If you didn’t know… upon meeting someone, it takes about 3 minutes (if not sooner) for us to identify our physical attraction towards them. I, for one, actually take great pleasure in the thrill of letting my mind run wild of temptation during those few minutes before I drop back into reality and ‘act normal’. The other day, I was a ‘fly on the wall’ to a very interesting conversation concerning genuine friendship between a man and a woman.

Do you think a man and woman can have a strictly platonic friendship with someone they find physically attractive?

Obviously, this can’t be applied to everyone in the world, but thinking generally, I’d have to say, no–here’s why:

With men, let’s face it, they want to get in our pants–even if they’re willing to work for it–ultimately, that’s what it comes down to. I am not saying that a man doesn’t have the ability to resist the temptation of physical and sexual attraction, but it’s in the back of his mind somewhere. Ladies, if you don’t believe me… try serving up your milkshake to that ‘friend’ and see if he doesn’t come to the yard.  

Now, in the conversation I spoke of earlier, this was the end of the argument. Granted, two men were speaking, so they didn’t feel the need to lie about things (from their perspectives). Men want sex. They want other things too, but sex is definitely important. They ended saying that they feel like a women can be in a platonic relationship with a man, but it just doesn’t work that way for men. Here’s where I disagree.

With women, I believe we do the same thing men do, more or less, in that first three minutes of meeting. Depending on the dialect and the dialogue within that three minutes, we’re now considering him as a potential partner. 

Sure at first, we might sike ourselves out by calling it potential ‘buddy’ instead of partner, but we’re women. We emotionally attach at some point. Just as I gave the men credit for, women do have the ability to undermine their feelings and resist showing this to the man. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have an ulterior motive behind the ‘friendship’ just like men. So it’s not all strictly platonic for us either even if it’s not about the sex.

I think the better question is should men and women have strictly platonic friendships if they’re just resisting real emotions and feelings?

 As I mentioned earlier, I’m not applying this to everyone as whole. I’m also not discrediting anyone who is genuinely carrying out a strictly platonic friendship with the opposite sex. I’m just one to believe that life is about risk. I say dive in!

If you’re lucky, you’ll end up with the buddy and the booty. I think the only thing worse than liking a friend of the opposite sex is pretending not to.