Just Friends? Science Says Maybe Not So Much

“Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.”

– Charles M. Schulz

Did you get the stink eye after telling your girlfriend you had lunch with another woman? “Don’t worry,” you stammered as you felt the daggers from her eyes piercing you — “we’re ‘just friends,’ that’s all.” But can men and women really be just friends? One study attempted to answer this age old question.

Investigators separately, anonymously and confidentially interviewed 88 pairs of heterosexual undergraduate opposite-sex friends about any romantic feelings they did or didn’t have toward each other. To protect participants from learning potentially hurtful information, researchers required all subjects to agree in front of their friends not to discuss the study, even after it ended. 

Well… What Did They Find Out?

Some interesting patterns emerged from the data. Men reported greater attraction to their platonic friends than did women, and were also more likely to mistakenly believe their female friends were attracted to them.

All participants’ estimates of their friend’s attraction to them were virtually unrelated to how their friends actually felt. Men tended to wrongly assume a mutual attraction. Women were generally not attracted to male friends, and also incorrectly believed their lack of attraction was reciprocal. So both men and women assumed “the feeling was mutual” — and basically, everyone got it wrong.

Perhaps even more problematic was the finding that men reported being more willing to act on their misperception. Interestingly, relationship status of the friend was not associated with level of attraction for men or women.

The Takeaway: What’s a Guy or Gal to Do?

So, men overestimated a mutual attraction from their opposite-sex friends, while women consistently underestimated it. In other words, Billy Crystal basically got it right in When Harry Met Sally — men and women can never really just be friends.

But if one of the friends was “taken,” then that solves the problem, right?

Wrong. Unfortunately, being romantically attached was not associated with the degree of attraction to an opposite-sex friend, although women were less inclined to pursue a relationship with a “taken” friend they were attracted to than men were. So if you’re a woman, having a significant other probably won’t prevent a male friend from acting on any attraction he might (and may well) have.

There are no simple answers here. Difficulties can easily arise in platonic friendships — especially for men. The best advice is to enter into opposite-sex friendships with eyes wide open, armed with the understanding that if you just trust your gut you may not see a problem coming your way. And this study (done in 2012) was limited to heterosexual couples. Clearly, this research should be replicated to include LGBTQ relationships, so there’s a lot more work to be done on the subject.

Relationships are central to our happiness, so bottom line — always handle with care. And remember, Harry and Sally did end up getting married before the final credits rolled, so you really never know …

Help grow this idea.

Is “just friends” really possible? Do you agree with the research? What’s been your experience? Please share in the comments below.

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Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/men-and-women-cant-be-just-friends/