See, I don’t see that as shallow - you can’t will chemistry into existence, and no matter how much you like someone and no matter how well you get on, a relationship is pointless without it.
All of my male friends are great guys - fun, interesting, good company - but I’m not physically attracted to them, so a relationship was never going to be on the cards. There are a couple of exceptions - guys who’ve I got to know since meeting my husband, who had I met earlier I would have considered relationship material - but on the whole they just aren’t my type. Not shallow, IMO, just human nature.
Old enough to be my dad,
Young enough to be my son,
Taken,
Gay,
Incompatible lifestyles/cultures/whatever…
So in short, I enjoyed their conversation and our time together but there was no physical interest on my part, on theirs or on both, or a very good reason why any such interest would get a kick to the balls if it dared rear its head.
And that’s about it. Friendship needs to involve my brain. Sex seems to have a way of bypassing my brain. Partnership would involve both.
It would depend on the reason. The age thing for example, or being my coworker, isn’t something it would take me a long time to figure out. Other things may need application of a clue by 4.
Not in a few seconds, but I’d say by the end of the first time I’ve met him.
I just recently met some guy friends of a co-worker. By the end of the party I knew two of them would be just friends, and one of them has serious potential to become more.
That’s a good way to look at it. I guess I’m just afraid of coming off as too judgemental, especially at the first meeting, and not giving someone a chance to show who they really are. Making snap judgements based on first impressions or something…doesn’t seem very wise.
That sounds about right. The first evening I met my husband, I knew within a few hours that I was interested in him romantically, not just as a friend. In addition to the nebulous but very important “chemistry” aspect, there are some other big reasons why I’d be friends with a man I wouldn’t date:
Religion–I’m not religious, and while I can respect it in other people, I’d have a hard time dating someone religious.
Lifestyle–I lead, for lack of a better word, a grown-up lifestyle. I work a 40-hour week job, own a house, pay bills on time, etc. I’m not a big partier. Someone who’s still living with their parents or who works a series of crappy jobs and shares a house with 4 other people might be a completely awesome guy, but we’re probably not going to be compatible romantically.
Drinking/drugs–I’m a moderate drinker, but I wouldn’t date anyone who gets drunk on a regular basis. I don’t do drugs and wouldn’t date anyone who does anything more than smoke pot at a party once in a long while.
Even if we have all the sparks in the world, those items are dealbreakers.
I guess it all depends on how your approach a relationship with the opposite sex, be it platonic or romantic or somewhere in between.
If you constantly start off by evaluating a member of the opposite sex based on their potential for romance first and then downgrade to friendship if they don’t meet the criteria, then I suppose you could argue that friendship is the booby prize.
In my experience, it’s very rare that I know right off the bat that a guy is BF potential, but I’ll usually know within the first few minutes whether I’d like to have him as a friend. In fact, most of my romantic relationships started off as friendships that evolved over time… it’s often been several months into the friendship before it becomes apparent that there’s a spark of interest (of course, it could also be that I’m clueless like that… but I’d like to think otherwise ).
So I guess I look at romance as the prize in the Cracker Jack box, it’s a nice bonus, but I never planned on more than caramel corn.
I would guess we are pretty different in this respect; I usually know pretty well right away whether I’m sexually attracted to someone, relatively soon whether there is any reciprocal interest or “spark”, and only later, after there has been some … reciprocation, whether this is going to be a fling or a serious relationship … and being friends is something that usually takes just as long to develop. After all, a friend and a serious romantic relationship are based on many of the same things - shared sensibilities, interests and values, trust, etc.
Though put all that in the past tense, as I’ve been married for over a decade. The only carnal corn I sample now is home-made.
Chemistry. Women are much better than men at establishing genetic compatibility through smell and taste. If I don’t feel that chemical attraction then it isn’t going to be there. I’ve tried dating guys that were great ‘on paper’ but with whom I felt no spark and the spark never developed. No matter how wonderful the guy is, if I don’t feel that attraction, we’ll never become more than friends.
maggenpye’s decreasing sets nails it. Friends are people I like spending time with. Boyfriend/SO is a specific subset of that. And yes, you’re going to be my friend before you’re my boyfriend. If I don’t like you well enough for you to be a friend, why do I want to spend even more time/energy on you?
Having always picked out my dates “by nose” I’m willing to believe it. But it’s a culturally disturbing thought that I’d pick out my dad’s shirt for a date. :eek: There was another study a few years ago that tracked women’s choices by family pheremones, but my google-fu is failing me. The study used a pool of women from an American religious sect that discouraged exogamy. It was related to the discussion in this article MHC genes, body odours, and odour preferences | Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation | Oxford Academic.
If anybody else remembers the article and can find it, I’d be grateful.
If this is the same study I am thinking of, which it might not be but it sounds pretty similar, the women chose the she shirts of the men who were as genetically different from them as possible. They wouldn’t have picked the ones that were most like their dads, they picked the ones that were genetically and phermonally least like themselves and their family.
As I was reading the responses, I was thinking to myself, I have never made a decision if a man was boyfriend material or not in 30 seconds. Usually it takes me a long time to get to that point to know if I want to sleep with someone or not.
But then I thought, that’s because almost all of my friends were doable. There was always a spark. No spark, no friendship. And I knew if I could be friends with someone within 30 seconds. So I guess it does apply.
Now it’s a little different-workers*, my friend’s spouses, fathers of my kid’s friends. etc.
My husband was a coworker, and although I got along with him well, I was in no mood for a relationship, and he didn’t have a BRIGHT spark at first. After a while he convinced me. We still have a great spark, even when I want to set him on fire.
*Although I will remark that at a company dinner, I was looking around at the dozen or so workers (all male) and thinking to myself, “Wow, I have some really hot guys working for me.” I had never thought too much about it, until we all were sitting at one table. Sure they are all different ages, sizes, personalities, and levels of attractiveness, but they all looked great. One of the bennies of working in a male dominated field.
).
