A guy in a newish group of friends likes to eat dinner with his female friends, one on one.
They aren’t dates though, but I’m near 30 and have never witnessed this among friends until now. Two female friends may go out to lunch or brunch. On occasion I hear about two guys doing it. But I have not previously witnessed one male friend and one female friend eating dinner alone.
How common is this? And should this make me feel uncomfortable?
He has offered to eat dinner with me on occasion. I have always declined. I can tell that he feels rejected, but I feel this puts me in an awkward situation. I’m friends with 3 of his exes. Two of those exes are still close friends with him. And one of exes I’m pretty close friends with. I don’t want to cause any tension.
I’ve had dinner one-on-one with guy friends before just as a way to hang out or catch up with someone - in that capacity I think it doesn’t suggest the guy has alterior motives. If this guy does this very frequently and repeatedly, and especially if it’s only women friends that he asks to dinner, it’s pretty weird.
I’m male, 30, single. I’ve gone out for a meal with female friends, many of them married. I don’t think it’s inappropriate as long as you understand what boundaries exist, and acknowledge if your SO or theirs has raised an objection, you should be fine. I don’t consider it cheating per se, but it can be a means of doing so if the right elements are in place.
I used to eat out with one of my female friends all the time. We weren’t dating - we had talked about it a bit, and realized that we were very different people in terms of dating…but great friends other than that. A lot of our other friends were couples, so we kind of “defaulted” to hanging out together.
Of course, most of our other friends started to think we WERE dating…so I understand how it looks from the outside.
Outside of me not being female, this is my point of view. The majority of my friends are female. I spend a lot of time with my friends as individuals and in groups. Almost all of them have met my SO and all are respectful of my relationship.
Having said that, I recognize that there are a lot of people out there who are not comfortable with the idea, and I will respect their opinion. Different things work for different people. So long as no one generalizes beyond their own situation, I don’t see a problem.
Not uncommon. I really like one-on-one interaction, and most of my friends are women, so it’s pretty common for me. It’s something that I don’t have any trouble doing on a totally platonic level. I’m a perennial “friend zone*” guy, and one of the upsides of that is I get to have really great female friends. However, I do go out one-on-one with guys (though it’s more beer-and-football than dinner-and-heartfelt-conversations-about-feelings) and my SO is perfectly comfortable with it. However, I’ve worked really hard to engender that kind of trust, and if she were unhappy, I’d rethink what I was doing.
*Not bitching, am in happy relationship with a nice girl, am a happy “friend zone” guy who is enjoying the friendships that come with it.
I go out to dinner one on one with my single male friends all the time. I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it if I weren’t single as well, but I am. I don’t see that it would be all that unusual- people get together to eat all the time, everywhere.
One of my best friends is male and we go to dinner and I’m not single. But I believe as long as you both know and understand that it is as friend than nothing is wrong with it. But in my situation I have been friends with this person and most of my male friends for 8-10yrs But that is just because I like my group of friends. And even in the beginning when I was first friends with people I still didn’t have a issue with dinner or going out to the bar like we use to do.
To expand further, my very best friend is a woman, and we used to eat out a lot together. We’d also go to movies, and do a lot of other one on one things that others would probably interpret as date-like but never were. We even went on a road trip together last summer and shared a motel room with her boyfriend’s full knowledge. We’ve never had any kind of awkwardness about it, nor have either of her partners, and I am honestly a little weirded out by people that think a man and woman can’t be just friends.
I’ve never gone to dinner as a twosome with a female friend, but I did go to a concert with a female friend a few months ago, and it absolutely wasn’t intended or construed as a date. The original idea was that our whole circle of friends (including the lady in question’s boyfriend) would be going, but it turned out that the two of us were the only ones able to make it. So I wouldn’t think much one way or the other of this fellow just happening to have a few dinners one-on-one with female friends.
On the other hand, if he’s specifically making it a policy to do this specifically with his female friends, and specifically just the two of them at a time, then I’d say that he has motives he’s not sharing. Which still might not be at all nefarious; it’s hardly unheard-of for a friend to become a girlfriend. Maybe he’s just trying to decide whom he wants to ask out “for real”.
I’ve done it before, mainly to take advantage of 2 for 1 cinema and the cheap restaurant next door. The cinema was the deciding factor; it was always, “Hey, X is playing, want to go and grab dinner beforehand?” rather than, “Hey let’s go out tonight and maybe see if there’s a movie on as well.”
I do it all the time myself. In a relationship or not, if they’re in a relationship or not. My girlfriend doesn’t mind and I don’t mind if she does it - which she does too. They’re my friends, why wouldn’t I go for food with them?
My best friend is female, and we go out for dinner together whenever we can. I think we would even if we were both single.
It seems pretty unremarkable in my circle of friends to have mixed gender “non-dates”…but to be fair, there are relatively few heterosexuals in said circle.
