# Can people in committed relationships have opposite sex friends? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 21, 2006, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-people-in-committed-relationships-have-opposite-sex-friends/365546 "2006-07-21T22:18:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-people-in-committed-relationships-have-opposite-sex-friends/365546/101 "2014-05-07T13:30:51Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I can’t answer this question as asked, but as a gay man, all my closest friends are also gay men, and same for my boyfriend, and I don’t find it the least bit threatening and neither does he. I can’t imagine why it should be any different for heterosexual folk. You should start a thread about this. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-people-in-committed-relationships-have-opposite-sex-friends/365546/102 "2014-05-07T13:44:44Z")
> [@Unintentionally\_Blank](#): > > I think what’s being missed here (or perhaps I’m too far gone on a Saturday night to see it) is this: > > Infidelity is not the cause, it’s the symptom. If a person’s needs are being met within the marriage, infidelity doesn’t happen. > > This has NOTHING to do with the folks you pick as friends. If your marriage has issues such that you look elsewhere hard enough, some opportunity will arise. I don’t buy this 100%. Many of what we think of as needs are deficiences in our personality and emotional issues we have yet to resolve. A spouse may not always be aware of these things or should be expected to be everything to someone. ---
**Author:** ![Calatin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/439d5e/32.png) [@Calatin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calatin)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-people-in-committed-relationships-have-opposite-sex-friends/365546/103 "2014-05-07T14:41:11Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I can’t answer this question as asked, but as a gay man, all my closest friends are also gay men, and same for my boyfriend, and I don’t find it the least bit threatening and neither does he. I can’t imagine why it should be any different for heterosexual folk. Exactly. When I was in my LTR, my ex would have a night out with his two best guy friends, and I never imagined the three of them would break out into a threesome or anything like that. Additionally, when he worked odd hours due to his job, I would go out with some of my guy friends, who he’d never met. It was never an issue. When we broke up, my next roommate was another gay guy (who later became one of my best friends) who joked about how great it would be for two guys to live together because we wouldn’t have to worry about being naked around each other. In the year that he lived there, nothing happened between us. I wasn’t in a relationship at the time, but I can’t imagine that as soon as I started dating someone, a switch would flip in my mind, and suddenly he’d become an object of lust. The author sounds like a controlling, manipulative person who wants to micromanage every aspect of his SO’s life. I knew people like that in college -including a guy who (on more than a few occasions) forbade his girlfriend from going out with her pre-existing guy friends. He would make her change her clothes if he didn’t approve of them, and would dictate who she could see and what they could do. They are “happily” married, but speaking to other friends who know them, as well as some of her family members, she’s essentially become a “Stepford Wife.” ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-people-in-committed-relationships-have-opposite-sex-friends/365546/104 "2014-05-07T15:58:12Z")
I looked at the thread title and thought, “There’s no way Cat Whisperer is starting this thread in 2014.” Turns out I was right. But since I’m here, I’ll re-ask my now years-old question for today’s modern audience: > [@Asimovian](#): > > Related to that, I pose a geniune question to those of you who feel that you or your SO should avoid preferred-sex friendships: if it was in your SO’s nature to be gregarious and friendly with their preferred sex before the two of you were together, are you saying that you feel it’s appropriate for them to change who they are (or for you to change who you are) for the sake of your relationship? I guess what I’m driving at is, didn’t you get together with them in the first place because of who that person was as a whole? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-people-in-committed-relationships-have-opposite-sex-friends/365546/105 "2014-05-07T16:55:51Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > **Protect your marriage from emotional infidelity by avoiding members of the opposite sex.** Or, alternatively, protect your opposite-sex friendships by avoiding marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-people-in-committed-relationships-have-opposite-sex-friends/365546/106 "2014-05-07T17:08:33Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I don’t buy this 100%. Many of what we think of as needs are deficiences in our personality and emotional issues we have yet to resolve. A spouse may not always be aware of these things or should be expected to be everything to someone. But there are ways and ways to fulfill any need, and sometimes fulfilling one leaves others un-fulfilled. If someone’s need to fuck their friend B is greater than the fulfillment they get from their marriage to A, there is something very fucked up with the marriage - from that someone’s idea of what “marriage” and “love” mean, to a lack of communication or the good old “we grew up in different directions”. Fucking someone doesn’t just happen. ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-people-in-committed-relationships-have-opposite-sex-friends/365546/107 "2014-05-07T18:08:14Z")
My contribution to the zombie thread: If my girlfriend prohibited me from having female friends, the marginal difficulty of cheating would be reduced – it would take nearly as much sneaking around to have a Platonic drink with a woman as to spend the time in a rather more entertaining manner. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-people-in-committed-relationships-have-opposite-sex-friends/365546.md?page=5)