Opposite Gender Friendships

The purpose of me writing this is to emphasize that it is possible for a man and a woman to be friends without sex playing a major role in it. I have such a friendship and I will never give it up due to someone’s misconception of said friendship. It can happen, and believe me it is one of the best friendships you can possibly have. This type of friendship can assist you with your personal life in many ways.

Having a male friend or friends is fairly easy and should not be misconstrued as nothing more than just that. I have a female friend that obviously never established a friendship with the opposite sex and so once questioned if my husband has a problem with me going out to dinner with my male friend. My answer to that was “no.” My husband and I have a very secure relationship, and the reason for this is that we tell each other everything. He has female friends, just like I have male friends and we both know and respect them to the fullest because we know it is nothing more than a friendship.

When someone doubts the sincerity of a male and female friendship it is usually because they couldn’t sustain such a friendship without letting sex play a part in it. Just because you have a friendship with the opposite sex it doesn’t mean sex should be considered, because in all due honesty my male friends and I have never taken it to that level nor ever plan to. We have way too much respect for each other and the people we are with to ever even consider it, and the friendship just means that much more because of it.

So can a man and a woman be friends without the sex? Yes, absolutely, and it can be a very rewarding friendship if you ask me.

Everyone goes through phases in life that can alter their adult life substantially. As a child you see nothing wrong with making friends with the opposite sex, but as an adult many seem to think no such friendship can truly exist without the concept of the two sleeping together. To this I say you are living in an insecure state of mind, and the only reason you may think a friendship with a man and a woman can’t exist without sex is because you yourself have never been blessed with such a friendship.

My male best friend and I have been just that since we first met at the age of fourteen. Yes, I will admit the desire was there in his part when we first met, but the friendship was just too grand to take it elsewhere. It is due to this friendship that I have learned first hand how a man truly thinks, and how to determine if a man is worth your time or not.

As we grew older our conversations changed, our advice to one another when in a relationship increased and we became tighter than ever with no sex involved whatsoever. Yes, there came times when one of us would find someone who couldn’t understand the friendship and worried that it would become something more, but we never let that stop us from being each other’s friends and frankly nothing ever will.

Insecurity is a downfall many of us face, but I am just too blessed to let that get the best of our relationship. The friendship we share has lasted now twenty something years, we are both happily married to our respective soul mates now and we each have one child. Through the years we drifted apart a bit due to distance, but the communication is still ongoing, either via email or phone conversations and our friendship is as strong now as it ever was.