Um, quite a lot, actually. It’s safe to say that most of the married people I know have more opposite-sex friends than most of the single people I know, because generally when people marry, their spouse’s friends get added to their own circle of friends, and vice versa, and when they make new friends after marriage they tend to befriend them as a couple. You don’t generally hear married couples say “Bob is my husband’s friend, and Bob’s wife Jane is my friend” – they say “Bob and Jane are friends of ours.” Obviously socializing-as-a-couple is a different case than what the OP is describing, but at the same time, it would seem pretty churlish for the wife in this situation to drop Bob’s friendship like a hot potato merely because he and Jane got divorced.
The distinction we’re drawing here is between “friends of the couple” and “friends of one of the participants”. All these married people you know. . .are you saying that the man has single, female friends and the wife has single, male friends that AREN’T friends of the couple? I have more single, female “friends” now than I did before we got married because of my wife. They’re still not my friends, like my male friends are my friends. I wouldn’t call one of them up to go to a bar and leave the wife at home.
Do you do those things with single, female friends – just the two of you?
Not so much with the bowling, mainly because none of my friends completely share the level of enthusiasm I have for bowling. I most definitely attend baseball games alone with single (and married, and otherwise taken) female friends. I also go in groups sometimes.
Why?
My SO goes to events with male friends (we’re both male, so it’s slightly different than opposite sex couples I suppose) where it’s just the two of them going to an event without me. It doesn’t bother me at all, actually I’m very happy that he has friends like that…it means when I want to stay in I can and he can go do things with someone else.
I’m a married person. Been married for 18 years, and I can’t say I agree with this.
I have male friends from way back in high school before I ever met my husband, and if he’d told me I could no longer be friends with them, I never would have married him. My friends and I have a common history that no one who wasn’t there at the time could share, one that is important to us all. There’s no way anyone else could be expected to somehow fill that place.
My husband has a female friend who he talks to frequently and sometimes he goes and visits her without me, which is just fine by me; she runs a farm, and he shares an interest in her rather esoteric type of farming. There’s really no way that I could expect to provide him with the common interest and conversation they share.
I’ve noticed the word ‘seek’ in some of the previous posts too - to me there is a big difference between actively looking for the attention of someone of the sex you’re attracted to (‘seeking’) and happening to develop a friendship with someone who happens to be of that sex.
Whaddaya mean “why”?
Obviously, because I’m asking about the nature of what you’re calling a “friend”.
I, personally, do not go to baseball games with single females. I can’t imagine who that person would be that I would say to my wife, “I’m going to the ballgame tonight with so-and-so. See you later.” Whether it was someone I knew long before we got married, or someone I’ve known since. I also don’t really have any married friends who I could imagine the man leaving his wife to go to a ball game with a single female.
I’ve already acknowledged that you (and several other folks in this thread) live a different lifestyle than I (and several other folks in this thread) do. I don’t expect you to understand what that’s like for me any more than I can understand what it’s like to think the way you do about marriage. That’s fine. You and your spouse obviously have an arrangement worked out that keeps you both happy and secure in your relationship.
However, I will reiterate what I said earlier – I think it’s absurd that you feel my way is wrong or that I’ve made a poor choice of a spouse because we don’t operate under the same assumptions that you do.
All I can do is say that I completely and thoroughly agree with Asimovian and couldn’t articulate it any better. Of course, he would be one of my good friends (though we live in different sides of the country) of the opposite gender so it would be difficult to disagree. I’m a female in a completely male dominated profession. If I couldn’t be friends with single guys I wouldn’t have friends. I’ve been friends with them as a married woman and as a single woman. And as a single woman I’ve been friends with married guys and with single guys. Of course there are some who can’t keep the “sexual tension element” out of the friendship so those I don’t see outside of work. Though now that I think about it those don’t become my close friends anyways. Different people obviously have different types of relationships and friendships and like Asimovian said, I don’t judge those like Trunk who won’t/can’t have friendships like that outside of marriage. And I’d hope he wouldn’t judge those of us who will/can. I hate to slide down the slippery slope of relativism but it seems clear that different people are comfortable with different types of relationships. Nothing wrong with that.
Well said.
I pick my friends on their personalities, not their gender or sexuality. I really can’t see why it should matter. You form a friendship with someone because their humour, insights, intelligence, and other qualities enrich your life - not because they’re a certain gender/sexuality. (I’m assuming it’d be unacceptable for me to have lesbian friends too?)
I’m *very *selective about who I consider a friend. I have plenty of acquaintances, but the Friend category is restricted to people who really impact on my life. I consider myself to have three Friends (4 if you include my husband - who truly is my best friend). Two are male and one is female.
There is no way I would just cut 2/3 of my friends out of my life for the crime of being the wrong gender; that’s disgusting. I couldn’t tolerate any relationship where my partner would want that.
Reading that, I wonder if maybe some of the problems in this thread are because we’re all using different language? I suspect we have different criteria for where we draw the ‘friend’ line. For example, I only use ‘friend’ to describe very close friends. Anyone else is an acquaintance.
In my case, I do not socialise with workmates or other acquaintances - male or female. I do not go out with them to movies or events, I don’t go out to dinner with them, I don’t visit the pub with them: I see them only within their context - be it at a friend’s house or at work - and that’s it. Lest anyone get the wrong idea, this isn’t out of consideration for my marriage: I’m just not a sociable person and I resent spending my personal time in the company of people I don’t genuinely care about. 
You make an excellent point, **Nytewatchyr **- if someone can’t keep the ‘sexual tension element’ out of things, they’re never going to make the leap from acquaintance to Friend. I have to feel comfortable with someone on every level before that ever becomes an issue. Perhaps this goes a long way towards explaining why a) my friendships are 100% above-board and b) my husband isn’t in the least bit jealous or worried by them.
That’s probably part of the differences of opinion, Bites. I don’t say that someone’s marriage is deficient if they have preferred gender friends outside of it; I do say that committed people who engage in intense, preferred gender friendships should do so very carefully, with full awareness of the pitfalls that they might not even realize they are walking into.
A loving spouse falling into infidelity does not have to be a symptom of a deeper problem with the marriage; in these days of everyone being active on the internet, emotional affairs have never been easier to slide into. It can happen to anyone who isn’t aware of what fire they are playing with, and don’t anyone kid themselves - male/female relationships almost ALWAYS have the potential to become romantic. You don’t protect yourself from crossing boundaries by not even acknowledging that they are there.
I would say that the people here who have successful preferred gender friendships probably are the people who are the most aware of and careful with boundaries, possibly without even realizing that they’re conducting themselves that way.
I think there is also another context. I travel a lot for work and am frequently interstate. When that happens I will always have some slight function with my colleagues whether it be drinks (okay, it is always drinks) or dinner but it makes not the slightest difference if they are single or married. Similarly, I will go out with them if they are in my home city.
To me, it would seem ridiculous to do otherwise. hy sit in a third rate hotel, being totally bored, when you could be enjoying yourself?