Best friends of the opposite sex-c/d?

Dud... when you develop a thing for them... It happens too often for my taste.

Actually typing that I'm not sure how true it is.

Yeah, though, classic. Making friends with someone because you fancy them and are too chicken/taken to do something about it is dud, except often you find you end up with a good friend at the end of it. So even that is classic hooray.

Having a male best friend is weird, it's kinda like having allies on the enemy side.

I also like the Oscar thing. Best Friend to see Movies with, Best Friend To Share Bad Personal News with......

Of course if you were a girl...

"I mean it's always the boy harbouring unrequited feelings for the girl, isn't it? Has anyone got any experience of it being the other way around?"

*unhappy raise of the hand*

(a) Unless it's a tongue down the throat situation, guys are notoriously inept at picking up on when a girl really likes them. I certainly place myself in this category.

(b) The way that women express attraction towards a member of the oppopsite sex is, shall we say, more subtle?

Sorry for making sweeping gender generalisations here, but it's what I feel to be true.

isn't this the attitude that spawned a thousand bad emo songs? jee-ZUS.

Maura, I was being a bit facetious. But I do think that with male-female friendships it happens more that way round. Women want new dangerous dark strangers. RWOAR! Of course, there's definitely an element of the woman would never say anything anyway, so no one finds out.

Without knocking her appeal and grace at all -- for she has plenty -- friend Karen mentioned above, who I've known for about seven years now, has never been an object of unrequited affection. I think it's because we both met after breaking up with other people, and rather than rebounding with each other we just wanted to chat and work through things. It has all turned out for the best, I think. :-)

Where it does get dodgy is hanging out with her (female) friends, trying to work out whether they're mates, potential girlfs or both.

All my best friends are girls. But I don't know if this = opposite or not.

Comedy answer: It's like the rhythm method.

(Obviously shaking head because of how quickly people make assumptions, not because I'd be ashamed or anything)

the benefits outweight the quibbles anyway

your friends are losers.

similarly kate, i too am missing having a best friend of either gender

But that could be because the only men I can really get close to emotionally are ones that I cannot fancy in any way because of either 1) being brother surrogates or 2) being the partner of friends so off limits anyway

I don't either!

well now, that makes no sense

Might make a good trailer voiceover for a dark romcom based on Ste's life.

ugh! the worst! where do all of these terminally insecure girls come from, and why do many of my friends end up dating them?

This is staggeringly WTF, to me. But then again, my best mate is a guy and I have a lot of male friends, including quite a few exes!

revive!

because i've just realised the downside of having predominantly female friends: now they're all getting married to people i don't necessarily know all that well, i get no stag and no hen. that sucks.

classic! my best mates are all girls. i don't much care if that reflects negatively on me.

Classic, and to answer charlie's specific point, if in the unlikely event I were to get married my stag would be open to all genders because I am a filthy hippy.

i miss having lots of female friends at university. it was like having 10 extra sisters.

I have been honorary hen, and my stag was open to all. 21st century etc.

I had (what I thought was) a very good and special guy-friendship turn sour and fall apart on me last year, and I'm still getting over it. In some ways it's been as hurtful and hard to deal with as the loss of a romantic relationship, as he'd been an important part of my life for a long time. It's not something I think I would want to go through again.

Heh I was wondering if I'd posted to this, AND I HAD.

Classic. The biggest problem that my female best friend and I have experienced is if we go out drinking together, people will assume that we're chatting each other up and therefore not hit on us. And fuck all that shit. Also, our landlord kept thinking we were married, which was awkward. But that's a problem with society in general, not in my relationship with her.

I've also got the problem of "who is going to be the best man in my wedding"? I do have guy friends, but none as close as my female friends. I can't handle a lot of the gender-based trappings that come with weddings. (x-post) Ed OTM

because i've just realised the downside of having predominantly female friends: now they're all getting married to people i don't necessarily know all that well, i get no stag and no hen. that sucks.

-- CharlieNo4,

I would call this cause for celebration. You mean you *want* to give up a precious weekend and spend something approaching £200?

