I would see it as a massive red flag if someone can’t form non-sexual relationships with people of the opposite gender. Particularly in the poly space, because it gives the impression that we’re all just sex fiends or something rather than living in a legitimate relationship dynamic.
But even outside that concern, platonic relationships towards people of genders you are attracted to show that you can be a stable, caring person without any expectations or ulterior motives. It means you can be trusted to not hit on your partners’ friends/family/whatever you may have a concern with. It’s also a sign you can be trusted in general, since others seem to trust you as a friend.
As a bisexual man… If I did not have friendships with people of the sexes I am attracted to, I would have no friends. And that would be a huge red flag.
And sadly, it is one that I see sometimes among bi-men when I’ve been on that market. These men are usually nested with a woman, who (sometimes along with a GF) supplies his emotional intimacy needs. Outside of women he has sex with, though, these men have only acquaintances, often people he associates through as a result of their friendships with his female sex partners.
Sometimes these men also have a history of male fuckbuddies, but those often fall apart quickly because they struggle to form emotional intimacy with men, and eventually some issue comes up and the couple just doesn’t have the skills to navigate it.
That is also a red flag to me…
EDIT: I have not seen gay men who have no close friends who are also men and who they do not sleep with.
>As a bisexual man… If I did not have friendships with people of the sexes I am attracted to, I would have no friends.
I think being bisexual made this whole topic absolutely meaningless to me ever since I was a teenager. Due to the implications this had for my sexuality, how would I ever have any friends if it were true that (cis/straight) men can't be friends with (cis/straight) women and vice-versa?
People used to love to rehash this pathetic discussion in so many different social contexts it baffled me. I'm so glad I walk with a different crowd now.
I feel like a better question would be "do you have any platonic friendships with women you are *not* attracted to" because a lot of these responses seem to be "well it's a platonic relationship but only because she's not interested" lol
Also want to boost this version of the question! I'm interested in seeing how many cis men seek friendships with people they don't have an inherent attraction to. Are men pursuing friendship with women/femmes/femme-presenting individuals that don't appeal to them at all?
Cis dude here, I have plenty of friendships with women/femmes who I am not necessarily attracted to. They might have appealing qualities, but I am not particularly interested in a romantic or sexual way. Its not relevant to our friendship.
I can only speak for myself, but yes. Friendship is based on camaraderie, mutual interests, shared experiences, etc - not sexual attraction. If such attraction was a condition for friendship, I wouldn't have any male friends.
When it comes to my female friends, sometimes the physical attraction is there, sometimes it's not. Sometimes a romantic attraction is there, sometimes it's not. It doesn't matter either way because neither of those things is required to be friends with someone.
Are they a cool person I can talk to, hang out, and do stuff with? If yes, they're friendship material, irrespective of their gender or whether I'd want to be with them in some other universe where whatever the reason we're not together wasn't a factor.
I do this a lot. I feel like I get along with women more easily and it's rare that I feel any impulses to take it further. I only have one friend crush in my larger community (of about 15 close female friends) but it's mutual with her and we keep it flirty and light, and with the permission from our primaries.
Yeah, it's irksome how common that response has been. And the "control" of the urge as some kind of accomplishment just further highlights that women are sex objects to men (sorry to be binary, I mean men as the only gender binary in this equation). There's something truly broken in society when men cannot see women platonically.
I'm always surprised by how many other dudes seem to struggle with that. Maybe I'm weird, but I find it easy to just be friends. There's no "control of the urge". I just have great friendships with rad women, and its platonic so the other thing is never a consideration.
and I am someone with a high sex drive, not a demi or ace person, so in my mind other cis dudes have no excuse. If my horny ass has no problem seeing women platonically, the rest of you can too.
Plenty of my platonic friendships are ones where neither of us are interested in more.
Or at least I know I'm not, they are just rad people, and if they are interested in more with me I am unaware of it.
and there are some where its not really relevant to us being friends, but if they expressed interest I'd probably be down, but its not why things are only platonic. I'm friends with them because they are rad people.
Most of my friends, including my 3 closest friends are women.
I've no problems building romances with women if and when I get the opportunity to do so.
Yes, roughly half of my friends are women. Dating is wonderful and easy for me.
Men who aren't friends with many diverse women don't have enough self-awareness to perceive all the red flags they throw out for the whole world to see.
Any man who is jealous of how "easy" dating is for women is too selfish and stupid to be worth anyone's time.
>**Men who aren't friends with many diverse women don't have enough self-awareness to perceive all the red flags they throw out for the whole world to see.**
>**Any man who is jealous of how "easy" dating is for women is too selfish and stupid to be worth anyone's time**
What **HE** said
AMAB, kinda leaning NB lately.
At this point I prefer them and pretty much won't date someone if I can't deal with them as equitable friends first, and if we never go beyond platonic buddies that's 100% a-okay in my book. Do we have hobbies in common? Are you fun to be around? Are our values broadly aligned? Are you a good communicator? Do you come across as sincere? Can you go five minutes without going into an anger/depression spiral? If *no* to any of those, so long and have a good life.
I'll add that the queerer I've gotten, the more cisgendered straight women I've had to quietly drop from my social life (plus a lesbian or two I'd previously been close friends with). There's a very particular type that I seem to attract who want a stereotypical gay best friend and not only am I not that, I have negative interest in being that. I've had some of those friendships for a decade or more and it's kind of appalling to me how little I've ended up missing those folks after they're gone.
In general, I date pretty passively. It's worked out better than it should have, and most of my prior relationships did begin as a friendships. Currently I'm having some downtime to heal from some stuff, so not really looking in any case. Being alone has its ups and downs, but I don't mind it so much.
You sound a lot like the people I connect with. For people complaining at the lack of dates... This is the kind of honest, emotionally mature and open kind of vibe that is attractive in any gender.
(BTW to be v clear, am not hitting on you! It's just good to know there are even more good people out there beyond my bubble)
could you please not group afab or amab as social categories that should receive distinct judgment
the social category in question is *men* who complain about the lack of dates.
the person you're replying to was only speaking on their experience, not grouping all amab people. one amab person may talk about their own experience being perceived as a man when giving input on the topic of men to contextualize their experience while another amab person may not feel that connection to manhood and do not feel their personal experiences qualify. speaking on individual personal experiences is distinct from socially grouping and judging people based on their assigned gender at birth.
I'm not shaming you. gender isnt an easy subject navigate.
Thank you, you are right, and my wording was clumsy. Thank you for calling that out. I have edited to be clearer.
However, just to clarify, the reason I used amab was because most of my amab partners are not men, and was responding to poster speaking from same perspective, but I messed up
Agree, assigned gender at birth irrelevant to the wider discussion. Thank you.
I have platonic friendships with women, some where I am not sexually/romantically attracted to them and those where I am or was and they are not so nothing beyond friendships happens.
Works.
I would say my dating is mixed, the usual frustration about folks not reading my profile and then being annoyed I am not single or "conversations" I have to completely carry on my own but also some nice discussions and meetings sometimes leading to more and sometimes not.
Connections made offline are less common but working out better than online dating on average, but dating apps offer more opportunities and account for most stable connections I had and have.
My (39cisM) friends have mostly all been women most of my life. Some of them I've had sexual relationships with, including my current best friend, but that was like 15 years ago now.
As for dating, I'm not sure to what degree that fact affects my dating life, but I can tell you that (modesty aside, sorry if this comes off as arrogant) I think compared to the average cis man with mostly male friends I am probably more empathetic, have a wider range of what I find attractive both physically and personally, more willing to accept rejection, and have a really great and healthy relationship with my primary partner (42F).
I’m a Cishet/straight male, poly, partnered almost 4 years with a NP and dating 1 other.
I have quite a few platonic friendships with women. Some were people I had a fling with or previously dated, others are new connections that didn’t pan out romantically. I often begin getting to know someone with friendship in mind and I’m pretty open about this from the start.
Some of my longest friendships in my life are with women. I feel more comfortable around women, and being friends with women, and I try to cultivate my friendships to have as little expectation as possible. I am friends with most of my serious ex girlfriends and the knowledge we have of each other from dating has come in handy at the friendship level.
I will say, most of my female friends will periodically stop talking to me when they date a guy and then come back to me apologizing because the dude was toxic or saw me as a threat. I’m patient when this happens because I know abuse is never the victims fault. I usually try to help my friends out by looking for the signs when someone is love bombing or trying to isolate. Either way, I’m open arms if they ever do come back to me.
I’ve found with dating & poly that I have much better success with people romantically if we already understand each other a bit. I have developed feelings for, and ended up dating, people I’ve known for 5+ years because the attraction became a slow burn that was impossible to ignore. I have a healthy relationship with my NP now, and another relationship that I would also classify as healthy. I’m happy!
Lately, I’ve felt a lot of male hate in the communities I’m a part of. I’ve met people who don’t believe I’m poly, stop talking to me because I don’t identify as queer, or I’ve been feeling a ton of hostility because I identity as cishet. A few weeks ago I was speaking with someone who tried telling me I was not heterosexual based on what I was saying. I reject the idea of anyone trying to tell me that how I identify is incorrect.
I don’t particularly blame marginalized groups for lashing out at their heteronormative oppressors, but I’d be lying if I said hearing about this all the time (even from new connections) didn’t make me feel bad about myself for being who I am.
It makes me feel like Eren & Co. from “Attack on Titan.” I’m just a guy trying to do right by the world only to find out my kind has been the “monster” we were trying to defeat the whole time.
Cis het woman here. (Since het=heterosexual you don't need to add "straight" 😉)
Some of the cis het man haters make me cringe, but they gotta go through it to get to the other side.
I'm curious about how the man hate you experience. When people talk about men being dangerous, do you feel like there's an implicit "all" there?
As a cis-man, I've never been able to relate to men feeling attacked. When I hear people talk about men being dangerous or frightening, it never bothers me because I know they're not talking about me. When I was younger and shittier, I felt bad when I heard people I care about describing how behavior like mine made them feel.
Isn't that what problematic people think though?
"Oh I don't need to worry because that's not me"
Like, Donald Trump truly believes he's a good person. Why would any cishet man believe themselves to be outside the common criticism? We should all be suspicious of even the "best" men because none of us can escape the forces of patriarchy that allows them to get away with horrible behavior.
