Can men and woman be friends? campus interviews from 2011

[Ikarus]

I think this video perfectly sums up the amatonormative cultural attitudes around men / woman friendship. The institution of marriage, heteronormativity, amatonormativity definitely influence peoples view of men and woman friendships.

If all of the influences lifted above lost their influence, would allo people still see men and woman as potential dates? 

I would like to hear your thoughts on some of the answers in this interview video. I think its interesting to hear allos answer to this question. Obviously the answer to this question at the end is incredibly amatonormative.  "As we can see after interviewing everyone in the library, it is impossible for men and women to be just friends and under no circusmstances can it happen." But it sounds like the guy says this somewhat jokingly by the tone of his voice when he says, we can clearly see after interviewing just a few folks in a library. 

 

[alto]

Honestly, it's a lot more complicated than the guy is making it out to be.  Just because a guy likes a girl or a girl likes a guy...it doesn't automatically spoil the friendship.  It doesn't automatically make the friendship "not a friendship".  I really like my current main dinner for companion, for example.  I'm pretty sure he's not interested in me back, because I am ace.  Are we any less friends for it?  No way!

[Firebird]

For once, I'm going to have to side with the men here, and say that gynophilic men and women can't be friends. I had to ditch all of my gynophilic male friends because of romantic feelings for me. It's easy to pretend that romantic feelings can just stay as nothing more than feelings. However, what eventually happens (in my experience) is the dude that has caught these feelings starts acting in a way that is toxic, manipulative, unethical, whatever the hell he thinks is necessary to make something happen that can't happen. I'm even starting to be sussed out by gynophilic enbies and women for similar reasons, except they are a lot less likely to catch feelings for me (because unlike men, they don't go for the first woman that shows them any sort of attention, even if it's platonic) but when they do... I am beginning to get more and more the feeling that I should just back tf away. As the saying goes: "All is fair in [romantic] love and war" and I am beginning to take this saying more and more at face value, in the sense that just like people at war can and will commit atrocities if they can get away with it, so too will people commit atrocities in the pursuit of a romantic goal, however unrealistic. Except the latter isn't judged as heavily as it should be, because "It's all in the name of love, how sweet/romantic".

I used to have only one male friend (the rest I dropped long before him because they tried getting into my pants), who I used to think is very close. Recently he started acting super toxic and manipulative, looking for every opportunity to put me down and complain about how I'm supposedly not giving him enough in the friendship. It later turned out that he's been living in a delusional romantic fantasy for about a year, and when I had to turn him down, he decided to retaliate by not being friends with me. So now I don't have any male friends, and I'm happier for it. I don't want to touch romance with a ten meter long pole anymore, because of how poorly I'm treated when I am the victim of romantic attraction. Next time there is even a slight sign of them, I'm ditching the other person.

Edited September 14 by Firebird

[Tangerine]

13 hours ago, Firebird said:

For once, I'm going to have to side with the men here, and say that gynophilic men and women can't be friends. I had to ditch all of my gynophilic male friends because of romantic feelings for me. It's easy to pretend that romantic feelings can just stay as nothing more than feelings. However, what eventually happens (in my experience) is the dude that has caught these feelings starts acting in a way that is toxic, manipulative, unethical, whatever the hell he thinks is necessary to make something happen that can't happen. I'm even starting to be sussed out by gynophilic enbies and women for similar reasons, except they are a lot less likely to catch feelings for me (because unlike men, they don't go for the first woman that shows them any sort of attention, even if it's platonic) but when they do... I am beginning to get more and more the feeling that I should just back tf away. As the saying goes: "All is fair in [romantic] love and war" and I am beginning to take this saying more and more at face value, in the sense that just like people at war can and will commit atrocities if they can get away with it, so too will people commit atrocities in the pursuit of a romantic goal, however unrealistic. Except the latter isn't judged as heavily as it should be, because "It's all in the name of love, how sweet/romantic".