The biggest problem that my female best friend and I have experienced is if we go out drinking together, people will assume that we're chatting each other up and therefore not hit on us.

This is true. :-(

Maybe we should have got badges made saying "I'm not with him/her!" or something.

I've also got the problem of "who is going to be the best man in my wedding"?

Well as I posted a bit upthread eff that shit, I was best man at my mates wedding, and B's best (male) mates were "bridesmaids". We'd contemplated making them wear kilts but the fuckers piked, so in the end we all wore black pants, white shirts, and braces.2 girls and 2 guys. It rocked.

Oh hell, I would've worn a kilt to be a bridesmaid! That's so awesome, Trayce.

always liked the sound of this

classic. especially when you go out drinking and then drunkenly hit on each other for fun

I would call this cause for celebration. You mean you *want* to give up a precious weekend and spend something approaching £200?

well, not specifically! but i would like to spend some quality time with some of my oldest friends before they get hitched and effectively disappear for months on end, but for the simple fact of my gender to render this situation apparently unworkable is immensely frustrating.

makes mental note: must get more filthy hippie friends. oh wait...

Many of my friends are drrty poly people so they'll happily let you snog them/fondle their boobs/grab their arse/sleep with them. I dont take advantage of this state of affairs, but hey, its there.

several of my bestfriends are guys and i've only slept with one of them (we became bestfriends after being a couple first).

i have a 'new' bestfriend who is a bloke, and i'm also madly in love with him (see 'every relationship ever' thread), and he lives about a million miles away... but i think it's classic: he's my bestmate so i want to see him happy even if that ends up meaning he's with someone else.

trayce, you said you're going thru a similar thing: details!! i could do with hearing someone else's experience

[latest news on that relationship: the ex who is now a bestmate has offered to loan me the money to go visit the new bestmate who i'm in love with... things are looking up!]

Ruby: click on my link thingy and email me, I'll go into more detail if you like.

classic, except that my wife doesn't seem to like it all that much

trayce, i'm not sure if i'm retarded or the link thingy isn't working...

I've been lucky in that I've been prepared for GFs to not like it, but none have been bothered! My wife is cool with it, even though one of my female friends is also an ex.

i guess your wife figures you'd still be with this girl if there was anything more to it than friendship. she must be a sensible and smart lady :)

being a dude that gets along better with females than males, i have a million female friends, and have been given a death sentence by several boyfriends over the years. on top of that, there's the "i have a boyfriend now so i'm going to forget you exist for a few months k thx bai" which gets old fast.

plus, many of these female friends live around the country, so i get the "you're flying across the country, and you're NOT going to fuck her?" speech from several idiot males. very tiresome.

She can't be that smart, she married me! xpost

Ruby I got yr email :)

Ruby - did you see my comment to you regarding your internet romance in the other thread! Trayce is right, it's hard work but it can work out. I say be sensible but go for it. If you don't, you'll always regret not knowing.

Oh and classic. One of my closest friends in the world is a man and I love him to pieces. Sure, there was some grey areas along the way but 10 years later our friendship is stronger than ever. In fact, he just asked me to be a "groomswoman" in his wedding next year!!

i think you're absolutely right, it's just really hard overcoming that gut pessimism and fear. but i'm taking the offer of a loan to make the trip as a sign from god, jesus, buddha, electricity, quantum physics, or the almighty Dog, that going there is the right thing to do - no matter how it pans out.

the chili peppers said it best: "it's better to regret the things you did, than the things you didn't do"

Actually, I think that was SATAN by way of the Butthole Surfers, but hey, even the devil has some good advice.

i thought it was by way of Orbital?

Orbital sampled the Butthole Surfers. MUSIC WASN'T INVENTED IN 1990 YOU KNOW. < / pedant >

well i never

Have a drink?

well I never

i still like the way the chilis said it, best.

curse me and my taste for mainstream manufactured rock.