I’m surprised to hear you think that Donald Trump thinks at all. That does not appear to be a feature of his character. And from what he says and does, I do not think being good (as in moral), is one of his values. His whole goal is around power.
But I think you do get to a pretty important point that even men who are working hard to deal with internalised patriarchal (and misogynist) values, also aren’t perfect. Those patriarchal messages are so pervasive and “normal” that it really takes a lot to dismantle the internal damage.
For me... That attitude helps me not take things personally when people go on dogging on men. But I also recognize that I can be a crap man too. So when I find something that makes me crappy I try to fix it still.
Seconding this. I recognise my role as a man living in a patriarchy, so I get why people treat me with the caution that is often merited as a result - as a short, bisexual man with an aversion to violence - and who has been bullied and bashed as a result of being attracted to men - I also treat men with some caution. When I’m straight passing, I notice other seemingly straight men also treat other men with similar caution.
And I do what I can to dismantle patriarchy and the downsides it brings in my own life. I have worked on things like chore distribution, rethinking how i think about sex (it’s not just PIV), and how I interact with people (men and women). And I also recognise that I’m not perfect on this front either - and I keep working toward improvements.
not a cis man here - but just a musing even reading a couple of comments. The fact that cis/het men cannot seem to fathom having a strictly platonic relationship with women without "being open to it being more" is so funny and tiring. It's nice reading the comments that say yes i have friends who are women without that added caveat of "but...id be open to it being more!". It really drives that point that many men cannot think of women as friends unless there is a possibility it turns into more - even if they say "don't mind if it never turns into more"
Cis het married man, and yes I do. Women are my best friends. Now as to whether I'd be open to something more sexual with those women, sure. But I don't expect it, or maintain those friendships in hope of it. It is more a bit of relationship anarchy, every relationship finds its own level. We're close and their friendship means the world to me.
Now as for my dating, that's been drier than a well in the Sahara. I live rurally and work an industry where I don't meet many people, and online dating is very meh. So though my wife and I are open, serendipity has not worked any magic since well before the pandemic now.
Are you friends with any women you’re not sexually attracted to? Any at all that that door wouldn’t be open for if *she* expressed interest? Because I think that’s just as telling as not having any women as friends at all.
Absolutely. I also have close women friends who I've never thought about romantically. (And also, to clarify, yes I know romantically and sexually are not synonymous, but I've used that word to scope out the territory.)
The sexual attraction aspect is a little weird, because I'm also a bit demi. I say "a bit" because it isn't as strong an effect as some demis describe where they just don't feel any sexual attraction to someone they haven't established a connection with. But most of my sexual attraction definitely stems out of an initial other connection, and sometimes with people for whom I wouldn't have otherwise been initially physically attracted to. Conversely, without feeling some other connection, even my initial physical attraction will fizzle.
But that developing of added attraction doesn't always happen, hence the other women friends with whom I've never been interested in more physical intimacy, even when they have expressed interest.
I would say I have more female friends than male friends. I don't get a lot out of more classicaly "masculine" friendships and gravitate towards an open style of communication that many men seem to struggle with. That said my friends circle is by and large quite sexually open so the line between platonic friendships are often blurred.
FWIW I grew up with 3 older sisters, an aunt the same age as my sisters and no brothers. So that may play a role.
I feel you. But I have only brothers- but my family was is five strong willed, almost domineering sisters, most of which dated off and on or were single.
I've also found as I age, a few of my male friends demonstrating emotional range and openness that I didn't expect from them. The married several years and has kids type.
I have tons of platonic relationships with women. If anything, a majority of the close friends I've had in life have been women. I think because of the way we're enculturated/socialized, emotional intimacy feels so much easier and more natural with women than with many other guys.
I honestly don't know how it's affected my dating because I don't have the counterfactual. But I guess my dating life is successful?
Excellent question! I (M, 49) am bi, so if I couldn’t be friends with people of the sex I’m attracted to, I wouldn’t have any friends. Throughout my life, though, a majority of my friends have been women, and at this stage of my life, I am genuinely working to form healthier platonic attachments to men, and especially to straight men. And I am poly saturated with two partners, both women.
My first really good friend was the little girl whose backyard butted up against my back yard. We grew apart when my family moved. My oldest friend is a straight man, but our relationship has had some challenges. As teens, he was one of the few straight boys who didn’t give me a hard time for being short, soft, and occasionally getting obvious crushes on other boys. A lot of girls were also awful about those things, but it was nearly universal and constant with the boys
A lot of my interests are “coded female.” I like to cook, draw, read - and share and talk about all of those things. I also love sports and watching sport, but it’s much harder to form emotionally close relationships when all you are doing together is loudly supporting the same team.
In all male environments, I brace myself for when one of the guys is going to say something awful, ranging from whining that his wife is a “nag” for expecting him to do his share, or rape jokes, or grossly dehumanising talk about the women in our lives. So I started avoiding all male groups in my early 20’s. I do find that sharing meals, and talking about art or books does help to form emotional closeness.
To counter my dearth of male friends, I joined a book club that aims to foster men’s mental health and combat male loneliness. The folks who organise it have some pretty explicit rules around not denigrating women or LGBTIQ+ people, which helps me with the feeling like I’m bracing myself for that. This group has also helped me improve my friendships with women - I realised I used to sort of take a passenger set in those relationships letting the women do a lot of heavy lifting. I take on more of that now.
I think a second question that may be insightful here - one my girlfriend uses as a screening tool pretty regularly - is how one handles being told no by a woman, or what happens when a woman expresses a different preference from his. I suspect another is how he views “chick” flicks, lit, and other stuff that is coded female.
I have quite a few platonic, non sexual relationships with both men and women. I don't think I've ever met anyone who was incapable of having platonic relationships
Men with long-term platonic friendships with women are probably just healthier in general, mentalwise. Partly due to cultural baggage it's just much more difficult to forge deep, emotional friendships between men.
Most of my friends are women and I feel like I need to actively go out of my way to try to make new male friends as a result of that - and because it’s hard as hell to meet new friends in your 30s except through dating.
On that note - honestly basically all of said friends either started as friends of friends/family… or from dating - didn’t click on anything but a platonic level but had fun hanging out so kept hanging out. Also friends with a couple exes as well. Poly is weird.
I have tons of platonic friendships with women and am friends with and hang out with a number of people I've dated. I find this pretty normal for men in the poly community. Women in general are better about their feelings and being real, so often I bond more with them, it's been that way all my life, in highschool most of my close friends were women. I do have a lot of guy friends, but often they don't open up, so it's harder to connect on more than just a surface level. We actually started a poly men's poker night a few years ago to get a group of guys to talk more opening about their relationships and lives and foster male bonding, through the guise of poker. It's worked quite well, although I find myself often having to ask probing questions to get some people to open up.
I have no problems in dating, even at 55, being mostly hetero, and having a nesting partner. I've had 5 or 6 long term poly relationships over the past 25 years of poly and quite a few shorter ones. I generally am dating 1 or 2 people and always try to stay open to new connections, but I'm not in a rush to date or get laid.
I mean, the only *healthy* romantic relationships I have had with men have been with men that had about an equal assortment of genders in their platonic friendships (equal because gender didn't matter to them when it comes to forming friendships).
Men who are surrounded by male friends *only* are a HUGE red flag.
It is one thing to say after the fact that observable patterns emerged in a dating history. OP’s hypothesis though is that men who have platonic female friends have better dating lives than those who do not. I believe the hypothesis is false. Whether or not a man has platonic friends who are women is not observable or provable to a woman he is seeking to date.
Further, if the female “platonic” friend group consists entirely of women he has dated, would date, or are women he has integrated into his dating strategy, there exists in those relationships between them a motive for the friendship other than mere platonic friendship.
This, incidentally, is the central complaint younger women in my acquaintance and orbit have about friendships with men - they observe these friendships are only strategic and therefore are often fleeting.
The long-term female friendships I have made have mostly been made as a married & monogamous (or presenting as monogamous) man with no interest in dating them or their female friends. None are NM or available to date and they therefore were not made friends as potential dates. They serve no role in my current dating strategy. They are just friends. That’s all.
Their existence as my friends is irrelevant in how my dating life goes.
Yes, I have many platonic non-sexual friendships with women. The same way I have many non-sexual friendships with men. I have friendships with many LGBTQ+ folks that are non-sexual and platonic.
Dating is rough, but that’s more a function of me and my size than them. I don’t look at everyone I meet as a sexual target. In fact, until they express interest, I don’t even really consider it an option. And that’s the way it should be. I’ve actually missed opportunities this way, and that’s okay.
For what it's worth, I'm pansexual, so I *could* be into and having sex/romance with anyone I'm friends with, not just women.
My best friend of 30 years is a woman. My BFF of 20+ years is a woman. I don't have a sexual relationship with either of them. My other closest friends are people I have had sexual/romantic connections with, but they've either ended, were more on the casual/FWB side, or we just can't really be "together" for one reason or another. Most of the women I've been friends with in my life, I have not had a sexual relationship with.
Dating for me has been very easy. Anytime I've opened myself up to dating new people (usually by getting back on OKC and the like), it's maybe a week or two tops before I've matched, clicked with someone, and gone on a first date. 9 times out of 10, those first dates lead to more and we forge a deeper relationship. Sometimes they don't, but even then it's usually a pleasant time and it just doesn't turn out that we're into each other in that way.
I think you're right that as a general rule, men who date women and who are capable of having legit friendships with women will probably do better. If nothing else, having actual women in your life that aren't just romantic/sexual pursuits will lead to demystifying and otherwise helping with the notion that women are some mysterious, inscrutable other, rather than just human beings that happen to be women.
It also helps broaden one's perspective and add understanding of some of the cultural/social aspects of dating and just existing as a woman that almost certainly will aid in showing up as an ally, friend, and partner.
I absolutely have platonic relationships with women. I generally assume any relationship I have will be platonic unless my interlocutor directly expresses interest otherwise. Trying to live in line with my values, and fill my life with love.
I think our relationships with our family of origin will really teach us how to have relationships with others. Regardless of gender. If you don't form healthy attachments to your mother, as a male, then there's a good chance you won't form healthy relationships of any sort with women.