I used to have only one male friend (the rest I dropped long before him because they tried getting into my pants), who I used to think is very close. Recently he started acting super toxic and manipulative, looking for every opportunity to put me down and complain about how I'm supposedly not giving him enough in the friendship. It later turned out that he's been living in a delusional romantic fantasy for about a year, and when I had to turn him down, he decided to retaliate by not being friends with me. So now I don't have any male friends, and I'm happier for it. I don't want to touch romance with a ten meter long pole anymore, because of how poorly I'm treated when I am the victim of romantic attraction. Next time there is even a slight sign of them, I'm ditching the other person.

I've had close male friends catch feelings for me too, and it's so disappointing. And I hate when they try to change my mind about romance. 😠

Edited September 14 by Tangerine

[nonmerci]

I think that as with everything, it depends on the people involved.

I was, maybe friends is not the word, but class comrades. It never was a problem with him that the guy was in love with me as he knew that no means no (and maybe, the way I said no scared him). The rest of the class though... the shipping was hard. But it didn't affect how we both interacted. 

 

However I think it only works with people who respect other people bondaries or who don't catch feelings. And also, people who don't struggle with their romantic feelings if they are caught... which is not the case of most people as even if they respect "no" as answer, they often need to distance themselves to get rid of these feelings (and they usually want to if they struggle with them).

 

So, yes, I think it is possible, but that if feelings are caught, it often means the end of the friendship or at least the end of how it was : it either turns into romance if the feelings are mutual, or create distance if they are not. So possible but complicated.

[DeltaAro]

On 9/14/2023 at 1:03 AM, Ikarus said:

I would like to hear your thoughts on some of the answers in this interview video. I think its interesting to hear allos answer to this question. Obviously the answer to this question at the end is incredibly amatonormative.  "As we can see after interviewing everyone in the library, it is impossible for men and women to be just friends and under no circusmstances can it happen." But it sounds like the guy says this somewhat jokingly by the tone of his voice when he says, we can clearly see after interviewing just a few folks in a library. 

But I have more thoughts regarding the video as a whole: I wasn't there when he did the cut. I haven't seen the raw source material. Everything that didn't fit the narrative may have been cut out.

Also: this guy really likes to vaunt being "politically incorrect" - but strangely, he stops halfway. What about differences in sexual attractiveness? That must be a factor, right? And here we just have conventionally attractive college-aged women...

On 9/14/2023 at 3:45 AM, Firebird said:

For once, I'm going to have to side with the men here, and say that gynophilic men and women can't be friends. I had to ditch all of my gynophilic male friends because of romantic feelings for me. It's easy to pretend that romantic feelings can just stay as nothing more than feelings. However, what eventually happens (in my experience) is the dude that has caught these feelings starts acting in a way that is toxic, manipulative, unethical, whatever the hell he thinks is necessary to make something happen that can't happen.

So if you're pan, you can't be friends with anyone?

[Firebird]

5 hours ago, DeltaAro said:

So if you're pan, you can't be friends with anyone?

Not what I implied, not going to clarify what's already clear.

[alto]

13 hours ago, DeltaAro said:

So if you're pan, you can't be friends with anyone?

Nevertheless, it's a valid point.

[Holmbo]

@Firebirdmaybe those guys were only "friends" with you because they actually wanted to date you. If so friendship wouldn't work. But I have male friends that doesn't want to date me and it works fine.

[DeltaAro]

On 9/16/2023 at 8:46 PM, Firebird said:

Not what I implied, not going to clarify what's already clear.

But you're also living in your own bubble (like everybody), and it's not clear if your experiences truly can be really generalized.

I suspect it has something to do with emotional maturity. So maybe it's like that for those teens or college students who are relatively carefree and over-fixated on romance. Those people may never even intend friendship. While in most cases, you know that pretty soon there are also those risk-adverse guys who drag it on.

More emotionally mature people don't do this and develop friendships for various reasons. Like for example, sometimes we get help from a person, who might be of the "wrong" gender.

It's kind of sad to believe that it's always just romantic / sexual feelings behind it. To take some random example, Edward Snowden was given shelter and hidden from the authorities by a poor Filipina woman in Hong Kong. So even in these circumstances, it would be fake when he calls her a friend? We must assume hidden romantic feelings. It can't be other feelings of sympathy. Sorry, I don't believe that.