MUSIC WAS INVENTED IN 1990 ACHERLEY AND ALL MUSIC FROM BEFORE THEN WAS TRANSPORTED BACK IN A TIMEMASHEEN!

I had (what I thought was) a very good and special guy-friendship turn sour and fall apart on me last year, and I'm still getting over it. In some ways it's been as hurtful and hard to deal with as the loss of a romantic relationship, as he'd been an important part of my life for a long time. It's not something I think I would want to go through again.

this happened to me abt 2 yrs ago and confused and hurt me, as i have always had close male friends (warranted some of them were/are exes) - but hey, it gets marks for being a Total Learning Experience.

at this point i'm all about talking out the sexual tension, if it exists, before it hits the breaking point anyway - but it's difficult to do/find a good time to address! and then there's the 'let's make out ONCE but not actually sleep together' and then agree that that's it and it'll be done and lalala. sometimes this works.

(the above situation of 2 yrs ago was totally platonic but involved mistakingly going out with a good friend of his with whom things turned sour and which hurt my emotional brainplace and made me kinda dumbmn. uhh.)

but mostly when a guy friend who i cleary really just want to be friends or co-workers or wahtever with gets all let's hold hands and i am going to brush the hair away from your face and gaze at you in mostly lust even though you are shaking your head no and looking kind of aghast, i am all more than half-surprised and fuuuuccccckkkk whyyyyy??? aaagh waht i should maybe go be a nun or stop taking care of myself or something? (my technique is often to just hide away, though i did not realize this was my technique. but the universe has a way of making one not hide if hiding is not right and in fact unhealthy.)

that said, love is different and i am still confused abt what exactly it is

that's all

Strong friendship starts to feel like more where both people are committed to others -- wait and see if it blows over? Cut it off?

basically no good advice in this case imo

Fucking SUCKS. I mean I really really do want this person as a friend, I'm not just saying that in a corny way. And I feel totally blindsided by this -- I initially thought there was no attraction and hence friendship was not a problem.

have a shag and see how it goes

sexy feelings or emotiony feelings>?

I guess more emotiony than sexy but some of both?

cut it off, dude.

sorry, but seriously.

That seems a little extreme. It's not his penis's fault.

cut it off, give it to her in a bouquet of flowers--chicks love flowers

I hear PC brigade want to ban growing of pansies in municipal flower tubs

― Sacco, Vanzetti, Passantino... (Tom D.), Tuesday, 7 April 2009 12:47 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

And install penises in their place!

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 7 April 2009 12:49 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It's penis Tuesday up in this bitch

Life is full of things you don't get to have. If this was a body-swap time travel movie you could go back in time to a former self and turn left instead of right and then have your dream wedding with her, but it's not so you can't.

Of course. I really don't think I'd even want a wedding with this woman. It's just this weird unexpected emotional ambush kind of thing -- close quarters, intense shared experience, probably. I'm keeping a distance right now but still hope maybe it will blow over.

basically no good advice in this case imo

― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, April 7, 2009 11:21 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark

^^^^ this.

which hemisphere do you live in hurting out of interest?

the dancinest hemisphere of all

i would suggest ban her

to answer the thread question, tho: classic

but this is still otm

The biggest problem that my female best friend and I have experienced is if we go out drinking together, people will assume that we're chatting each other up and therefore not hit on us. And fuck all that shit. Also, our landlord kept thinking we were married, which was awkward. But that's a problem with society in general, not in my relationship with her.

just wondering if summer is beckoning cos my head had been going crazy too and had probably wanted to shag quite a few single female friends

Have tried this, but it’s either ended awkward because we’ve slept together or one of us started having feelings for the other. If you really can’t control the feelings, get out of there or tell her. They’re both not great, but it’s better than being unhappy!

Just to inject a middle-aged fuddy-duddy note into all this, sexuality and friendship are not at all incompatible. My wife is my best friend and my life's companion. We also have sex. It is very nice, too. Although, as we are 25 years into the marriage, it isn't quite as red hot as it was at first, it is still very nice when it happens.

im not sure you guys quite grasp the situation that hurtings in

they are just talking about the thread topic

shut up

The biggest problem that my female best friend and I have experienced is if we go out drinking together, people will assume that we're chatting each other up and therefore not hit on us. And fuck all that shit.