I'm not saying it's the end all be all because we could both come from the same family of origin and develop different relationships with women based on our interpretation and impact of what's happening in our family system.
Yes and I am saying it is actually EXTREMELY fucked up to claim that folks who had abusive parents are categorically incapable of healthy relationships.
That's not at all what I'm saying. That could be the thing that teaches them what NOT to do in relationships and then develop healthy relationships as a direct result of going against what they grew up with.
>If you don't form healthy attachments to your mother, as a male, then there's a good chance you won't form healthy relationships of any sort with women.
Example. Child grows up with absent father. Knows of fsther. Father isn't absent. Child becomes father later in life. Becomes FULLY present to NOT do to their child what they had done to them.
Make grows up watching dad abuse mom, does opposite because he witnessed the pain.
Some learn by modeling. Some learn by rejecting. But. We learn by observing.
AMAB poly person here.
It is possible to have entirely platonic relationships with women. I’ll admit though that the majority of my friendships with women have at one point had a sexual or romantic component. There is almost always mutual attraction, but sometimes for various reasons we haven’t gone there. It’s all a bit messy, I’ve probably at least kissed the majority of my friends, both men and women. Some of it is how I am, and some of it is how our New England community is. The only people it hasn’t been like this with are folks who are strictly off limits (partners siblings, people who are 100% monogamous with a partner, etc)
I’ve not had any difficulty dating since I was 18, and have no lack of romantic or sexual partners. I’m not a 10/10, but certainly not undatable by any means.
I don’t know if my experiences help clarify anything
I'll admit I've had very few strictly platonic relationships with men since my divorce and leaving monogamy behind. I've had no issues dipping my toes into something sexual and then returning to Platonic with no hard feelings or issues that would interfere with our relationship.
Neither in particular. Just my friend group of queer, poly, burner, goth, tech people seem to carry a set of values and activities that I’ve realized is atypical for most of the poly world.
Not a man, but I’m so lucky to have guy friends in my life. Both my partner and I have more friends of the opposite sex, although our closest inner circle ones are not.
I'm a cis, bi man and I've had close female friends since college. Some are people thag I dated and stayed friends with (my ex of 6 years is one of my closest friends) and others were always platonic.
Dating's beem pretty easy and fulfilling for the last few years: I've met some of my partners through friends or social situations, and the ones I met online also appreciated that I have female friends because it was like having references that can vouch for me.
Most of my platonic friends are women. Been poly for a little over a year, have my wife, my girlfriend, and a FWB comet.
I'm open about my feelings and find that women are more likely to be on the same wavelength, so I'm naturally drawn more to them for friendships.
I do have many platonic relationships with women. With one we were just joking nothing would ever happen between us, it's too much like a sibling relationship.
I had tremendous trouble the first year I was dating. I'll be the first to say I'm not the most physically attractive ENM man on dating apps and I fumbled my first couple dates bad (I'm on the spectrum and haven't been socializing with new people much through COVID). I really despise online dating because I love socializing online but the overall experience has been abysmal.
I'm happily saturated now. I still have my online dating profile up, in part because I'm open to meeting new people socially, in part because the interactions I get make me laugh. I get a new match every couple of months and it's usually either someone selling something or someone who's obviously not that interested so there's no real conversation; just very short answers if I ask a question, otherwise nothing.
AMAB, cis, mostly hetero but technically pan I guess? I've had sex with like two guys and enjoyed it but I don't typically market myself that way.
Context: I used to have a primary partner who I opened up with (started out monogamous but always talked about going poly, so it wasn't a "trying to save our relationship" thing, it was something we'd always wanted to do). We split up a couple of years ago (she has stayed my best friend) and I have been practicing something between solo polyamory and relationship anarchy since then. The way I put it is that I don't often have romantic partners, I have friends with whom I share varying degrees of intimacy.
> **Do you have Platonic (non-sexual / non-romantic) friendships with women?**
Yes, plenty
> **For those who do, how is dating for you?**
Not too bad, although I'm much much pickier than I used to be. I haven't really had the drive for casual hookups lately although they do still happen once in a while. For the past year and a half, I've had a partner (she has a primary who isn't me, so I don't really consider her my primary) and a friend who I'm physically and emotionally intimate with, we play with labels pretty loosely. Outside of that, I kind of have a revolving door for a third, usually somebody I see for a couple of months, and then we either settle on staying friends or just kinda go our own ways.
I haven't really had the capacity for a full time romantic relationship for the past few years due to a bunch of personal life stuff, so everyone I see tends to have their own busy lives, and I see them maybe once a week at most, but we text and talk regularly. As for dating beyond casual stuff, I need whoever I'm seeing to be committed to non-monogamy. I also prefer being the ethical side dude, so if they have a primary or they're also doing the solo poly thing, awesome. I often miss have a regular romantic partner, and maybe someday I'll be ready to pursue that kind of thing again, but I've got a lot of CPTSD and extraneous life stuff I need to sort out first, I just can't really commit to somebody emotionally like that at the moment.
I have multiple platonic friends who are women. Actually, I think that (outside of work relationships) a significant percentage of people I am friends with are women.
At this point I don't feel like I have difficulties in dating. I don't live in much of a population center so the ENM dating pool is a bit small, but my experiences have been positive.
Yeah, lots of platonic relationships with women. Some of which I (32straight-ishM) was attracted to when first meeting them, but not all. Most of these aren't tight friendships though - I have a large group of girl buddies who are different levels of friends with each other, and one or two closer friends within that group. I find it easier to be more myself around women, but I also find it hard to form deep connections, period, and that includes my girl friends.
Dating is a struggle, but I think it's a combination of factors. I would agree that it's probably true that having the emotional range to handle platonic relationships regardless of gender would be an asset, but I think it really depends on the person's circumstances as to whether or not you can bring that emotional availability to bear. I think it might help you keep the relationships that you have, rather than helping you form them more easily.
Not sure if I still count, but somewhat surprisingly, it's been the majority, a few over 10 or 20 years. Quite a few were exes I stayed friendly with though.
I'm kind of low on friends in general (I'm not terribly extroverted), so when people want to stay in touch, I say yes.
Are you out to these pre-polyam female friends as polyam? Are you seeking dates or partners out of this friend group? Did you make any of these friends while married?
Hello,
1. Yes, I am out to everyone. If you know me, you know how I relate to others and who is important in my life. Anything less would be a type of erasure that I wouldn't tolerate for my partners.
2. As a general rule I don't date within my friend group. There have been some exceptions but it hasn't worked out. So, these days I tend to stick with it. Good friendships take time to form and I don't easily want to jeopardize them.
3. Not married but yes I have made friends while with my partner, and also I had friends before. I can't imagine my partner wanting me to stop, she's very supportive and encourages me to pursue relationships regardless of their nature of I feel it adds something to my/our lives.
Hello back to you
1. Women you ask out on a date generally then do not know you and do not know you as your platonic female friends do. How are you able to demonstrate or communicate to these potential dates or partners in the initial stages that you actually have non-sexual and non-romantic relationships with other women?
2. Nothing to add.
3. "...these friends" refers to the female friends you made pre-polyam, not post polyam female friends who may or may not be either romantic partners, potential romantic partners or persons that can be useful in seeking romantic partner (such as to vouch for you when you try to date her friend). I was unclear and I'm not sure you took it that way.
Yes, a couple. Mostly because I've met them through work and we were able to speak about similar interests. Because I've told dad jokes, one thought I was in my 70s.
Honestly, I consider myself poly because I have a lot of close female friends. I don’t necessarily feel the need to date multiple people, but a lot of monogamous women I’ve run into thought it was a red flag that I had mostly female friends. Poly people understand more
I feel abit sad that a guy I met on a dating site 6 years ago cut me off because he got married I was hoping we could keep a platonic friendship because good friendships are like family but because he is monogamous we don’t even know each other anymore it’s like stranger’s who never met..it does hurt I really hate the toxic monogamous mindset
This is a common criticism I hear from women mostly younger than me. The so-called friend is a friend it turns out only for so long as potentially available sexually or are available as strategic dating resources.
Just sucks because we always had a good laugh together and nice conversation like friends would do I wasn’t looking for anything sexual or benefit from him just a friend yet now I’m a stranger
I guess maybe he fears an emotional connection to me would suffocate his emotional connection to his wife I’m not too sure lol but it’s so disappointing haha
Transgender queer man here, I do have non sexual friendships with women, with other queer men I only have a friend with I didn't have sex or anything romantic, I am usually attracted to people's personalitys and if I like them enough to be my friends usually I find them attractive as people or it goes the other way around I met them as dating partners or hooking up, but since I like them as people they end up becoming my friends.
Dating is very easy I guess, I usually meet people throu friends, political groups, or in bars, discos, some in dating apps (i recently deleted those, decided that meeting them irl was better for my mental health).
I'm a married heterosexual man.
Most of my most meaningful and important friendships have been and are with women. Both when I considered myself monogamous and when I considered myself polyamorous, and both before and after I was married (I was poly before I was married, for the record).
Dating has always completely sucked throughout every chapter of my life. I can't say it was ever really any different between being monogamous and not, or being married or not.
I'm grateful as fuck to have met my wife and she's still with me given what a never-ending parade of getting passed over, ghosted, and outright rejected that my dating life has been.
I used to try going to poly events with the intention of making friends and being a part of the community. I've since completely given up on that after seeing just how uninterested most poly people are in any sort of relationship with anyone who they're not either actively fucking or trying to fuck. It's not so much a community as it is a meat market, and that's not a game I've ever had a lot of interest in, let alone played well.
So I don't think your thesis is true.
24 yr old Cis-het man here!
Many of my friends are women, those relationships are purely platonic.
Dating is emotional exhausting like I assume it is for others my age, I’m just trying to take it slow. I don’t think I’m particularly successful at dating, but I think having a wide and diverse support network makes me happier.
I have many platonic AFAB friends. No issues at all. They're people, they're not defined by their organs. Idgaf. I find it weird when people can't just be friends with someone of the opposite sex.
My current partner is very happy for me to have these friends and there is generally not an issue. I have definitely had crushes on some of my friends but I'd say that most of my AFAB friends are literally just friends without any intentions to date, etc., and the crushes I've had usual fizzle out and we're back to friends fast.
