Tealeaf said:
I also think if you're making opposite-sex friends, you have to be careful because there are people who'll use it as a kind of "substitute" for a boyfriend or girlfriend. Just someone nice of the opposite sex to spend time with online-only. Well, it's clear where the friend goes once they get the real thing...
It's funny that I feel you're both correct and incorrect at the same time.
Back in 2013, I had literally one real life friend and one online one. No girls in my life whatsoever and I was about to explode from frustration for a number of reasons.
At the time, I was wasting a lot of my time on online dating; and since I didn't opt to use it as a quick meet-up thing like Tinder (as intended), I never had any luck.
It would go like this; actively browse for girls with traits or interests I could have something to talk with, or who might be similar to me to get to know, and hopefully forge a long-term relationship through friendship.
This approach was VERY hit and miss, where if I found any results at all, they were never local and always scattered across the country or even the world.
I met ONE person who stuck with me from nearly a full decade of time on such sites; a girl I met in 2013 all the way in Austria. Of course I messaged her only after reading her profile and realizing I had quite a bit of interest in getting to know her, and could see potential in 'us' too.
By this time too, I had relinquished that I'd have to settle for long distance; women where I live just don't click with me.
Anyway, so we start talking, and while it's frequent, I notice there is a lot of disparity between us. We argue a lot, it gets awkward with me trying to move forward with 'liking' her and her admitting she doesn't feel that way about me, etc.
We almost parted ways within that first year so many times (me at the time, especially was very inexperienced, hasty, easily riled/upset/hurt, etc), yet we didn't; because we could always discuss things. And I'm glad it did, as to this year even, we've remained friends after ironing all that. Platonic ones, that we would talk to at least once ever two days or even daily for years. It's fallen back a lot recently because she's busy, but she is still there and will reply in time.....
I'm glad about that, but reading your post here, I actually agree that, at least for *me*, really the only reason I stuck with her to the level I did back when things were rough was simply because she was a girl.
I knew no girls and just the fact I got to talk with one was more than enough to attempt to salvage. I also recall trying to hope things with her could change in the romantic sense too; so I was hanging on to a lot of other elements.
Honestly, if she was a guy, I literally would've told 'him' to piss off almost immediately.
So while I can't say I was explicitly 'using' her as a makeshift girlfriend, I did at least try to hope that was the case; and fortunately enough, by doing so, I wound up with a pretty great friend, so yeah..... I think this sort of thing happens a lot with men and women, but I don't feel people will use each other to how you're referring, so callously, too often. At least I hope not.
I know when I actually met my first official girlfriend, this friend was one of the first ones to know about her. I get super excited about new updates or good things in my life and immediately share, go on about, etc, with my friends. In fact, I think I actually even tried to introduce her to my girlfriend and even hoped they could be friends, haha. Is that weird? I guess that's a weird dream of mine, to have all my own friends also be friends and have my life all tied up in a neat bow like that.
I routinely asked for her advice on things too (even before I got a girlfriend, it was nice to have a female viewpoint to a lot of things to round out my own perception), especially when things started to go sour with my gf. She was just another friend to confide in. And I didn't try to rekindle what I know what wouldn't work with her after I lost my gf either, so I think such relationships can work; maybe it just depends specifically on the person themselves.
That's the insight from a guy like me, anyway.