Can opposite gender 'best friends' work platonically?

[TadBehaya]

I doubt so.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

It is so common here in Japan that I was so culture-shocked when I went to other countries and heard people say this cannot or should not happen. Here men and women form deep friendships and often starting from early chilldhood, like so:

We all hang out together in groups of both sexes. Also it's a tough call between my closest male friend and closest female friend but I think my female friend is probably my best. She is the one who introduced me to my wife and like a little sister to me. She's the woman of Indian descent (although from Brooklyn, US) on my cover picture together with her husband.

We've been close friends now for almost 20 years and we were both single when we first met. She is also really good friends with my wife now.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Admittedly I did find her so pretty and even sketched her portrait in the bar when I first met her like this:

But she told me she only dates Hindu guys who share her religious beliefs and family traditions. So no problem and we became very good friends after. I also have other close female friends and I didn't ask them all out on dates. 😅

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Also for Japanese guys, we separate "friend" material from "girlfriend/wife" material. In the beginning with my best female friend, I didn't know her yet so I thought maybe I could make her my girlfriend. But after I asked her out and she turned me down and said she only dates Hindu guy, I put her in my "friend" compartment. I don't blur the compartments. Once I decide a woman is only a friend, she is always only a friend. I never switch after that.

I think maybe the reason guys from other cultures have a difficult time is that they don't have these separate compartments. If you separate women into compartments like this, you will never develop crush on women in your "friend" compartment. Even if you start to get tempted, you stop and discipline yourself just like you do if you are a decent man and start to develop crush on your best friend's wife. You stop yourself.

[IslaTheWitch]

"Once I decide a woman is only a friend, she is always only a friend. I never switch after that." exactly... I don't get why it's so hard to understand... friends are too precious to lose them...

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

@IslaTheWitch I always found it perplexing since Western women seem to do this but not so many Western men. The argument that there can be no physical attraction between friends for this to work also made little sense to me since I'm physically attracted even to complete strangers. That doesn't mean I develop friendship-destroying longings for every single physically attractive person I meet. Actually I think the average Japanese man and Western woman would find a lot in common this way. Western women seem to understand the way I think so easily while I usually perplex a number of Western men.

[IslaTheWitch]

physical attraction is natural but doesn't mean we have to jump to bed immediately... we have brains and reasoning...

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

@IslaTheWitch For sure. This topic tends to upset me since I think perpetuating the idea that men and women can't be friends significantly inhibits mutual understanding between the sexes and progress in society. Japan might benefit from some more progress culturally in terms of gender equality but at least we don't start with the deeply divisive and alienating notion that the opposite sexes can't be close friends. So while we tend to still be a bit traditional with our outlook of gender roles, there isn't the typical sexism and divisiveness I see in many Western countries with ideas like "Men are from Mars, women from Venus", and treating the two like completely alien species to each other with very little in common.

[IslaTheWitch]

I think in Europe it's kinda normal that opposite genders have close not sexual relationships... maybe because in general we are more tied by rules and cultural stuff, but we don't sexualize every relationship...

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

@IslaTheWitch That sounds good and similar here to Japan.

Something I think that might help here as well is that Japan is relatively homogeneous in terms of population. I never found the saying, "Japanese all look alike," so offensive since it seems relatively true at least compared to an extremely ethnically diverse country like the US.

So I think when the population looks fairly alike in this way, there's much more emphasis on character and personality over looks. For example, when I ask the random Japanese man (admittedly anecdotal but I've done this a whole lot in bars and social events) what type of woman he likes, there's very little to no focus on physical traits and he describes character traits like, "fun-loving" or "compassionate" or "warm heart" or "sassy" along with common interests. When I do the same with American men, they tend to go much more deeply into the physical like, "Hourglass figure," even specifying breast sizes and hairstyle and hair color and so forth. It seems far more obsessed with the physical and I suspect some of it is because of the sheer degree of physical variation there which might have the focus on shifting cultural focus much more on physical traits than personality traits.

When we focus more on personality this way, then it becomes very easy for me and other men from Japan to say, "Yes, my female friend is extremely attractive, but she's not my type. She's great as a friend but we're incompatible as lovers."

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

[*] which might have the [effect of, sorry] shifting cultural focus much more on physical traits than personality traits.

[IslaTheWitch]

It's possible, but in Europe the variety of physical types is also wide... maybe because this mixing happened with time... the EU is quite young, and earlier were huge currency differences, visas and whole this stuff... so we kept our mindsets unchanged...

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

@IslaTheWitch Admittedly a wild conjecture on my part. It makes some intuitive sense to me since if we imagine the most extreme hypothetical where we lived in a society where all males and all females looked like identical clones of each other, but still wildly varying in individual personalities, then there would be nothing to focus on but personality guiding our selection of sexual and romantic partners. Japan seems halfway there and I always thought that might be why even Japanese men focus seem to focus so, so much more on personality than Americans, e. g.

I might need to learn more about European culture in this way. Sounds very interesting to me at least as another contrast from American culture.

[IslaTheWitch]

it definitely is a contrast to American culture... I know g@g is an exaggeration of everything but my first month here was a constant mindfuck... how people can even think this way?

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

@IslaTheWitch Definitely! I was mainly referring to personal encounters though and my extreme culture shock between living in the US vs. Japan, so people I met in person and not on GaG. I don't think GaG is particularly representative of ordinary people. 😅

[Anonymous]

Nope. Tried. Failed.