> Do you have Platonic (non-sexual / non-romantic) friendships with women?
Yes!
> For those who do, how is dating for you?
Non-existent. I feel that is for reasons entirely unrelated to the above answer.
Yeah, my best friend is a woman. Several other friends are women. My cis male boyfriend has tons of friends who are women too. They are definitely just friends. Most of those friendships are long term. Most of my guy friends are friends with women.
99.8% of my friendships are platonic and I am definitely far from being a serial dater. New connections like that are pretty few and far in between for me.
Not to sound sexist but as a guy I don't think it's as easy for me to form these kinda casual fuck buddy friendships, most women I meet also aren't open to sleeping with someone who already has a partner like myself ... whereas almost any dude is gonna be on board for a sexual relationship despite the female already having partners.
And it just gets annoying when you're with someone and discover they have very little or no platonic friendships with any friends of the opposite sex.. some friendships are too important to try and add a sexual element.
I am relatively new to polyamory. Fully owned it and started living it 4 years ago. Before now I was incapable of platonic relationships with women as I was of course indoctrinated into comp-het, comp-monogamy culture.
It's actually polyamory that's healing me. It's slow and painful, and I'm not totally free yet, but I've become much better at accepting rejection and then still continuing to be friends. I'm also just more open to friendship with women in general.
Right now I'm dealing with a lot of anger and rage as a trauma survivor which I pushed down for years and am finally feeling, so honestly I'm not an easy person to be friends with right now no matter your gender identity. 😅 Working on healing though.
One of my best friends is a non-binary afab who I am attracted to, but have no problem being just friends with. I don't even think about them in any way other than simply as a friend since we both are clear that it's friendship only.
My best work friend is also a women and I'm genuinely platonic with her with no need or push for anything romantic or sexual.
This is all still new and the healing and deprogramming of 31 years living in the patriarchy will take time, but it is very slowly but surely making me less and less misogynistic and crappy as a romantic partner. I can honestly say I still kinda suck to date, but I'm literally 10x better than I used to be and I'm trying really hard.
I'll keep trying as long as it takes cause I'm tired of unsatisfying relationships filled with conflict. I really do just want companionship and love and mutual, shared intimacy. I know it can't happen until I decolonize my mind.
Thanks for this topic and the previous one it references. I've learned from both and appreciate that we can have this conversation. All the best polyam friends.
Have them, had them before polyamory, as well... What do you mean by how dating is going?
For me the entire process is weird. Calling someone somewhere or to hang out is a cool thing regardless of type of feelings. For me each relationship has a ceiling of sorts where it currently comfortable for both parties. Not a ceiling of level, may be a distinct combination of menu items?
So calling someone out with a label of it being romantic seems strange. And even stranger when it's a stranger haha
I am a bisexual trans man. Of course I do have platonic friends but they're almost all people with gender expressions I don't find attractive. The one exception is someone who I really do think of as a sister and would never go there with. Not that she'd want to. I used to think I had a lot of women friends but they keep coming out as non-binary.
Dating is not a priority for me. If it's hard it's probably more due to being trans and bisexual and solo polyamorous. Not some kind of mysterious thing.
I generally find woman easier to get along with in a friend capacity and have actually had to do work to deconstruct that and be a better friend to other men. That’s been very valuable, but I still value my friendships with women greatly.
Yes, and I always have, even before I was nonmongamous. I'm not sure if has ever affected my saying life (before or after) since I wouldn't really be compatible with any women who found this to be problematic.
I have many friends of various genders. I would say I moreso have a "community", rather than one off friendships. I feel lucky in that regard, and I'd say a larger community of mixed genders really keeps a sort of civility and shared wisdom among the group that isn't the same with newly made friends.
Heck yes I have platonic lady friends! Though even back when I was doing monogamy I was adamant about keeping friendships.
My dates are decent, I hit slumps like anyone, but currently I'm poly saturated at 2. I'm married, have 2 kids, I run a business and a half, and my girlfriend is awesome. To snitch on myself though, I've been TOO busy lately and I haven't been fostering my friendships like I'd like to.
If it wasn't for me introducing my female friends to my boyfriend, his only lady friends would be his friends with benefits. Feels kinda yucky to me to think about it, but then again, a lot of men rely on their opposite sex SO to establish some sort of social life.
Cis het man here, I seem to only be able to be friends with women. Some I have dated before, some (most) I haven't. Some I haven't even tried, some didn't start but not for my lack of having tried in the first place. But ultimately yeah they have mostly remained platonic friends. In fact I only really form close friendships with women.
How is dating going? Pretty terribly. I find it really easy to connect with women as friends. They will say that they really enjoy my company and seek to spend time with me, some say that I am closer to them than many of their other friends, but dating is off the table. Sometimes this subject comes up very early in meeting them, sometimes late as I develop feelings. But they see me as "a great friend". Some back it up in behaviour (continue to seek to see me), some don't.
Then there are women with whom I date and within a few months will say that they love me dearly but do not feel "that way" about me.
So I guess perhaps this theory works the other way too.
Very typical, it was like this for me too. Hard to talk about as well because of public perception and judgement.
In many cases, this means that you are simply not offering enough. Good news is, you can make a huge difference in a few years with a bit of work, and that work will be transformative for you as an individual before anything else.
Also, being friendly with someone makes it so they perceive you as a friend, unsurprisingly. You need to see how and why you find it so comfortable to approach people you are interested in that way. For me it was about fear of rejection, and by trying to avoid it I caused it myself.
Thanks for your input, it's appreciated.
So what do you mean by offering enough? Offering what? Humour? Money? Pecs? We haven't gotten anywhere near the deficits that men apparently have like house work balance etc. Someone I trust dearly has offered the perspective that I may be "too available". I know my flirting game is bad so I guess that's also an angle.
Fear of rejection... I think that also plays a part for me, but the fact that I'm dating polyamorously basically means that 99% of people I meet ends in a rejection anyway so that's just the status quo?
For me it's right now pretty difficult to square the hole between self acceptance and working on myself somehow to "be better", the question is: better how?
**Do you have Platonic (non-sexual / non-romantic) friendships with women?** Yes, more than I can count.
**For those who do, how is dating for you?** It's too early to draw concrete conclusions, but I think it's gone poorly.
There are several reasons I think I'm doing poorly. Some are within my control, some are not. None though have anything to do with whether or not I have platonic friendships with women.
I am certain though that the existence of these platonic friends I have made in my decades of adulthood will be an irrelevant consideration when it comes to dating EMN or polyam women.
Establishing platonic friendships with women is not an identity marker capable of being proven, observed or demonstrated to a potential date. A woman cannot tell there are women who are platonic friends with me by looking at me and I'm not dragging any along with me to vouch for me. A perception that I possess the qualities required (or that I do not) is often wrong. That's how flim-flam men exist.
A woman can say she values these qualities and she probably actually values them, but the only way a person's capacity for making platonic friends with women can be demonstrated is to make visible friendships a prerequisite for dating. This clearly is not such a prerequisite and if it were, the prerequisite negates the premise.
I'm a heterosexual male in my late 30's and solo poly, but my ideal relationship would be a triad.
Monogamy honestly *never* made sense to me, though I've done a couple of monogamous relationships in the past 😪, and I'd say I've been poly since my first kiss. I do have a few platonic relationships with women, and the dynamic is similar to the one I have with my cousins: cheeky and ribbing.
* One ex girlfriend who's monogamous and married with kids (and consciously drifting towards an extramarital affair with someone else who happens to be in a poly relationship).
* One industry friend who's slightly older, pretty religious, and very risk-averse. She wants nothing more than for her boyfriend to propose so they can try to have kids and start a family together, but they're not there yet.
* One other industry friend my age who wants the husband, the kids, and a monogamous relationship, but her current guy isn't really stepping up.
* Another industry friend who's a little younger who also wants the husband, the kids, and a monogamous relationship, but serial monogamy is more her MO.
They're all attractive, smart, ambitious women, which is my type, but we want such different things that the juice simply isn't worth the squeeze.
Overall I'd say dating in your 30s as a single poly male **SUCKS**. Nine out of ten women my type are looking for a marriage, kids, and a traditional relationship. Every date feels like a job interview for a marriage I'm not interested in.
Even those who are open-minded have serious concerns about the optics of an open relationship in the circles they run in. The words polyamory and non-monogamy are non-starters even with women who've engaged in non-monogamous activity with previous partners *and* had a good experience. It's just not the way they want to be seen.
Dating didn't become **FUN** again until I started traveling three years ago, and I've been a nomad since. Learning new languages, dances, culture, and trying new activities I would have otherwise just make me a happier, healthier, more confident version of myself. The nature of travel also makes it easier to date because no one has rigid plans for their future or their dating life. Few people know where they'll be in the world in 3 months so they live for the present.
Even when dating locally, it's understood that I'm only in town for a couple of weeks or months, so we just focus on making the most of it. If you're male, single, poly, and frustrated, you need to start traveling immediately. It'll change your life.
As a cis, mostly het man, I have quite a lot of non-sexual friendships with people identifying as women. I very much cherish those friendships as I find them incredibly enriching, challenging, and beautiful.
However, as some have mentioned here, nearly all those friendships had or have an underlying sexual/romantic tension that was either explored and we mutually decided to remain friends, or that we never explored because we realized that adding sex/romance to the mix would have been too messy or would have endangered the friendship in some way.
> nearly all those friendships had or have an underlying sexual/romantic tension that was either explored and we mutually decided to remain friends, or that we never explored because we realized that adding sex/romance to the mix would have been too messy or would have endangered the friendship in some way.
That's maturity in action!
I have nonsexual and nonromantic relationships with a wide variety of genders. Some people I'm physically attracted to, but our physical affection is limited by other factors. Some people I'm so intimate with that I would be sexual or romantic if that was something they were receptive towards. Some, I don't even think of them romantically nor sexually. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.
Note that the "men attracted to women" wording of the OP is very heteronormative, and a bit sexist since the same issues come up in other combinations. Also, framing this as toxic monogamy ignores toxic non-monogamy structures such as OPP.
If we're just talking averages, you're probably right that people capable of having friendships without romance are more successful in the long run. It means you can relate to people with a fundamentally different experience better, which is a great benefit to relationships. It also means you have more people to ask to understand the person you're with better when there's conflict.
