Appreciating Platonic Relationships

[Case]

This explains a lot about what you say about women.

How so? I don't feel the need to have platonic women friends, especially when I already have friends.

Clarification: You already have male friends. You consider your friends to be all male, correct?

I never felt a "need" to choose only one gender for my friends. I have male friends and female friends, and I adore them all.

Hell. If it weren't for my female friends, I'd have no one to talk to about women. All of my male friends are ignorant about women, so I turn to my female friends quite often to get a point of view that only a woman could have. It's quite helpful. I honestly don't understand why any man would actively shun being friends with a woman.

Ska, the way you talk about women truly baffles me. You talk about them as if they were mere romantic icons instead of people who might actually enjoy your company just for the sake of it. Seems a tad antiquated to me.

Anyway, you can choose whoever you want as a friend. And if you don't want female friends, no one is going to stop you. However, I imagine my own life without female friends, and the notion is absolutely unthinkable.

 

[Limlim]

Most of my friends I know from work, and my work is pretty much a big sausage fest so most of my friends are male as a result. For me a lack of meatspace female friends is more an act of coincidence rather than a conscious effort to avoid them. Online I talk to a few women on a regular basis and enjoy their company. I find it hard to make a romantic connection to someone I can't see and hear though, as I seem to appreciate the convenience of text for the most part.

That's not to say however I wouldn't bone the honeysuckle out of the Debs, Callies, Bunnies, and MissGuideds out there.

 

[Case]

Most of my friends I know from work, and my work is pretty much a big sausage fest so most of my friends are male as a result.

I feel fortunate that my workplaces have always been evenly mixed between the genders.

 

[TheSkaFish]

Clarification: You already have male friends. You consider your friends to be all male, correct?

I never felt a "need" to choose only one gender for my friends. I have male friends and female friends, and I adore them all.

Hell. If it weren't for my female friends, I'd have no one to talk to about women. All of my male friends are ignorant about women, so I turn to my female friends quite often to get a point of view that only a woman could have. It's quite helpful. I honestly don't understand why any man would actively shun being friends with a woman.

Ska, the way you talk about women truly baffles me. You talk about them as if they were mere romantic icons instead of people who might actually enjoy your company just for the sake of it. Seems a tad antiquated to me.

Anyway, you can choose whoever you want as a friend. And if you don't want female friends, no one is going to stop you. However, I imagine my own life without female friends, and the notion is absolutely unthinkable.

It's more like, I don't think to myself and say, hey, I could really use some female friends. I don't actively shun them, I just don't go out of my way to look for them and don't really cultivate any interactions with them beyond the level of acquaintance.

I've also heard that it's not good to talk to women about women, because most women have no experience attracting other women. They say they want something, but then go for something else entirely. I don't know, myself.

Some women enjoy my company for a while. But sooner or later, it stops. Usually around the time some "tough guy" with an image and an attitude comes along. Happens every time. It's really frustrating, and has me on the border of becoming a cynical misogynist. I'm finding it really hard to have a good attitude about women and dating anymore. It's getting me to start thinking I chose the wrong personality as a kid, and I should have chosen to be a jerk instead. I should have chosen to be all about image and attitude and booze and gambling and drugs and being a loud, obnoxious, *******. That's who gets more than platonic friendship. Not someone like me.

 

[Peaches]

Most of my friends I know from work, and my work is pretty much a big sausage fest so most of my friends are male as a result.

The expression "sausagefest" always makes me laugh

 

[Alonewith2cats]

Most of my friends I know from work, and my work is pretty much a big sausage fest so most of my friends are male as a result.

The expression "sausagefest" always makes me laugh

I'm German. We love sausages.

 

[Peaches]

 

[Case]

The expression "sausagefest" always makes me laugh

I'm German. We love sausages.

I love Germans. Do you have sausagefests over there?

---

It's more like, I don't think to myself and say, hey, I could really use some female friends. I don't actively shun them, I just don't go out of my way to look for them and don't really cultivate any interactions with them beyond the level of acquaintance.

It's semantics. Whether it's "shun," "don't go out of your way," "don't cultivate," "don't seek," etc, it's all the same message. You don't want female friends. You only want romance. I'm not sure I'd follow that path myself, but be my guest. Whatever makes you happy, go for it.

 

[Pike Creek]

I've also heard that it's not good to talk to women about women, because most women have no experience attracting other women. They say they want something, but then go for something else entirely. I don't know, myself.

Just wanted to say, you'd probably do better not to listen to others who say things about women because everyone's experience is personal. If you walk into a situation where you're meeting a new woman, and in the back of your head you have all these rules that you "heard" about, how can you be yourself?

All this talk about platonic friendships makes me wonder about something. Does anyone consider "online" friends as real friends? I do have what I consider an acquaintance who I met through blogging back in 2007. We've never met, never spoken on the phone...exchange emails every week or so. I feel as though I do know her inside and out, but I can't think of her as a real friend - this may be my own reservations. I wonder if maybe I do have a platonic friendship there.

 

[Case]

All this talk about platonic friendships makes me wonder about something. Does anyone consider "online" friends as real friends? I do have what I consider an acquaintance who I met through blogging back in 2007. We've never met, never spoken on the phone...exchange emails every week or so. I feel as though I do know her inside and out, but I can't think of her as a real friend - this may be my own reservations. I wonder if maybe I do have a platonic friendship there.

