This is a sort of companion thread to A Question For The Male Dopers… over in MPSIMS, but since it seems like a poll, I’m putting it here in IMHO.
The question in that other thread was, “Do you secretly lust after your female friends?” I’d like to turn that around a bit and ask the SDMB ladies: why do women seem to exclude their male friends from the pool of guys they’d like to have sex with? The usual answer I’ve heard is, “I wouldn’t want to mess up the friendship,” but honestly, you’re friends, so you know you get along great and like each other already. Wouldn’t that make it so much better? And even if you eventually broke up, at least you tried for something greater instead of settling for something comfortable, right?
So, what’s the deal? Why are men in the dreaded Friend Zone doomed to stay there?
I have three guy friends right now that I’d love to have sex with.
But I’m married, dammit!
I was never one to exclude guy friends from the sex pool. In fact, every boyfriend I’ve ever had (including my husband) has started out as just a pal that I hung around with.
As a general rule, I don’t exclude male friends from the “Hell, yeah, I’d sleep with 'em” list… But I do prefer to try to have a relationship with the guy rather than just sex. It’s definitely a crap shoot, though. I’ve had some friendships that progressed into great relationships with the addition of sex, and others that it has ruined. You’re right, thoutgh… starting things off with a friend, who you already know you like and have a lot in common with, is a much better place to start than just grabbing someone off the street.
However: As Wicked Blue says, that’s a good line to let the guy know that you honestly like him as a friend, but don’t find him sexually attractive. I have one very good male friend, known him for 12 years, that I’ve often lusted after. However, we would never “work” as a couple, and I like & respect him enough that I don’t want us to feel awkward or anything.
Also, unless you think you’re going to make a go at being a romantically linked couple, it can be risky if both parties don’t have the same expectations. I think there should be some understanding that if you both just are curious & want a casual sexual fling, then you can maintain the friendship status quo afterwards whether the sex was ho hum, or whether its mind blowing.
My two best male friends: One is gay, and therefore has already excluded himself (dammit), and the other is practically my brother. Sex with him would feel like incest. Even if he were attractive.
And sometimes it’s not just a line…sometimes we really DON’T want to screw up the dynamics of the relationship. Occasionally women do say what they mean.
I’m curious if you are asking if there are male friends that I wouldn’t mind jumping in the sack with in theory, or if there are male friends that I would actually jump in the sack with, and then part B, if you mean casual sex or sex with at least the potential for a relationship.
In the first scenario, sure, I have a lot of male friends about whom I occasionally think “Hmmm, that Bob is darn cute” or “I wonder what Steve would be like in bed” or “Woohoo, MaxTorque is looking like a mighty slick cat in that tux!” Of course, I also think this about attractive people I see on the subway, and I’m not going to have sex with them either. It’s more of a passing sexy thought. That’s what came to my mind when I read the “secretly lust after” thread aimed at guys.
Every guy I’ve ever had a relationship with was my friend first … oh wait, except for one, and that was a complete disaster. Of the guys who were friends first, I’m pretty proud that they are all still my friends after.
In my own experience, “I don’t want to risk our friendship” is really a euphemism for “I’m not interested, thanks.”
I had a three year relationship with a man that I had been friends with for about a 18 months before we started dating. So I definitely don’t, as a rule, exclude male friends from the “dating pool.”
However, many of my male friends are people that I have met through work, and as a general rule, I won’t date men that I have to work with (meaning I have to interact with them on a daily basis at work - if it’s occasional work contact that’s different).
And I do have some male friends that are fine as casual friends, fun to have a drink with once in a while, etc., but whom I would never date for various reasons. One in particular never seemed to treat the women he dated very well, another was just a little too odd, and so on.
Also, I think part of the fun of dating is getting to know the other person. Another issue is that, in general, if you have that elusive thing known as “chemistry” with someone, you tend to know it fairly soon after meeting them. So it’s often easy to dismiss dating long-standing friends because it’s very easy to say “But we’re just friends; there’s no chemistry or something would have happened a long time ago.”
Fuck Buddy Answer
I’d consider it, but it has never worked out that way.
My best FB ever was also my good friend. Ironically, I met him as the (then) boyfriend of my (then) good friend. We hit it off as friends immediately. Eventually, he and my former friend broke up (partially because I think she was “wise” as to what was going on). At that point, our “friendship” had already intensified (ahem), but we were still just friends. We eventually decided we needed to make it official when he said “I Love You” in a, um, “fit of passion.” Unfortunately, it came to sad end over a stupid spat, and I haven’t talked to him since.