This happens to me quite a lot. Even stupider is when I'm in a pub with several female friends, and some drunk guy comes to say, "Are these all your girlfriends?". Seriously, what's wrong with people?

afaic this is k-classic when you're young free and single, and ALSO k-classic when you're older, more assured and maybe in a stable relationship, but prone to disaster in the interim

personally i have several good female friends and at this point in time it would not be a stretch to say that i'm interested in the sexual dynamics of every single one of these unions...it helps that they're pretty much all single. there was a thread on this a few months ago wasn't there

Yes, but it was purposefully challopsy. Although thanks for proving my point.

???

Tuomas the guys in the pubs obviously think you're the man! - embrace it!

As for the topic at hand - eek! I've been there. It's a terrible situation because although it could make your relationship way more fun, it could also destroy your current one. :(

i lost a really important female best friend due to feelings! and then almost lost a male best friend due to feelings! fuck feelings.

but buy 'em a drink first

it must be stressed that in actuality, the vast majority if not all of these unions will be unsullied by physicalised exploration of aforementioned sexual dynamic...it's not unhealthy to at least consider it, though...some of them have confided in me that they have done the very same!

stop saying union!

i'm interested in the sexual dynamics of every single one of these onions

a woman is a lot like an onion. you peel off layer after layer only to end up in tears.

I've had some serious crushes for a couple of friends, and I've had sex with a few friends, and in either cases nothing awful has happened to the friendship. The crushes tend to fade away and sex doesn't need to be taken too seriously. However, I don't think I've ever had sex with a friend for whom I'd also had a crush at the same time, so maybe that's different?

thread is about *best* friends

idly thinking 'would probably smash all else equal' is not the same.

having sex with friends you don't even have a crush on is some crazy shit in my neat but grey world

at this point my girlfriend is basically my best friend so

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ZJSSQD7KL._SL500.jpg

(x-post)

having sex with friends you don't even have a crush on is some crazy shit in my neat but grey world

― Hard House SugBanton (blueski), Tuesday, April 7, 2009 7:27 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

good point! welcome to tuomasworld.

that's been the case for me too - it seems a logical conclusion really (if it's a lengthy relationship at least). or maybe logic has no business here. xposts to max

I convinced a male friend to have sex with a female friend for her birthday a few years back, no crushes involved - worked like a charm, a happy night and no weird "should I call?" feelings the next day. Actually, I had sex on two separate nights (months apart) with a roommate once & that was fantastic, just made us better friends!

And yes - my boyfriend is my best friend now too, though my female best friend is the birthday girl above - she & I also "threw" a threesome for my ex boyfriend for his birthday. Sex: the perfect gift!

^^^if i am gonna enter another relationship, this is the goal xps to max

You know, sometimes sex is just sex. It's physical pleasure, you don't have to be in love to enjoy it.

(x-post to Stevem)

Or what FFM said.

being in love != having a crush on them, but whatever works for you

Well, you don't even have to have a crush to enjoy it.

apparently not!

not to be a downer, but will someone at least back me up that if you're married, you have a best friend of the opposite sex whom you are really attracted to emotionally and sexually, and they feel the same way, then you are kidding yourself if you don't think you're on dangerous ground.

apparently finefinemusic is the world's best wingwoman

Probably yeah, I wasn't talking about Aimless' specific situtation here, just in a more general sense.

(xpost)

I'm with Tuomas and FFM here, with the caveat that I do probably have teensy, dormant crushes on all my good female friends, and that sex with them, much as it would be fun and exploratory at its core, would not be bereft of tender feelings...at my age, and with my disposition, I'd like to think it would only help the friendship (and our respective morales), but I can imagine things becoming very knotty indeed given a slight lack of eye-to-eye regarding what-happens-next.