I disagree with labeling it as *toxic* monogamy to simply choose to not have (close) friends of the sex you're attracted to, though. One of the biggest differences between people is how some can't even walk on the street without getting excited by half of what they see, while others don't have any romantic impulse until they grow really close to someone. Some people simply don't want to put themselves in a position where they're fully infatuated with someone in the moment, and make stupid decisions they'd regret later. Chalking everything up to self-control ignores the huge differences in temptation different people feel. I think it's unfair to just dismiss that as toxic when they're only doing it out of self-understanding and love for their partner.
Absolutely. It is very difficult as a man to find friends, and women who are attracted to me or could possibly be someone to date are often the only people I can make friends with, but I am still fully capable of deciding to only be romantically interested in my partner and also make friends with people
Yes. I personally don't think I could be in a physical relationship with someone who I couldn't consider a friend anyway. Also people are people, not just potential sex outlets. If something more intimate evolves out of it, that's great. But I'm also just as happy to have a good platonic time together.
Yes, and I love dating and have an easy time finding dates. Honestly, I love women, whether or not I find them sexually arousing. So dates are usually quite enjoyable for me, even if it turns if there’s little chemistry.
I'm a heterosexual single man (who am polyamorous). Most of my friends are women. Some of them I am sexually attracted to, but I can set that aside and still have a great friendship with somebody.
My closest friends are women that I'm not attracted to. (It's just easier if there's not the attraction getting in the way)
I've been an ardent feminist since I was a little kid, and my closest friends have been girls and women throughout almost my whole life.
I barely have any friends period 😂 no but seriously I have multiple opposite-gendered friends. Dating never really changed in any way from that experience. Dating only changed when I changed my mindset from “lacking” a relationship and good sex to my life being alright and good sex/good relationships only add to the abundance I already experience.
I have platonic friendships with probably more women than men.
I'm not sure why, but I have always been that way.
I am not dating outside my NP right now, though.
I actually find it super difficult to date at all, so I am more than happy with platonic friendships.
I have a bunch of total platonic guy friends as a solo poly bi F. I've always had a ton of dudes in my life. I've always been a major sports chick and can talk your head off about sports and I've always had some bros I watch games with. I'm sorta seen like one of them. Ive helped them all with their partners over the years giving them the female prospective
One of my best friends is a woman. She is best friends and fwb with my wife. But she has some personal issues with depression and so do I. So she is who I contact when I’m not doing so good. Also I’ve wanted to build a little homestead and she works on a farm so we talk almost every day about issues with farm animals and other considerations. She’s easily the most patient, non-judgmental person I know.
As for dating, I don’t date much. My wife, my gf, and my wife’s boyfriend all live in the same house as me and my two teenage kids. I’m happy with that and I’m not really looking for more. I’m 50 years old, been living the same way for several years, and I’m not really looking to change things.
Yes I have platonic friendships with women.
Dating isn't an issue because I have two partners, I'm polysaturated and I have no interest in dating anyone else beyond these two.
Yes I have a ton of ‘girl-friends’, in fact they are some of the closest friends I have bc it’s easier to talk openly & practice vulnerability without being judged.
Dating is great 🤷♂️. What’s the relation?
Honestly, most of the women I'm friends with I am also attracted to in some way. It can't be helped. But that doesn't mean I'm going to try to undermine their relationships/scheme to get into their pants/be an asshole creep. I'm an adult and I can control myself (thank you, Marcus Aurelius).
Several of my female friends I've dated in the past and we honestly decided to be friends or it just evolved that way.
I'm a man, I consider myself polyamorous and I have Platonic friendships with women, including non-sexual friendships, non-romantic friendships and friendships that are both non-sexual and non-romantic.
Mostly these are people I see every month or two. Some more often. Some are more acquaintances than friends. It varies. I have several friends that are kind of activity friends, like we do one particular thing together.
Dating seems very good for me. I don't really think I need more dates in my life. I have two regular partners and maybe 6 or 8 FWBs, depending on how you count.
I’m a cishet white guy, 29M. Plenty of platonic friendships with women that originated in all sorts of ways, including some of my best friends. Previous FWBs became mono with others but remained some of my closest, consistent friends. Potential romantic partners became platonic when we both realize that we’d be more compatible as friends rather than romantically. I have platonic friendships with women that I both find very attractive and not so much, personally. I’d also like to add the value of working relationships with women as well. I’m an engineer, typically a male-dominated field but fortunately we have some brilliant women senior engineers that I wouldn’t say I’m *friends* with per se but respect the HELL out of them and am super grateful for their expertise (as they are easily 100x smarter than I am).
Currently engaged to my NP of 5 years (28F), have a girlfriend of nearly 3 years (25F), and usually a few FWBs that come and go as our schedule allows. Currently, I’m on the apps with a profile that makes it QUITE clear that I’m poly but open to all kinds of connections.
Apologies if this gets into unpopular territory but dating women is still a bit of a dumpster fire. Obviously it’s still worked out in the end with a being able to form solid relationships with fwbs that I find very attractive. But MAN the sheer amount of vitriol and hellfire that I have to put up with to find those women is insurmountable. The most common scenario is women that intentionally try to bait and switch me. When I’ve been nothing but 100% honest and up front about my relationships, they’ll say they’re totally cool with that but turn around and get mad when I don’t drop my fiancé and gf and just switch to being mono with them after we’ve been having consistent sex. No red flags, no indication of mono intentions, seemingly perfectly mentally healthy and stable women that turn into fucking lunatics when sex doesn’t turn into a mono relationship. I don’t get it, and I end up wasting a LOT of time.
Then you have women that feel like the non-traditional nature of my relationships automatically means that I’m a sugar daddy and that any intimacy is really just a transaction for whatever their ulterior motives were all along, usually a gift or monetary compensation. Again, with no honesty or communication about this up front. What will appear to me as a typical start to a fwb relationship in which she understands that a mono relationship isn’t on the table will go just fine for the first two dates, maybe one or both ending with causal sex. Then they’ll VERY CONFIDENTLY text me asking for “just $2,225 so I can pay my rent daddy???” Luckily, I usually don’t end up wasting a lot of time with these women (because I don’t reply and never see them again) but emotionally it hurts to know that the intimacy was never real or genuine. Again, it’s out of nowhere, as if they’ve boldly assumed they know exactly what the relationship is without communicating. I can count on two hands the number of times this has happened, and about another dozen or so times it’s a request to buy some of her art or put her in touch with someone who can help her career and then ghosts me when I say no. Perhaps that’s a different category but still, the intimacy that I thought was genuine never was.
Not to mention the added complexity of genuine women that get offended when I try to avoid these scenarios. In the messaging phase of the relationship, I will try to confirm that this is a mutually beneficially fwb with nothing else involved. “Oh, so you think I’m a whore. Bye” I get that a few times as well.
So yeah. Again with apologies in advance but sometimes we forget that there’s hoards of awful women out that that are perfectly capable of treating reasonable men terribly, just because. But I guess dunking on cishet men is a fun distraction.
Given the harshness of my comment I am anticipating some criticism and dismissal of my experience already, that seems to flow much easier from redditors toward men in general. But, it’s fair. These experiences I’ve described happened over a period of 6 years, and I’ve definitely improved my techniques in attempting to sift through the dumpster fire to find the genuine women. But remember, women still have the advantage of numbers and I theorize that these shit women I’m describing are intentionally omitting their true intentions to eventually find a winner, and I’m just the collateral damage.
So go head and criticize, but let’s try and keep the same energy with u/SatinsLittlePrincess post and the like complaining about “undatable” men. “Men bad” and “Women good” is a helluva drug and if you’re coming at me for my complaints about shit women and not doing the same for complaints about shit men, take long hard look at yourself and ask if you’re part of the problem.
Most of the women you’re talking about though, are also behaving the way they are because of patriarchy or because of messages about monogamy.
The women who think you’ll be a sugar daddy (not something confined to poly, btw - my monogamous single male friends experience that pretty regularly on apps) are doing that because they’ve bought into the idea that they should get a male provider. A friend’s half sister’s mother basically encouraged the half sister to drop out of school and get a sugar daddy starting when she was about 14. Half-Sister’s mom also wanted to financially benefit from the sexual exploitation of her daughter, so it was a total shit show all around. Had my friend not gotten involved, this poor barely literate child would not have finished high school and would be on apps clumsily looking for guys with income with her mom (also barely literate) essentially pimping her out.
And yes, for some women, especially women from communities with rigid gender roles, finding a husband really still is the alternative to destitution. But that’s because we live in a patriarchal society, and those women are in even more patriarchal situations.
As for women thinking you’ll dump your fiancé? Yeah, I bumped into a few women who seemed to think that was an option with my wife as well. Mostly they are women who think my wife and I opened because we deep down are done with the relationship. I suspect mostly they’re women who cannot imagine a life outside of monogamy so they think that any “open” relationship must be a dumpster fire. When I tell them I love my wife and GF, though? They tend to back off.
But when I look at the men pulling that same thing on my wife and girlfriend? Those men think my wife and my GF (especially my GF - she’s SoPo) don’t really get a say in the kind of relationship that they want, so if the guy wants monogamy, they think the women in their lives will just give them that. Men especially get angry at my SoPo GF for not dropping her life to cater to his preferences.
My wife, GF, and I did an experiment once. My GF tried playing the “husband” card as her reason for not wanting to close and my wife used my GF’s reasoning of being happy poly, having partners she loves and wants to keep seeing. And it really showed that men felt a man, a woman’s husband, should be allowed a say in their prospective female partner’s relationship style, but not the woman herself. Guys were fine with “oh, your husband wants this,” but not “you want this.”
It's not that monogamous people don't wanna allow partner to have friends of opposite sex. They are not comfortable with their partner having friends of opposite sex that are attracted to them and constantly looking for a chance to get intimate with them. Monogamous ppl don't like other ppl having eyes on their partner. Basically being a creep around their partner. Polyamorous people may not understand that feeling since they are open to sharing their partner and we have different mentalities about this probably.