[RebelinSteel]

Yes it can, it does depend on the people involved though. Some are unable not to look at someone as a sexual object, others just see a person. I have been friends with girls since school, some are married and some single, equally with work I have friends that are girls and we are just friends, same with sports I play and friends from them. I put it down to culture and how a person was raised that they are unable to accept friends are not sexual but just friends. Following the you can have friends of the opposite sex thing, how would bisexual people get on, no one would want one as a friend or in their group of friends.

[teamvic]

Hmmm yes but in rare instances

For example, if one isn't attracted to the other gender, for example, gay or lesbian

Or if both dont find the other attractive

Also if they grew up so close together they see the other as family

The problem with opposite gender friends ships is usually one, most times the guy, falls for the other. Eventually.

I meann, I guess theoretically a it can happen where none of the scenarios are present and still find a friendship as the only thing desired. A BEST friend at that which makes them even closer. But I mean it's extremely rare

The more you spend time with someone of the opposite gender, the more likely you are to at least want to do something with them

As I said at least one of them has to not find the other as not their ," type" I can think of a couple female friends where I wouldn't be interested in them like that because they're not my type

[Drew-1990]

I think it works in a group setting but not one on one. I have had good female friends but it was always us in being a group. I'm good friends with my best friends wife but I never hang out with her alone it's always us three or more people. Every time I have been a good friend with a girl one on one I liked her.

[SamIam96]

I'm one of those people that only has a few very close friends. They're a mix of men and women. Over time, I've had sex with most of the women. We're still friends but not physical any more.

I have two "best friends." One is a girl. She's my oldest friend. She took my virginity. Since then, we flirted but haven't done anything else.

[BuffTaco]

Gender doesn't matter to me when it comes to attraction and dating, and yet somehow I still manage to have platonic friends and even a best friend. Just because you like people of the opposite gender doesn't mean you have to have sex with or date literally every one of them that you like. Frankly that's a ridiculous goal to have.

[Anonymous]

Under certain circumstances, it's possible. But very unlikely. In most cases of "platonic" opposite sex best friends, the woman thinks it's platonic but the man wishes it wasn't.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/T_lh5fR4DMA

[Alina_980]

Yes but I will turn turn to be relationship later😆

[IslaTheWitch]

sure...

my male best friend and I will celebrate 40 years of our friendship in September.

[HelpfulWoman]

Easily. People really need to stop focusing on your friends genitals and you'd probably be fine.

[Summeroflove]

Yeah absolutely. When all you think about isn’t sex….

[CozyCoffin]

If both friends are committed to keeping the friendship platonic, then they can usually find a way to make it work.

[MrNameless]

Yes they can. It makes it easier if one is already taken, so boundaries don't get crossed.

[Nikki1989]

I have had mostly male friends for my entire life so obviously.

[Berethor]

Technically yes, but there was some sexual tension with almost all my female friends.

[mstbooblover]

Of course this is possible. Often a matter of maturity I guess, and of good manners.

[Anonymous]

My friend almost left his fiancé to be with me…

I don’t believe in pure friendship unless one of them is ugly or gay.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

One thing that might help here in Japan to prevent such situations is that typically the friend in this context would spend time with you together with his fiancé, and not just the two of you. We hang out more in groups here than one-on-one.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

I would generally consider it bad and suspicious, for example, if I had a close female friend I talked to and hung out with all the time one-on-one who isn't also very close friends with my wife and spent far more time together with my wife. The main way Japanese form deep friendships with the opposite sexes and keep them from going awry is to hang out with groups. If a close female friend of mine gets a new boyfriend, she introduces him to our group and we all get to know him and he becomes our close friend too.

[Opinion Owner]

@GuyAnswersGirls123 Yes, that is also same with Chinese people. My ex hang out in groups with his friends.

But my friend is British and his girlfriend is abroad, so we got friends one on one.

[Opinion Owner]

The Japanese do it right. But after I made it clear I only like him as a friend and I am interested in other men, he let it go and we became real friends.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

That's good that you two became real friends! For me one of my biggest culture shocks when I went to US was this notion that men and women can't be deep friends unless there's no physical attraction whatsoever. But I think the way we hang out together with friends might be a bit different to compensate for the risks.

Similar case when I was a bachelor and got a new girlfriend. I introduced her to my friend group which included my closest female friends, and typically they'd all become friends together. We all share our friends this way instead of keeping friendship private from our SOs.

[DJB72]

Why not? Not every boy-girl relationship is about sex

[MikeTheBartender]

As long as the girl is not hot we can be 100 percent platonic

[jahaims]

Duh, I have several. My longest one I've known for 13 years.

[clampfan101]

Absolutely. I’ve seen many of my past female friends as part of my family.

[rosemilk]

yeah sometimes

[NathanDavis]

I know so...

been over 20 years

[Jennz6]

Sure, why not?

[Friendlybro79]

Yes but it might not happen frequently.

[CubaPirate]

Without benefits?

[Tstrbrainer]

Theoretically possible

[whereismyjohnny]

Absolutely.

[HouseMoat]

NO. IT NEVER WORKS

[In_Trance]

never

[TallAnon]

I doubt it as well

[MarkPayne]

Yes I think they can