Jordan is OTM about Hurting's situation. I have no good advice for him. Er, "good luck"?

Sorry, I mean Hurting, not Aimless.

yeah but what if http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51BAQYYP98L._SL500_AA240_.jpg

"exploratory"

I'd like to think it would only help the friendship

lol

apparently finefinemusic is the world's best wingwoman

― Ømår Littel (Jordan), Tuesday, April 7, 2009 12:35 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark

dude no kidding

she & I also "threw" a threesome for my ex boyfriend for his birthday

back up back up. was he your boyfriend at the time or your ex boyfriend at the time?

guys all I want in life is recognition for excellence in bromanship

seriously though, it was a frat house but none of us were in school and we didn't have jobs.. ahh, early 20s, I miss you!

oh he was my boyfriend then, is an ex now.. Funnily enough, to make my stories come across even more twisted and made up - the guy (J) I recruited for my best friend (L)'s birthday was the boyfriend of (X) when I had a threesome with him and her! Circle of life. By which I mean I drank a lot of tequila in 2001.

(another threesome. there were two threesomes. fuck.)

man, i guess my early 20's really sucked

I bet you had meaningful employment or were in school.. don't worry, my mid-to-late 20s isn't shaping up to be nearly as awesome ;)

Hurting this sucks, but you will pull through.

pause

Also has your wife expressed any jealousy? because yeah, then maybe I would think about taking a hiatus.

Ooooh, this, absolutely. My boyfriend had a work crush last year and used to flip away from Facebook (they sent each other private msgs after work) when I walked into the room and it hurt our relationship a LOT. It made me paranoid and inclined to believe the worst, and actually gave me anxiety - there were a few nights I couldn't sleep at all & when I did sleep I had dreams that this other girl was trying to kill me! Ugh. He finally switched jobs for completely unrelated reasons and once they started to see each other less/talk less he realized that he'd stepped over boundaries he couldn't really "see" in the thick of his crush. Uncool :(

I am a jealous lady.

It's one of my lousier traits.

mine too

Have tried this, but it’s either ended awkward because we’ve slept together or one of us started having feelings for the other.

We wound up getting drunk and sleeping together a few weeks ago and I feel like it cleared the air. Next day, chalked it up to being drunk and horny, it was fun but probably a bad idea, etc.. We're more comfortable talking about sex lives/relationships, offering opinions on the other's attractiveness, than we had been recently.

Also has your wife expressed any jealousy? because yeah, then maybe I would think about taking a hiatus.

― i'm shy (Abbott), Tuesday, April 7, 2009 2:06 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Wife knows we have a close friendship. Feelings are very recent development. I still think it's possible they're fleeting/spring-fever/close quarters kind of thing. Nonetheless I talked with friend about it a little and we agreed to "maintain boundaries." I'm going to keep a little distance and see how it goes.

Two things you may find helpful, Hurting:

1) Go out of your way to make your wife happy. You will find that she may give you more attention as well and you will forget the crush.

2) Picture the reality of what would actually happen if you had an affair with the nursery worker - the embarrassment and ridiculousness of it all. Imagine yourself as a character in a movie doing that and what a putz you'd look like, and how awkward the situation would be, and (unless you actually think this person is your true soulmate) how crappy a real relationship would probably be with her compared to the one with your wife.

haha, me otm

I have a best friend of the opposite sex and though the relationship began with a lot of flirtations, it eventually bloomed into something really solid and platonic and lasting.

Classic.

im going to a club with *just* one (very good) female friend tonight (hoping to run into some other ppl there tho). feeling a bit funny about it though, cos i dont really like her occasional vaguely flirtatious jokes. it shd be obv that i dont like them much either cos of my facial expressions.

Knew this would be a Titchy revive.

the 'last updated by ____' kinda gives it away.

xp it would be more obvious if you told her it bugged you, and you wish she wouldn't do it.

*eye roll* "soooo not gonna happen."

the 'last updated by ____' kinda gives it away.

Haha well I have that turned off...

Trust me on this one - no, she doesn't know just from your facial expressions that you don't like this.