Am I upset over losing him? Not really. He taught me a lot (believe me, I was a willing pupil), and I will never regret that. The only thing I would change would be the way it ended. I would love to have his friendship again.
So yes, sex between friends messes us the relationship, but you never know what you’re going to miss unless you try.
Hmm…individual by individual. I prefer starting relationships from friendships. (Only once have I ended up slobbering on a guy within hours of meeting him. I was in my sensitive poet stage and he knew Romeo and Juliet as well as I did. It is unavoidable to fall for someone who can match you in the balcony scene when you aren’t in the production. Currently, I prefer Chasing Amy or Taming of the Shrew.)
But other than that, its a good couple of months (if not years) of totally platonic popcorn throwing, whine fest, study group fun before I get the hots for a guy.
Currently, if I could avoid all possible negitive repercussions, I’d hop in the sack with about 20% of my guy friends. The differences between do-able friends and un-do-able friends are hard for me to define.
We can look at Perrico and Justin for instance. Both cute funny wonderful guys. Perrico was in my Physics class. We re-wrote the labs in Ebonics for fun, watched MADTV every week on the phone together, and he’d play my favorite song from JCSuperstar as a goodbye/goodnight. eventually someone asked “Why aren’t you two going out?” my answer was “He hasn’t asked me yet.” It was a great relationship.
Justin was in my humanities honors thingmy. We wrote papers and did projects together so often the teacher stopped asking who we had in our group. He’d spend three evenings a week or so at my house where we would cook dinner together. Same question. We looked at each other in surprised horror for thirty seconds. “Nahhhhh.”
shrug Some guy friends are only guy friends. Others are potentials. Sometimes even I can’t tell the difference until I actually fall for a guy.
There are a few guys that I’m friends with just because they’re FB potential, and then there’s friends I occasionally stumble upon romantic interest in, and then there’s my friends who are like brothers and sisters to me. Currently I have most of my friends in category C, one in category B, and one in category A. Occasionally the friends do switch categories and confuse the hell out of me.
I’m very single-minded when it comes to amourous relationships… I really am put off by the thought of doing the matress mambo with someone when I’m all ready involved with someone else. Sure, some of my male friends are pretty easy on the eyes, but the thought of actually sleeping with them creeps me out. Just my slant on the whole thing…
I never excluded my male friends from the FB pool, or even the Serious Relationship pool.
What excluded them from the SR pool was knowing them long enough and well enough to see how they were in other relationships or spending enough time with them to seeing all those annoying habits some of them have. I can handle said habits in a friend, but in an SO they would drive me nuts.
My beast male friend and I were FB for about a year and then I met someone I wanted a serious relationship with and we broke off the FB part of our relationship with no detrimental effects to our friendship.
I also have lusted after guy friends, and twice I acted upon those lustings.
I admit that in each case I was attracted to them from the beginning, but both times, by the time things between the guy and I got really interesting ;), we were good friends.
Both romances ended, but there’s not a single kiss or caress I regret. I’m still friends with both of them, and I’m grateful for that.
I don’t get it. Wicked Blue is right that that’s just a line, but then again it’s actually true?
I’m a guy. I’ve had many friendships with women that I’d bed in a second, and some wherein I knew that that particular feeling was mutual. I’ve used that ‘line’ before, but only when it was actually true. There are times when you actually do want to be friends with someone, and know that taking the relationship into the physical realm would be a bad idea. It’s hard to resist, though.
I have very few guy friends that I haven’t hooked up with**. I’ve never found it to mess up the frienship, with the exception of one, but that was a long and screwed up relationship to begin with.
**I was discussing this with one of them last week, that it was amazing he’d been one of my best friends for going on 5 years now, and we hadn’t done anything sexual. The night ended with me giving him a blowjob…well, scratch that one off the list…
Why ban my male friends from the sex pool? Individually, there’s reasons—A. is attracted to me but his self-esteem is so low that he seeks very controlling women and I continually think “Who wants to follow THAT bitch!?” Seemingly, he wants to be whipped and I’ve never been into that. J. likes being the man in charge with all the answers and if he can protect and serve me, he is happiest. But if he can’t, he tries to invent reasons that I need him and I don’t like his attempts to erode my confidence. M. is 41 and lives with his fundy mother although since my bf has been on the scene, I don’t see much of M.
Since I want more than occasional sex, I have opted to seek out a man who has more qualities that appeal to me and less qualities that don’t. I have not ever told any of these men that sex would screw up our friendship—not having sex with them has kind of screwed up our friendship enough. Me having sex with someone else isn’t their idea of a good choice for me.