I think this person is your friend. While I would like all my friends to be near me, that is not possible. Online friends are like relatives who live far away. At least, relatives I want to talk to regularly.

There are levels of online friendships that determines how close we are to them, I feel. The first level is the new friend; no personal name exchanges, no deep emotional exchanges, but you share some basic common interests. The second is when you go on chats or PM. You have exchanged some real info, such as real name and location, and maybe revealed deeper thoughts on subjects you wouldn't mention to someone you didn't trust. The third would be phone conversations. And the final level would be face-to-face meetings. Most of my online friends don't get to phone calls, and none have met me f2f. (I have done online dating, so I don't count those.)

My challenge should be to make more of these online friends f2f friends.

 

[Solivagant]

Friendship has been every bit as important to me as seeking a significant other, probably even more so. In my opinion it has the capacity to be one of the deepest, strongest, and most fulfilling forms of love. I've had friendships with both genders.

There are levels of online friendships that determines how close we are to them, I feel.

This is true for me of in-person friendships as well.

I use the term "friend" pretty loosely, so I will usually say that anyone I interact with regularly and casually is my "friend". However, I've rarely had any friends that I would consider good or close, people I could really trust and feel comfortable being my weird self around. And I've only known one person who I would say was a friend to me in the truest sense of the word; a "brother from another mother", if you will.

Pike, I would say she is your friend.

In short, and back to the topic, we all should appreciate people of the same and different genders as human beings, rather than just as romantic interests.

^ That about sums up my thoughts on the issue.

 

[Pike Creek]

I guess you guys are right about her being a friend, not just an acquaintance. We know each other's full names, our histories, we whine about our bf's together...we send xmas cards and gifts. I tend to doubt online friendship as not real because she's not somebody I could call up at a whim and talk if I needed to or ask for help if I needed it. And she has never done so either. So I guess we are friendly...but not the best of friends. Which is fine by me since I shy away from getting to close too people to begin with.

 

[Badjedidude]

I can only have romantic relationships with trees.

 

[TheSkaFish]

All this talk about platonic friendships makes me wonder about something. Does anyone consider "online" friends as real friends? I do have what I consider an acquaintance who I met through blogging back in 2007. We've never met, never spoken on the phone...exchange emails every week or so. I feel as though I do know her inside and out, but I can't think of her as a real friend - this may be my own reservations. I wonder if maybe I do have a platonic friendship there.

I used to be skeptical about how you could really be friends with people online, but then I joined this philosophy/self-improvement/art and music/psychedelic website where I met a lot of interesting people unlike almost anyone I'd met in real life. The more I stuck around the website the more I got to know them on the forum section and eventually I got to messaging with a few of them and we got to know each other a little bit. This spilled over onto Facebook as well. It's kind of strange that we've only known each other online but at after a while I figured, I wasn't meeting people like this offline, so does it really matter where or how I'm meeting them? Turns out we had enough in common to carry a conversation and I still talk to them sometimes.

The main thing for me was that I felt like I was finally meeting the kind of people I wanted to meet but could never seem to find. So to me, yes, we really were friends.

 

[Pike Creek]

I used to be skeptical about how you could really be friends with people online, but then I joined this philosophy/self-improvement/art and music/psychedelic website where I met a lot of interesting people unlike almost anyone I'd met in real life. The more I stuck around the website the more I got to know them on the forum section and eventually I got to messaging with a few of them and we got to know each other a little bit. This spilled over onto Facebook as well. It's kind of strange that we've only known each other online but at after a while I figured, I wasn't meeting people like this offline, so does it really matter where or how I'm meeting them? Turns out we had enough in common to carry a conversation and I still talk to them sometimes.

The main thing for me was that I felt like I was finally meeting the kind of people I wanted to meet but could never seem to find. So to me, yes, we really were friends.

I guess that's the thing I doubt, what's written in text...is it real? Or is it put-on? I think until I meet a person I can't tell if they are sincere or not. Maybe after being online friends with this woman for 7 years, I can trust her more to be a real friend. But it's funny...I haven't gone to her with my bf problems of late...maybe that tells me something? Maybe I really don't consider her a real friend. I don't know, maybe it's overthinking.

 

[Alonewith2cats]

Well, it can get complicated. I've been spending a lot of time with my platonic male friend, probably too much time. It seems to be causing a disease, it's called bonding. Good thing I'm going to Germany for three weeks. I need to pull away from this for a while.

 

[always_lonely]

I know friend zoning sucks to be on the receiving end of, but isn't that a matter of perception?

I'm not judging any of the comments here in any way.
I'm just quickly proposing the question for my own curiosity, what is the difference between meeting a girl and you only end up friends, versus meeting someone and pursuing more and ultimately getting FZ'ed?

If you're the one pursuing, then being FZ'ed is rejection, but what is it for the person not interested? Do they have to be actively rejecting you? Couldn't it just be something else?

How do we ever end up with friends of the opposites sex if every exchange is either a potential romantic relationship, or rejection of some sort?

If rejection by way of FZ'ing is such a degrading thing, then how do platonic friendships even happen?