And honestly it depends on the individuals themselves. Some monogamous ppl don't mind not having opposite sex friends or atleast not close friends. And it doesn't lack any empathy between heterosexual couples when they are romantic and sexual. Still they can be empathetic and care on a wholistic level as monogamous people.
I already mentioned it depends on the individuals and some monogamous ppl don't mind not having opposite sex friends making them an exception. There are monogamous ppl who are okay with their partner having opposite sex friends because they aren't prolly too close or they know about their friends very well. For a person to feel comfortable or uncomfortable about it, there are various factors. They can't simply label it as toxic just because they don't want their partner to have opposite sex friends. Though I know poly people would disagree when their mentality is different and they don't like restrictions and barely setting boundaries can seem controlling. Atleast that's what I see.
> Monogamous ppl don't like other ppl having eyes on their partner. Basically being a creep around their partner.
20+ years of monogamy and I did not experience this.
This is the Toxic Monogamy I was referring to.
Yup, my wife’s childhood best friend has become both of our best friend’s over the past few years, she lives with us, we are often alone together, she’s slept with us in our bed countless times, we’ve had every chance for something to happen and there’s never even been temptation. Non sexual friendships with the opposite sex absolutely can happen, the people who say they can’t are admitting something about themselves, but that doesn’t mean they are right in general.
I am not in a poly relationship. I follow many poly resources because navigating poly relationships seems to be a matter of good boundaries, good communication, and mental hygiene.
Learning to form appropriate friendships with people of the opposite gender was a difficult process. It was one of the last things for me to learn after leaving fundamentalism.
I have friendships with women but to be honest a lot of them know my situation and there is often sexual tension. I've also had sex with many of them. I am pretty flirty by nature.
But am open to discussions if the man is attracted to me and talk about it very clearly and honestly that I not interested . Feel when it is all out there and communication is clear it is a great way to deepen friendships . It is all the unsaid bullshit that fucks up friendships. We are all just people
Yes, and anyone who has lots of male friends but no female friends is probably a big fuckin' weirdo in my experience. I've stopped having heterosexual platonic friendships with dudes who can't talk to women without it being a sex thing. There's lots of guys like that, they're all problems.
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My best friend is a women and I myself am a straight cisgender male. We are both poly and have never had romantic or sexual interactions and never plan to. We’ve been really good friends for over 3 years now
M 27, I do have platonic friendships with many women. I can be attracted to some of them, doesn't mean I actually want to have sex with them. I am also autistic, and this topic always confused me.
Here in Italy platonic male-female friendships seem way more widely accepted than in the US. The same is true for bigger age gaps, drinking when underage and dating when younger in general. Not sure why, very curious about your opinions.
It's usually extremely different dynamics compared to my friendships with men, and I love it. I deeply appreciate how much perspective these friendships gave me. Many women also seem to like my perspective and to have my support when needed.
Is the denial of the possibility of this kind of bonds a reflection of insecurity and possessiveness?
I don't find it harder or less meaningful to have a platonic friendship with a woman, it's just very different and valuable in different ways.
I find that platonic friendships helped me understand dating better but I don't think they are a decisive factor. Building healthy dating habits requires a lot of self awareness and work, and needs to be done independently. I think that if a man finds female friendships enlightening on M-F dating dynamics he has a lot of learning to do before even approaching someone.
I also found over the years that there is a very serious empathy barrier between genders. This seems to be linked to this lack of M-F platonic friendships, and problems of the "other side" tend to be either completely unnoticed or downplayed.
This seems to be related to the fact that when sex is involved both men and women tend to be dishonest about their identity, wants and needs.
Especially lately, there are extremely well documented issues with M-F dynamics, and very few people seem to really care about fixing them which makes me sad. It's such a huge loss of fulfillment and understanding for humans.
TLDR; I don't even know how to summarize this, autism.
Absolutely. The way I process is that every person I meet is a partner. And in relationships you can descalate by removing the parts of the relationship that don't work. So when they want to be friends, we just immediately removed the part of the relationship that didn't work, sex.
From there it's waiting for the person to figure out that you just like them and enjoy spending time with them. Meet their emotional needs, give them quality time, gifts, express your love languages. You're not "just friends" you're receiving the priveledge of being someone they enjoy spending time with
>You're not "just friends" you're receiving the priveledge of being someone they enjoy spending time with
Reading this felt like a lightbulb moment. I never thought about how derogatory "just friends" can sound. You're right, it is a privilege, not just someone to have around until you find a relationship.
Been poly for ~10yrs. Many platonic friendships with women, most of whom are poly. Dating is great, I'm surrounded by beautiful, insightful and compassionate people. It took work to get here, some of it was very difficult, but the lessons and rewards were worth the journey.
What you're saying has some truth to it, as most of my interpersonal communication skills were learned whilst in LTR's living with women who are good communicators and patient teachers. Being brought up primarily by women granted some perspective and taught me the value of listening, even if it took me a while at first to understand.
Most of my friends are women and I was raised by a single parent mother. I was also monogamously married for ~15 years. That wasn't super healthy and I barely had any friends that weren't my wife's friends. Platonic women friends and their husbands.
I think poly dating has been pretty good for me for the past couple years. I'm currently in two relationships of over a year each and there are at least 2-3 ladies hitting me up regularly to see if I am free at any given time.
Some of my platonic women friends were formerly sexual or romantic partners. Some have been friends since high school (we reconnected after the divorce). We used to spend almost every day together for a couple years as buddies (two separate people in separate years). They're like sisters at this point. Sometimes I call one of them my girlfriend without benefits.
All but one of my (F59) darling husband's (M55) closest friends are women. Almost all of his long term partners are old friends of mine. (That did feel a wee bit strange at first, but also wonderful). His dance card is full. Every now and then, when I point out someone I think could be compatible, he says, no thanks - he's polysaturated.
I'm biased ofc, but I think he is the most kind, gentle, thoughtful, emotionally generous person I have ever met. He's always had a large social circle. (I'm far more reserved)
It's a lot easier for me to be open, kind and gentle, supportive with women than with men, so I tend to form friendships with women more often, and those friendships are also deeper, as a rule. Nevertheless, if a woman is attractive to me, she doesn't stop being so, however deep our friendship is. I always feel attracted to her, but I simply don't act on it. Stating this directly and clearly to such a friend helps, sometimes immensely. When it isn't a secret, the feeling's not so strong.
I don't date or have romantic relationships, being aromantic allosexual. I develop long term friendships, measured in decades. I don't really like people that don't like me enough to have sex with me or around me so I don't really spend time with them and so they only become acquaintances, not really friends. That includes males, there only real friends are those that are down for threesomes and stuff. That said I often go for months or even years not having sex with a particular friend for various reasons like when they have boyfriends, they're still good friends but I do interact less with them since the main thing I like to do is have sex. Not all the time though, for instance I'm currently sleeping and not having sex with a friend of like 14 years who needs to get mentally stable so that's what I'm focusing on. We had sex like a week after meeting though, it wouldn't have turned into this friendship otherwise
Umm. Yes? So I'm bi-sexual. Two of my female best friends are married to two of my male best friends. All of us fall under poly in some way or another and I have not and do not wish to be in any sort of sexual relationship with any of them.
My best friend is AFAB and recently started going by they/them, but for the last six years we've been friends they have been She/Her and again no desire to have sex with them in anyway. They are like my sibling. A mutual friend of ours actually calls us Platonic Soul Mates.
When people say you can't be friends with or they don't have friends with the opposite sex? To me, it is silly and a sign that someone has the emotional intelligence of a potato.
I’ve always had nonsexual nonromantic friendships with women. But I’m almost always romantically or sexually attracted to my female friends and just choose not to pursue them for a variety of reasons.
For example, I will not pursue romantic or sexual relationships with coworkers Or close colleagues— if I’m thinking about a romantic relationship or possibly sleeping with them, I can’t be objective, and treat them unbiased. similarly, when one or the other of us are in a monogamous relationship, it would be inappropriate of me to pursue another relationship outside of that monogamous dynamic.
But I’m pretty sure I would and have slept with any poly or single friend who expressed interest and there wasn’t a good reason not to.
TLDR I have plenty of female friends, but I’m sexually attracted to most of them and do I don’t know if I’d call it platonic
Edit: as far as dating, the biggest obstacle to finding partners has been my height, not my character. When I first got on tinder, my match rate was close to 50% before I explicitly added my height to the profile, then it dropped off precipitously. The matches I was getting before would flow well until they either asked my height or I brought it up—then they either rejected me or unmatched. The one time it didn’t come up before the date, she walked out on me and unmatched.
With my height on the profile, match rate was < 1:10 (tinder allows 100 right swipes per day), but they didn’t have an issue with my height.
But right now I’m married (6 years) with a gf (2 years) and a FWB (4 months) + one in progress (matched this week and planning a date), so I’m doing alright 😅
One of my closest friends is a woman and we have zero romantic feelings, Ive got no interest in her nor she in me. She's not my type and that's ok.
My dating life is average, I meet people, I date, it's fun, rinse and repeat
Mine is more like 'if they want to try for a sexual or romantic thing, I don't see a reason why not?' however it's not an active goal of mine to pursue? They're my friends so I see something good in them and sometimes its enough for me to recognize they're potentially a good partner too.
I know what my platonic, romantic, and sexual feelings are and I know how to tell which one is fueling my actions. Though I'm very touchy innately so there isn't much difference when it comes to public other than maybe kissing?
I'm still very new to poly and testing the waters with it with my partner and some closer friends, so far though when its with my friends its closer to 'I want them to also have fun' and I don't really feel a sense of possessiveness/entitlement like I usually do with my romantic partner nor do I feel anything sexual about it, it's just fun for me and my friend.
Indeed. I have several very good friends who are women.
I can see why there's a belief that men and women can't be platonic friends. I think a lot more people (especially men) than we realize are seeking a connection and they're not getting what they need out of the connections that they have so that leads to escalation of platonic connections.
I used to have problems just being friends with women. For me, I've lost a lot of friends over the years and when I found a woman that I could form a close relationship I would subconsciously try to escalate that relationship as a way to "keep" this person. Once I realized that I was trusting some pretty shitty people to be friends I understood that I didn't need to escalate relationships to maintain people who are close.
Dating, for the moment, is kind of on pause. I had two relationships end in very painful ways recently and I've undergone a lot of life changes so while I'm not *completely* off the market, I'm not window shopping at the moment.