Because half of the fun of telling vaguely flirtatious jokes is the eye-rolling and squirming that follows.

Shyness and actual revulsion can be kind of hard to tell apart sometimes.

I have found that once you get past about 30, it's harder to find new friends than it is to find new girlfriends. I suppose there was a time when I wanted to nail all my female friends, somewhere in the back of my mind if not the very front of it, but now I have filed that impulse into the same part of my brain that wants to drop a baby that's just been handed to me, or jump off a high ledge that I have been led to for the great view. I have a great girlfriend already, and other great girls that I meet, even if I'm sexually attracted to them, are valuable as friends first, foremost, and only. Because for the first time in my life, they are truly more valuable to me than potential girlfriends.

interesting thread.

since like 22 or so, i've found it really hard to make new in-person friends, which, in my ridiculously cloistered world means people i work with. i've made a bunch of friends online who i've never met, though! and most of them are dudes (i'm a dude) who are writers like me, so we have that in common.

"Wife knows we have a close friendship. Feelings are very recent development. I still think it's possible they're fleeting/spring-fever/close quarters kind of thing. Nonetheless I talked with friend about it a little and we agreed to "maintain boundaries." I'm going to keep a little distance and see how it goes."

don't know the whole story here but can relate a bit, at least in terms of serious emotional feelings (sex hasn't come into play in my situation and won't for geographical/historical reasons

Historical? How old is this woman?

hah!

i didn't phrase that right, at all.

More like, we've just been friends for a really, really long time, and saw each other through lots of romantic crap - and at one point I made it clear that I had feelings for her, and she made it clear that while her emotional feelings for me were very strong, romanic ones were nil. So we've had an understanding about that forever and a day, but if you were to see our email correspondence sometimes we sound like two 10 year olds with a crush on each other. Makes my wife uncomfortable, always has, probably always will.

let me think about this - we've been friends since early 1996 or so. which is a long time, for me.

ultimately i'm really happy we never hooked up - would've killed the friendship, plus i couldn't live with her personality tics.

Since 1996 is a long time. Not just to you.

i have a work friend. we hang out at lunchtimes. we get on well. we are quite similiar. she has told me she had two sexual dreams about me ('i dont know why im telling you this') and quite frequently makes comments like 'you look handsome today'. i also didnt find out til recently that she has a bf, which was an odd detail to leave out seeing as we have talked about r/ships before (apparently she wants to break if off but cant pluck up the courage). recently, she asked me to go to an installation about sex. maybe billy crystal in when harry met sally had it right about m/f friendships.

There was this girl my family knew who led me on. She and her boyfriend have been together for almost a year, yet she was acting as though she would have wanted to be with me, and one time when we were by their house, it was her sister told me that she liked me, but she didn't really mean it, she had a few drinks in her head. Then she told me she had a boyfriend - i was real cut up inside. I felt like i wasted 5 months. But it was a misunderstanding - i didn't know her sister's head was bad. Hurt gave way to anger, and anger gave way to bitterness, her boyfriend smokes and drinks, i don't smoke and i drink only on occasions, and i was thinking of drinking in front of her next time we went by her house, and if she asks why i'm drinking, say "You can't complain, don't you like that? Doesn't your boyfriend do it?" Very bitter thought, eh? Lucky thing that remained a thought and i didn't go through with it - my family knows them and it would have come back to them - i would have spoiled relations among all of us - we're still friends. But i got over it very shortly - i just didn't think about it too much, and found reasons why it wouldn't have worked out anyway. Both of us are of Indian descent, but I'm deeper into Indian culture, but she's more Western - the only difference between she and a white girl is that she's not white - She's civilized (doesn't like to be close to the earth, eg going by the river, she likes too many of the finer things in life), and i like being close to the earth.
― Anish, Thursday, 20 April 2006 13:51 (8 years ago)

she has told me she had two sexual dreams about me ('i dont know why im telling you this') and quite frequently makes comments like 'you look handsome today'.

this is not platonic behavior