which one of the pair of friends feels in love, but his feelings are not yet mutual. Is friendship between a man and a woman long-lasting in this situation? Most likely - no, because most relationships begin with friendship, which eventually develops into love. This is a completely logical development of relations. In general, a good, strong friendship is born on the basis of common interests, positions and views on life. But - a strong friendship is the basis for deeper relations; this is what becomes a stumbling block.

Step to Love

So, for now we have come to the conclusion that friendship betweenbetween different sexes, but one should not discount the sexual tension between a friend and a girlfriend. As long as physical attraction exists, there is also the danger that friends may drift into an unplanned and unwanted “drifting.” Various situations – such as alcohol, or one person’s grief and the other’s attempt to console him – may eventually lead to both ending up in bed. The intimate experience they have may be episodic, but it will most likely lead to the end of their friendship. If the two do not want to lose their friendship, they will decide to overcome the situation and remain friends; but their friendship will never again be imbued with the same spirit of camaraderie as before.

Opposite-Sex Friendship - Through the Eyes of Psychologists

The question of the existence of true friendship betweenbetween a woman and a man is becoming increasingly topical. It is difficult to clearly define and decide whether any other close relationships are possible between a man and a woman, except for sex? One thing is clear - modern conditions have made their own adjustments to the quality of relationships between the sexes, but established traditions still have a strong influence on people. Our society is structured according to heterosexual norms, which leads us to a certain type of relationship. What place can friendship between people of different sexes occupy in a heterosexual social structure? Psychologists decided to conduct a large-scale study to find answers to these questions. And here are the conclusions they made based on numerous surveys:

Conclusion number 1. The older they become, the less likely they are friends

Friendship between boys and girls arises,As a rule, during school years. Quite often such friendships are also found during student years. But when the time comes for serious romantic relationships and marriages, establishing or maintaining opposite-sex friendships becomes increasingly difficult. Even with a strong, reliable marriage, most likely, the husband or wife will not like it if the second spouse maintains warm relations with a person of the opposite sex, especially if he or she is very attractive in appearance. If you spend a lot of time with your friend, then your husband will not be delighted that a stranger is encroaching on his “territory” and his status as the owner of this territory. And you yourself should think about it: if you are drawn to spend more time with your friend than with your husband, consider that the signal light has already started blinking for you! In the future, with age, the number of friendly opposite-sex couples continues to decrease. And it’s not surprising, because we’ve already talked about this – most older people grew up in an era when communicating with a person of the opposite sex outside of marriage was taboo. Therefore, older people very rarely form new friendships with members of the opposite sex. Research shows that only about two percent of older women have friendly contacts with men.

Conclusion number 2. Do not always mean sex

In fact, sexual tension is not always"is on the agenda" when it comes to opposite-sex friendships. This can be due to sexual orientation, lack of physical attraction, or the involvement of one or both in another romantic relationship. After all, even friends who feel some attraction to each other are well aware that the qualities that are attractive in a friend are not necessarily attractive in a lover. Or another situation: two people value their friendship, usually a long-standing and strong one, so much that they are afraid of losing it and do not want to think about any kind of romance. In any case, after a while, such friends find it difficult to even imagine themselves in any other capacity.

Conclusion №3. What benefits do men derive from friendship

There are clear differences between male and female friendships.female friendship. Women spend most of their time together with a friend discussing their thoughts and feelings, while men are usually oriented towards group communication. Men get together to play football or cheer for their favorite team, go hiking or discuss stock quotes. Female friendship largely presupposes a relationship based on trust. It is no secret that women tend to open their hearts and souls to close friends. They love to give advice and discuss events, while friendship between men is based on deeds. Men prefer to do something than talk about it. Almost never do men share personal thoughts, feelings and experiences with their friends. Most of all, a man would not like to be known as a weakling or a wimp in his circle, but he also needs understanding and sympathy. This may explain why friendship between a man and a woman brings satisfaction to a man even more than to a woman. Research has shown that men rate the quality of mutual understanding between themselves and their female friends much higher than the quality of mutual understanding with a male friend. According to them, they can talk about things with a female friend that they would never be able to talk about with a male friend. It is the emotional support of a female friend that a man values ​​most of all.

Conclusion number 4. What are they looking for in a different-sex friendship of a woman

Quite often for a woman, friendship with anothera woman can be too tiring. There are probably few women who have not had to listen to the lamentations of a friend with a broken heart for hours. And how many women had to feel that even their best friend secretly envies her luck or secretly gloats when something goes wrong? A woman can never trust a woman completely. Which cannot be said about a man. A man will not gossip about his girlfriend, and he will not steal her husband. Friendship between a man and a woman does not put emotional pressure on a woman; it is easier and even more fun for her to be friends with a man. When solving some of her issues or problems, a woman appreciates the opportunity to enlist a man's point of view on the problem. Some women also note that they like to feel surrounded by care and protection that comes from a male friend. This gives reason to believe that they consider such a friend as a surrogate older brother.

Conclusion №5. Heterogeneous friendship fills the lack of emotional unity

Opposite-sex friendship can give a person something thathe is not getting enough in his family. For example, you can talk to a friend about things that you simply cannot talk about with your spouse or partner. Various “forbidden” topics often concern our questionable behavior or some wrong actions, our innermost feelings or concerns. Friendship is a kind of escape from emotional misunderstanding in the family. And if you feel that the need to communicate with a friend is becoming excessive, this should be a signal that you are acutely lacking something in your relationship with your loved one, and therefore you are trying to look for it elsewhere. In this case, it is worth starting to fight to fill the gap in your marital relationship. Psychologists are firmly convinced that you should look for a friend first of all in your spouse!

Conclusion No. 6. Heterogeneous friendship is gaining momentum

In today's world, men and women have everythingmore equal rights, opportunities and interests, which may contribute to the increasing popularity of opposite-sex friendships. We are raising new generations of children believing that boys can play with dolls and girls can kickbox. Men and women are also becoming more androgynous as their social roles have become more similar. Men are often more likely to have feminine characteristics, and women are much more willing than before to adopt traditionally masculine characteristics. In this situation, opposite-sex friendships are twice as common as in previous times. Thus, friendships between women and men increasingly have nothing to do with romantic relationships: work and common interests are the key factors here.

Is the truth somewhere in the middle?

So, the researchers believe that men andWomen can be friends. But can we really trust them? One dating site conducted a survey of more than one and a half thousand visitors on the topic "Is there friendship between a man and a woman?" The results were quite eloquent. Judge for yourself:

• Question: Do you think that men and women can be platonic friends?
• Answers: yes - 83%, no - 11%, not sure - 6%
• Question: Who better supports the platonic relations?
• Answers: men - 13%, women - 67%, not sure - 20%
• Question: Has it ever happened to you when a platonic friendship passed into a romantic or a sexual relationship?
• Answers: yes - 62%, no - 36%, not sure - 2%
• Question: Who is more inclined to misinterpret the intimacy of friendship as a sexual desire?
• Answers: men - 64%, women - 25%, not sure - 11%
• Question: Is it possible to fall in love with a person who enters your life as a friend?
• Answers: yes - 94%, no - 4%, not sure - 2%

Draw your own conclusions, as they say.Perhaps the question "Is there friendship between a man and a woman?" sounds in our time the same as the question "Is there life on Mars?" once sounded. And the answer is the same - we don't know for sure! What do you think about this? We recommend reading:

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