A Question For The Female Dopers...

In My Humble Opinion
21

I have several male friends that I wouldn’t sleep with just because I’m not sexually attracted to them. I know within 5 minutes (or less) of meeting a guy whether or not I’m going to have sex with him. My males friends are the ones I wasn’t sexually/physically attracted to and they’ve accepted that and decided that they’d rather be just friends with than to not know me at all. They are the guys that I found fun to be with and like to hang out with but would never have sex with.

The 2nd best male friend I have (my SO being the first) I’ve known for almost 9 years now and it’s been strictly platonic. I’m not sure how it happened but we just became really really good friends. There may have been some sexual attraction on his part when we first met but I know for a fact that there’s no sexual attraction now. It’s not that I excluded him from my list of potential relationships, I just wasn’t attracted to him in that way from the beginning so it was never an issue.

I’ve have sex with male friends before and it has always ruined the friendship even though we said it wouldn’t. I think there’s something about seeing your friend’s naked that just changes the relationship completely. You go from being good friends to just being acquaintences to saying things like, “Yeah, I think I know them.”

22

Thinking about this question, I can honestly say that with me you have to be a friend first before you get into my bed. But that doesn’t mean that by being my friend you will automatically get into my bed.

Partly, I’ve just never pursued casual sex. My shortest relationship involving sex was over two years, I’ve had no one-night stands. That’s just the way I operate, and that’s what works for me. On the plus side - I’ve always managed to remain friends with the former boyfriends, even after breakup.

I’m married now, and sticking to my husband, but if (god forbid) something happened to him… I’d say there are several guy-friends I have now that I would consider taking up with - but not all at once. But there are others that, while friends, I just am not sexually attracted to. My, that could be sticky!

Guys - is there a way to tell you “I like you as a friend but you just don’t boil my water?” without causing emotional distress and/or trauma? In my experience there are a lot of men out there who take a sexual turn-down (however polite) as a slap in the face rather than just a statement of preference.

23

No,our fragile egos depend on believing that secretly all women desire us. However, being married is a perfectly acceptable excuse to avoid a bedroom tango.

24

I’ve sorta’ done nearly the same thing…and I actually feel kinda bad about it. I’m in a situation sorta like you sound like you were in with your frind of 5 years (only mine’s been my friend for 6, and I can’t do any nasties because he has a girlfriend…damnit…but that’s another story). I feel as though I’m working my way up the line or something.

The thing is…even though I am a sexual being and enjoy talking about it, thinking about it, writing about it, doing it…my personal system of morals dictates that I have to actually CARE about the person I’m bonin’. For this reason, ONLY guys (or girls) who are actually friends of mine have a shot in hell at getting me into bed (assuming anyone would WANT to)…so I’m sort of the polar opposite of the type of chick mentioned in the OP.

25

*Guys - is there a way to tell you “I like you as a friend but you just don’t boil my water?” without causing emotional distress and/or trauma? In my experience there are a lot of men out there who take a sexual turn-down (however polite) as a slap in the face rather than just a statement of preference.
*

Sometimes a statement of preference can be a slap in the face.

Now, this is just my personal opinion, but at the same time I think I speak for many (though not all) guys when I say:

No. There is no way to turn a guy down that will not hurt him.

At least, not for most guys. There may be a very few, but most of the time, no way in hell. Don’t even delude yourself into thinking it’s possible.
I just recently got the “I just want to be friends” speech from a girl I really did like “that way.” I got pretty bitter, and you are about to taste the fruit of that bitterness. So forewarned, if you are of a fragile constitution, or are female and don’t want to hate me, stop reading NOW.

Still here? Okay, check this…

The best way to explain how a guy feels when a girl says “I just want to be friends” is to reverse the gender roles and figure out what the male equivalent of that phrase is.

Let’s for a moment resort to the stereotypical view of what men and women want out of a quote-unquote relationship. Women, the stereotype goes, are more interested in the companionship aspect of things. It’s not that the physical aspects are unimportant - but that they are less important for women than they are for men. And of course this is just a stereotype, there are individual women who do not fit it. The stereotype for men, naturally, is that they’re very interested in sex and the friendship aspects are a secondary benefit. Same caveats apply about this being a stereotype.

So, what it sounds like to a guy when you say, “I just want to be friends,” is “I’m not interested in what your needs are, but I can still get something out of this.” I’m not kidding, ladies - that’s what we hear. I know it’s truly your honest desire not to wreck the friendship, and you really do want to be our friends. But believe me, the phrase comes out so incredibly cruel to us.
So, what is the male equivalent of “I just want to be friends?” Well, following the stereotype of women wanting companship and men wanting sex, we can roughly imagine a scenario where a guy is propositioned for a more serious relationship by a woman he doesn’t have any desire to have a long-term friendship with, and the man replying “Well, I’m sorry, I really don’t like you as a friend, but we can still fuck.”

You see, the guy is just honestly trying to tell the woman what he wants here, but without lying to her about the real prospects of the situation. So that’s the male equivalent to “I just wanna be friends” - “We can still fuck.”
(Ohhhh boy… now I’m gonna get flamed…)
-Ben