Friendship between men and women

Kilpikonna writes about impossibility of friendship between men and women. IMO the opinion that men and women cannot be friends is usually widespread among the following four groups of people: 1) people who are indeed so horny all the time that they are unable to think of anything else in the presence of the other sex, 2) people who genuinely believe that everyone wants to have sex with them all the time, 3) people who are severely jealous and are trying to isolate their partner from the friends of the opposite sex just in case and 4) cognitive lower class. I shall not speculate to which group(s) Kilpikonna belongs.

Sorry for the ad hominem.

Most of the believers in the impossibility of friendship between men and women make two claims: that any friendship between men and women involves sexual desire on one side or the other, or both, and that a friendship that involves such a desire cannot be considered a real friendship. The first claim is usually supported by personal experience and the second one by nothing at all.

As Kilpikonna mentions the first claim could be tested. We all know with whom we want to have sex and how much. The willingness of the friends of the opposite sex can be tested by asking them to have sex with you. Naturally this should only be done with the ones with whom you want to have sex, which skews the sample a bit. My fairly educated guess is that 10 years ago about one third of my male friends would have had sex with me if I asked; nowadays maybe one fifth, mostly due to the fact that nowadays most of them have wives or/and girlfriends.

Another way of testing this claim (or rather the claim that men are in the friendship only is hope of sex) is taking note of whether male friends disappear when either you or they find a partner. For some having a partner is no problem, but since when the object of your attentions gets a partner it lowers your chances severely, surely some guys would give up. In my experience, male friends do not usually disappear when they find a girlfriend, or when I find a boyfriend.

As to the second claim - I agree it wouldn't be pleasant if someone were "friends" with me just in hope of sex, but IMO it does not mean that sex or sexual desire spoils friendship. Yes, sometimes you want to have sex with your friends, and if you are lucky they want to have sex with you too. You don't wake up enemies the next morning, you are still friends, unless one or both are seriously fucked up. And sometimes you want to have sex with your friends and they don't, or maybe the other way around. You should be able to handle it. If you are pissed off by the fact that a friend has dared to express sexual interest in you, or if you are pissed off by the fact that after all these years your friend still doesn't have a slightest sexual interest in you, it's not because friendship between men and women is impossible. It's because you are being a bad friend. (Obviously if you have told them you are not interested and they continue insisting or asking way too often, they are being bad and not you.)