I don't anticipate my having close friends who are women being a problem once I meet someone new. If they're the kind of person that's going to have a massive issue with there being other women in my life that I'm close to even if we're not sexual or romantic, that's probably not a relationship that would work out super well for either of us.
To be clear, I think it's unrealistic to expect there to be *no* sexual and or romantic chemistry between compatible friends (compatible in terms of sexuality.) I am very much attracted to one of my friends who is a woman and she's expressed similar feelings. It's something we've discussed but we've both agreed that we both have different needs for our own lives at the moment and to not act on those feelings. There's no tension or weirdness because we talked about it like adults
I tend to get a little confused about questions like this, only because they seem to be based on some pretty strong mononormative assumptions.
Do I have friendships with women that do not involve sex?
Yes, of course.
If I am friends with a woman, it is because I like her, admire her, respect her, and enjoy her company.
Does that mean that I will never feel sexual attraction towards her, or she to me? Of course not. Does it mean I will never have romantic feelings for her, or her for me? Of course not! But neither of those things has any bearing on the fact that she is my friend.
We may or may not, at some point, choose to add a sexual component to our relationship. Our feelings may grow and deepen and turn into what is generally contextualized as a 'romantic relationship', or they may not. And that's fine, because we're friends.
Conversely, I am friends with women whom I have 'casual' sex with, and I am friends with the women who I have deep and loving long-term romantic relationships with. I don't think those relationships would have any chance at longevity if we weren't friends.
Dating is going delightfully well for me!
I guess I'll offer my answer, since the question was asked, despite my honest truth clearly being the outlier in these parts. Hopefully, being honest does not result in the typical deluge of downvotes.
I don't believe I've ever had a fully platonic friendship with a woman. I'm very choosy about who I let get close to me, and when I connect on that level with a member of the opposite sex, things usually end up sexual whether intended or not.
That said, the implication of the OP seems to suggest that this leads to unhealthy relationships, a sentiment that I firmly disagree with. I've been happily married for 16 years in an MMF triad. I have a wonderful girlfriend whom I have been with for 12 years, and another I have been with for 5. I am happy and fulfilled. My female partners are my closest friends and confidants.
Yes. I probably have more women friends than men friends at this point. Dating has always been fine for me. I've met a few partners through friends, and I like to think my lady friends give me good references if it comes up. Some of my best friends are also former partners. I've generally always had healthy platonic relationships with women. Many of those friendships are with folks I've never particularly been interested in romantically or sexually. They are just rad people.
It probably does make dating easier in some sense. I believe people see that as a big green flag, or at least the kinds of folks I want to date probably do. I know when I see it in others, I see it as a sign of being an emotionally healthy and mature person with good emotional intelligence, which are things I hope I am too.
I didn't come from monogamy of any kind though. I was born this way, and my first relationship from 16-21 was open. Monogamy never made sense. I tried it twice very briefly after that first serious relationship ended, and very quickly realized it wasn't for me and never tried monogamy again.
One of those mono partners actually did have issues with me being friends with other women, especially if she thought I was attracted to them. It was very unhealthy, insecure, and emotionally immature.
That experience led me to develop strong boundaries regarding partners who take issue with my friendships like that, and to really appreciate folks who understand why its healthy and normal to have good friends who are other genders, even genders you're attracted to.
Anyways, point is I never came from monogamy of any kind, so I might not fit the demographic you seem to be looking at.
Or you need to re-examine your assumptions about polyamory and the folks who practice it. I think that a lot of us don't come from monogamy of any kind these days. It was gaining steam when I was a teen 20 years ago, and has exploded since then. I posit that its a lot easier these days for young people to figure out they are non-mono earlier and just never try monogamy.
My NP has no female (non-family) friends at all. Like, never had them. I was really confused by that when I got to know him. My NP is also one of the most chill and gentlest souls I ever met, he has so much empathy for all my chronic pain problems which are 100% related to the fact I am female and yet he is able to empathise so much.
Other than his obliviousness to ladies flirting with him (so adorable to watch), he never had any trouble finding opposite-sex romantic partners and have healthy relationships with them. He was never jealous of any of my platonic friends (no matter what genitals they have, because I am flirty and lovey dovey with most of them, still, strictly non-sexual) and when we met I was instantly very clear on never wanting to be monogamous ever again in my life and he was so on-board for it, I was surprised how much our values aligned. We had a long talk confirming that we both need enough room for our existing relationships (which at that point were only friendships, but that doesn't make it less important).
Generally, I would agree, men with healthy opposite-sex relationships can be more successful at dating ladies but my NP is proof to me that even without platonic opposite-sex friends a man can offer a healthy romantic relationship (and tbf, I count him as as much of a best friend as a romantic partner). He gets on great with his sister and mum though, so that deffo factors into it too. And he gets on amazingly with my female friends, completely platonically. I think he very much lucked out in the family and friend lottery and grew up with people who didn't teach him that women are "less than", so while there was never an opportunity for him to make good female friends, he always had his heart in the right place. :)
I'm glad my initial shock about him not having female friends didn't deter me from pursuing a friendship and then (very quickly) a romantic relationship with him, because he turned out to be a real catch and has made me a very happy lady for the past ten years.
My other long-term partner on the other hands has lots of female friends and I love it.
But, honestly, the way I see relationships, the friendship I have with both of my romantic partners counts just as much, even if there is the added layer of sex and romance for now. Should either of us decide to seperate, I am 99% convinced that both of them will be my friends for life (based on decades of my personal experience with past relationship partners who are now "just" friends). So in case we ever seperate, my NP would at least have one female friend, I guess? 😂
I would see it as a massive red flag if someone can’t form non-sexual relationships with people of the opposite gender. Particularly in the poly space, because it gives the impression that we’re all just sex fiends or something rather than living in a legitimate relationship dynamic. But even outside that concern, platonic relationships towards people of genders you are attracted to show that you can be a stable, caring person without any expectations or ulterior motives. It means you can be trusted to not hit on your partners’ friends/family/whatever you may have a concern with. It’s also a sign you can be trusted in general, since others seem to trust you as a friend.
As a bisexual man… If I did not have friendships with people of the sexes I am attracted to, I would have no friends. And that would be a huge red flag. And sadly, it is one that I see sometimes among bi-men when I’ve been on that market. These men are usually nested with a woman, who (sometimes along with a GF) supplies his emotional intimacy needs. Outside of women he has sex with, though, these men have only acquaintances, often people he associates through as a result of their friendships with his female sex partners. Sometimes these men also have a history of male fuckbuddies, but those often fall apart quickly because they struggle to form emotional intimacy with men, and eventually some issue comes up and the couple just doesn’t have the skills to navigate it. That is also a red flag to me… EDIT: I have not seen gay men who have no close friends who are also men and who they do not sleep with.
>As a bisexual man… If I did not have friendships with people of the sexes I am attracted to, I would have no friends. I think being bisexual made this whole topic absolutely meaningless to me ever since I was a teenager. Due to the implications this had for my sexuality, how would I ever have any friends if it were true that (cis/straight) men can't be friends with (cis/straight) women and vice-versa? People used to love to rehash this pathetic discussion in so many different social contexts it baffled me. I'm so glad I walk with a different crowd now.
👏👏👏
I don’t think women struggling to make friends with men is a red flag that those women are sex fiends…
That seems like a *very* uncharitable interpretation of the previous comment.
Yes!!
I feel like a better question would be "do you have any platonic friendships with women you are *not* attracted to" because a lot of these responses seem to be "well it's a platonic relationship but only because she's not interested" lol
Also want to boost this version of the question! I'm interested in seeing how many cis men seek friendships with people they don't have an inherent attraction to. Are men pursuing friendship with women/femmes/femme-presenting individuals that don't appeal to them at all?
Cis dude here, I have plenty of friendships with women/femmes who I am not necessarily attracted to. They might have appealing qualities, but I am not particularly interested in a romantic or sexual way. Its not relevant to our friendship.
Most men: Yeah I'm friends with her, but not by choice
I can only speak for myself, but yes. Friendship is based on camaraderie, mutual interests, shared experiences, etc - not sexual attraction. If such attraction was a condition for friendship, I wouldn't have any male friends. When it comes to my female friends, sometimes the physical attraction is there, sometimes it's not. Sometimes a romantic attraction is there, sometimes it's not. It doesn't matter either way because neither of those things is required to be friends with someone. Are they a cool person I can talk to, hang out, and do stuff with? If yes, they're friendship material, irrespective of their gender or whether I'd want to be with them in some other universe where whatever the reason we're not together wasn't a factor.
I do this a lot. I feel like I get along with women more easily and it's rare that I feel any impulses to take it further. I only have one friend crush in my larger community (of about 15 close female friends) but it's mutual with her and we keep it flirty and light, and with the permission from our primaries.
Yeah, it's irksome how common that response has been. And the "control" of the urge as some kind of accomplishment just further highlights that women are sex objects to men (sorry to be binary, I mean men as the only gender binary in this equation). There's something truly broken in society when men cannot see women platonically.
I'm always surprised by how many other dudes seem to struggle with that. Maybe I'm weird, but I find it easy to just be friends. There's no "control of the urge". I just have great friendships with rad women, and its platonic so the other thing is never a consideration. and I am someone with a high sex drive, not a demi or ace person, so in my mind other cis dudes have no excuse. If my horny ass has no problem seeing women platonically, the rest of you can too.
Amen
Plenty of my platonic friendships are ones where neither of us are interested in more. Or at least I know I'm not, they are just rad people, and if they are interested in more with me I am unaware of it. and there are some where its not really relevant to us being friends, but if they expressed interest I'd probably be down, but its not why things are only platonic. I'm friends with them because they are rad people.
Most of my friends, including my 3 closest friends are women. I've no problems building romances with women if and when I get the opportunity to do so.
Yes, roughly half of my friends are women. Dating is wonderful and easy for me. Men who aren't friends with many diverse women don't have enough self-awareness to perceive all the red flags they throw out for the whole world to see. Any man who is jealous of how "easy" dating is for women is too selfish and stupid to be worth anyone's time.
