The Answer of the Most Popular Question: Can Men And Women Really Be Friends?

[Anonymous]

Ignited gunpowder does not stand side by side. Or does it? When a woman and a man come together, is it invitable to have feelings? Is it possible to become really close friends?

Fifty fifty

Men and women are belong to different worlds, they have different souls. But what if these two worlds become one in the name of friendship? Is it possible to become close friends? The anwer is 50% yes and 50% no!

It is not possible only to have friends of your own sex

Along our school life and work life, we meet many people from both sexes. Some women see some of these men as a partner material and some only see them as a friend. Making this decision may not always up to the person because we can't control whom to like. So a close friendship may turn to a different thing after one side starts to grow some feelings.

Another point is that both sides decribe friendship in a different way. While friendship means sharing emotions for women it may mean having activities together for men. While man sees a woman whom he plays some kind of games, for woman, a friend may be someone whom she can share her feelings and talk to all day.

And women want to show their feelings by kissing, touching and hugging. But when they do so, guys may have different feelings even the purpose is different. They may even get these things wrong. They may take them as flirt behaviour.

[ak666]

I think it depends on the culture. Here it's perfectly normal and rather common for guys and girls to be close friends, even if they find each other attractive, but there are some factors that I believe allow this to happen:

There are a lot of societal factors that contribute but if I compare it the US where it's extremely rare and often considered strange for males and females to be close friends, it's not normalized social behavior there. Obviously if it's considered weird for a guy and girl to be friends, then it's going to be rare to find guys who have 10+ close female friends along with 10+ close male friends and vice versa.

In contrast in Japan, it's so normalized that if we see a male and female having dinner together at a restaurant, it doesn't necessarily mean they're on a date. The male could have a girlfriend already and the female could have a boyfriend already. They're just hanging out as friends. It's no different than seeing two males go for dinner together or two females.

One of the biggest factors that contributes in my opinion is that there's no "cootie" culture. Young boys and girls aren't told that the other ones have cooties. As a result that yields around 12-13 years where boys and girls are regularly interacting with each other and befriending each other closely without anyone considering that strange.

As an example, when I was a boy in Shizuoka, I used to hang out with a female friend who was a close neighbor of mine. I went to her house all the time and we played Famicom together. She'd also come to my house to do the same. The same applied for my male friends. No one considered any of this strange, no one thought that I'd catch cooties or that she'd catch cooties.

Of course puberty hits and sexual attraction develops, but at this point they've already had 12-13 years of healthy interaction and friendship. Boys already end up finding it valuable to befriend girls and girls end up finding it valuable to befriend boys by this point.

It's probably also as a result of this that we don't have catcalling and things like this.

[ak666]

There are a lot of societal factors that contribute but if I compare it [to] the US where it's extremely rare [...]

About "cootie" culture, probably even in the US where they have it, homosexual guys might be able to be friends without developing desperate feelings for each other. The same might apply for lesbian girls.

In Japan, it's like that even for heterosexuals since males and females being friends with each other is totally normalized social behavior here.

[Luméa]

I think a man and woman can be friends!!

[Anonymous]

Who says that's the most popular question?