Can Men and Women Be Friends?

A recent study (Article here) has been looking into whether or not men and women can be real friends. According to the team from the University of Wisconsin, despite thinking that heterosexual men and women (restricted to undergraduate students who were the participants) can "just be friends," we may in reality have underlying romantic feelings for our opposite gender "friends." The study found an significant difference (statistically at least) in the men's desire to date or being attracted to their female "friend" in comparison to women's attraction and desire to date their male "friends". However, they also found that women subcutaneously suspect that their male "friend" has romantic feelings while consciously underestimation the mutual lack of attraction that both parties may feel. As Scientific America summarized these findings

"Men seem to see myriad opportunities for romance in their supposedly platonic opposite-sex friendships. The women in these friendships, however, seem to have a completely different orientation—one that is actually platonic." (Men and Women Can't be "just friends?")

 Now can anyone spot the glaring flaw? These were undergrads! a bunch of horny young adults! And I say this while being a horny young adult myself, I agree that it is hard to think of others of the opposite sex as something more than a potential lover. but who knows maybe I am just a young adolescent male fixated on relationships and sex.... oh wait, the researchers thought of this too. That is right, their article continues with another study they did looking at a sample of 249 adults (take a look at page 579 or the article)! Among this sample were mostly people who were married or in a serious relationship. Here the researchers found that participants were about 5 times more likely to list "romantic feelings" as an outcome of opposite-sex friendships as a bad thing. Despite that,

"males on the younger end of the spectrum were four times more likely than females to report romantic attraction as a benefit of opposite-sex friendships, whereas those on the older end of the spectrum were ten times more likely to do the same." (more from the SA article)

 Now then, what do we get if we mix both studies findings? well it show that despite both men and women thinking that romantic relations from friendships are more of a bad idea than a good one. Men still hold out hope for further romantic relations.at the same time, women are able to be content in their friendships and in the status of their male friends. We hope to find something more and men might become more ill-content with their relationships as time goes on (another point of study to be explored). To find some that a person that a man can be themselves through and through around is a dream of every man.

Here is your BooMan rant of the day, some of it seems to be a bit off but i am mostly able to get my point across:
The old adage "a friend will help you move, but a real friends will help you move a dead body" is a nice way to describe men's value on friendship. A man's best friend is someone they can talk about most anything with (almost, lets keep in mind still that men tend to not be very mushy) but when push comes to shove a true friend is there for his friend. Now, I say all of this all while keeping in mind that women have best friends that are the same if not going further but as a man i don't really have a horse in that race so IDK (perhaps a nice reader could give their point of view, or not, hasn't happened yet lol). continuing on, for men that spectrum of activities/interests to emotions could be seen like line. For men they have things they like (I.E. sports, video games, other stereotypes) that many women may not be as gung-ho for, but their best friends are. The women they date may be in a circle on the other end where emotion is shared more than their interests, but where would a female friend who shares many of the same interests land? Who knows if such people (members a preferred sex who share in interests and are attracted to the you) really exist. Some days it is harder to believe that we will be able to find these people, but we can never give up hope. That is part of the wonder of humanity, there are far to many of us to just call of the search yet.

Food for thought from your friend,
BooMan