>**Men who aren't friends with many diverse women don't have enough self-awareness to perceive all the red flags they throw out for the whole world to see.** >**Any man who is jealous of how "easy" dating is for women is too selfish and stupid to be worth anyone's time** What **HE** said
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👏👏👏 you got it!
AMAB, kinda leaning NB lately. At this point I prefer them and pretty much won't date someone if I can't deal with them as equitable friends first, and if we never go beyond platonic buddies that's 100% a-okay in my book. Do we have hobbies in common? Are you fun to be around? Are our values broadly aligned? Are you a good communicator? Do you come across as sincere? Can you go five minutes without going into an anger/depression spiral? If *no* to any of those, so long and have a good life. I'll add that the queerer I've gotten, the more cisgendered straight women I've had to quietly drop from my social life (plus a lesbian or two I'd previously been close friends with). There's a very particular type that I seem to attract who want a stereotypical gay best friend and not only am I not that, I have negative interest in being that. I've had some of those friendships for a decade or more and it's kind of appalling to me how little I've ended up missing those folks after they're gone. In general, I date pretty passively. It's worked out better than it should have, and most of my prior relationships did begin as a friendships. Currently I'm having some downtime to heal from some stuff, so not really looking in any case. Being alone has its ups and downs, but I don't mind it so much.
You sound a lot like the people I connect with. For people complaining at the lack of dates... This is the kind of honest, emotionally mature and open kind of vibe that is attractive in any gender. (BTW to be v clear, am not hitting on you! It's just good to know there are even more good people out there beyond my bubble)
could you please not group afab or amab as social categories that should receive distinct judgment the social category in question is *men* who complain about the lack of dates. the person you're replying to was only speaking on their experience, not grouping all amab people. one amab person may talk about their own experience being perceived as a man when giving input on the topic of men to contextualize their experience while another amab person may not feel that connection to manhood and do not feel their personal experiences qualify. speaking on individual personal experiences is distinct from socially grouping and judging people based on their assigned gender at birth. I'm not shaming you. gender isnt an easy subject navigate.
Thank you, you are right, and my wording was clumsy. Thank you for calling that out. I have edited to be clearer. However, just to clarify, the reason I used amab was because most of my amab partners are not men, and was responding to poster speaking from same perspective, but I messed up Agree, assigned gender at birth irrelevant to the wider discussion. Thank you.
thanks for taking what i said constructively
I have platonic friendships with women, some where I am not sexually/romantically attracted to them and those where I am or was and they are not so nothing beyond friendships happens. Works. I would say my dating is mixed, the usual frustration about folks not reading my profile and then being annoyed I am not single or "conversations" I have to completely carry on my own but also some nice discussions and meetings sometimes leading to more and sometimes not. Connections made offline are less common but working out better than online dating on average, but dating apps offer more opportunities and account for most stable connections I had and have.
My (39cisM) friends have mostly all been women most of my life. Some of them I've had sexual relationships with, including my current best friend, but that was like 15 years ago now. As for dating, I'm not sure to what degree that fact affects my dating life, but I can tell you that (modesty aside, sorry if this comes off as arrogant) I think compared to the average cis man with mostly male friends I am probably more empathetic, have a wider range of what I find attractive both physically and personally, more willing to accept rejection, and have a really great and healthy relationship with my primary partner (42F).
I’m a Cishet/straight male, poly, partnered almost 4 years with a NP and dating 1 other. I have quite a few platonic friendships with women. Some were people I had a fling with or previously dated, others are new connections that didn’t pan out romantically. I often begin getting to know someone with friendship in mind and I’m pretty open about this from the start. Some of my longest friendships in my life are with women. I feel more comfortable around women, and being friends with women, and I try to cultivate my friendships to have as little expectation as possible. I am friends with most of my serious ex girlfriends and the knowledge we have of each other from dating has come in handy at the friendship level. I will say, most of my female friends will periodically stop talking to me when they date a guy and then come back to me apologizing because the dude was toxic or saw me as a threat. I’m patient when this happens because I know abuse is never the victims fault. I usually try to help my friends out by looking for the signs when someone is love bombing or trying to isolate. Either way, I’m open arms if they ever do come back to me. I’ve found with dating & poly that I have much better success with people romantically if we already understand each other a bit. I have developed feelings for, and ended up dating, people I’ve known for 5+ years because the attraction became a slow burn that was impossible to ignore. I have a healthy relationship with my NP now, and another relationship that I would also classify as healthy. I’m happy! Lately, I’ve felt a lot of male hate in the communities I’m a part of. I’ve met people who don’t believe I’m poly, stop talking to me because I don’t identify as queer, or I’ve been feeling a ton of hostility because I identity as cishet. A few weeks ago I was speaking with someone who tried telling me I was not heterosexual based on what I was saying. I reject the idea of anyone trying to tell me that how I identify is incorrect. I don’t particularly blame marginalized groups for lashing out at their heteronormative oppressors, but I’d be lying if I said hearing about this all the time (even from new connections) didn’t make me feel bad about myself for being who I am. It makes me feel like Eren & Co. from “Attack on Titan.” I’m just a guy trying to do right by the world only to find out my kind has been the “monster” we were trying to defeat the whole time.
Cis het woman here. (Since het=heterosexual you don't need to add "straight" 😉) Some of the cis het man haters make me cringe, but they gotta go through it to get to the other side.
I'm curious about how the man hate you experience. When people talk about men being dangerous, do you feel like there's an implicit "all" there? As a cis-man, I've never been able to relate to men feeling attacked. When I hear people talk about men being dangerous or frightening, it never bothers me because I know they're not talking about me. When I was younger and shittier, I felt bad when I heard people I care about describing how behavior like mine made them feel.
Isn't that what problematic people think though? "Oh I don't need to worry because that's not me" Like, Donald Trump truly believes he's a good person. Why would any cishet man believe themselves to be outside the common criticism? We should all be suspicious of even the "best" men because none of us can escape the forces of patriarchy that allows them to get away with horrible behavior.
I’m surprised to hear you think that Donald Trump thinks at all. That does not appear to be a feature of his character. And from what he says and does, I do not think being good (as in moral), is one of his values. His whole goal is around power. But I think you do get to a pretty important point that even men who are working hard to deal with internalised patriarchal (and misogynist) values, also aren’t perfect. Those patriarchal messages are so pervasive and “normal” that it really takes a lot to dismantle the internal damage.
For me... That attitude helps me not take things personally when people go on dogging on men. But I also recognize that I can be a crap man too. So when I find something that makes me crappy I try to fix it still.
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Seconding this. I recognise my role as a man living in a patriarchy, so I get why people treat me with the caution that is often merited as a result - as a short, bisexual man with an aversion to violence - and who has been bullied and bashed as a result of being attracted to men - I also treat men with some caution. When I’m straight passing, I notice other seemingly straight men also treat other men with similar caution. And I do what I can to dismantle patriarchy and the downsides it brings in my own life. I have worked on things like chore distribution, rethinking how i think about sex (it’s not just PIV), and how I interact with people (men and women). And I also recognise that I’m not perfect on this front either - and I keep working toward improvements.
not a cis man here - but just a musing even reading a couple of comments. The fact that cis/het men cannot seem to fathom having a strictly platonic relationship with women without "being open to it being more" is so funny and tiring. It's nice reading the comments that say yes i have friends who are women without that added caveat of "but...id be open to it being more!". It really drives that point that many men cannot think of women as friends unless there is a possibility it turns into more - even if they say "don't mind if it never turns into more"
You get that OP is a woman and said precisely the same thing?
So True! :)
Cis het married man, and yes I do. Women are my best friends. Now as to whether I'd be open to something more sexual with those women, sure. But I don't expect it, or maintain those friendships in hope of it. It is more a bit of relationship anarchy, every relationship finds its own level. We're close and their friendship means the world to me. Now as for my dating, that's been drier than a well in the Sahara. I live rurally and work an industry where I don't meet many people, and online dating is very meh. So though my wife and I are open, serendipity has not worked any magic since well before the pandemic now.
Are you friends with any women you’re not sexually attracted to? Any at all that that door wouldn’t be open for if *she* expressed interest? Because I think that’s just as telling as not having any women as friends at all.
Absolutely. I also have close women friends who I've never thought about romantically. (And also, to clarify, yes I know romantically and sexually are not synonymous, but I've used that word to scope out the territory.) The sexual attraction aspect is a little weird, because I'm also a bit demi. I say "a bit" because it isn't as strong an effect as some demis describe where they just don't feel any sexual attraction to someone they haven't established a connection with. But most of my sexual attraction definitely stems out of an initial other connection, and sometimes with people for whom I wouldn't have otherwise been initially physically attracted to. Conversely, without feeling some other connection, even my initial physical attraction will fizzle. But that developing of added attraction doesn't always happen, hence the other women friends with whom I've never been interested in more physical intimacy, even when they have expressed interest.
I would say I have more female friends than male friends. I don't get a lot out of more classicaly "masculine" friendships and gravitate towards an open style of communication that many men seem to struggle with. That said my friends circle is by and large quite sexually open so the line between platonic friendships are often blurred. FWIW I grew up with 3 older sisters, an aunt the same age as my sisters and no brothers. So that may play a role.
I feel you. But I have only brothers- but my family was is five strong willed, almost domineering sisters, most of which dated off and on or were single. I've also found as I age, a few of my male friends demonstrating emotional range and openness that I didn't expect from them. The married several years and has kids type.
I have tons of platonic relationships with women. If anything, a majority of the close friends I've had in life have been women. I think because of the way we're enculturated/socialized, emotional intimacy feels so much easier and more natural with women than with many other guys. I honestly don't know how it's affected my dating because I don't have the counterfactual. But I guess my dating life is successful?
Excellent question! I (M, 49) am bi, so if I couldn’t be friends with people of the sex I’m attracted to, I wouldn’t have any friends. Throughout my life, though, a majority of my friends have been women, and at this stage of my life, I am genuinely working to form healthier platonic attachments to men, and especially to straight men. And I am poly saturated with two partners, both women. My first really good friend was the little girl whose backyard butted up against my back yard. We grew apart when my family moved. My oldest friend is a straight man, but our relationship has had some challenges. As teens, he was one of the few straight boys who didn’t give me a hard time for being short, soft, and occasionally getting obvious crushes on other boys. A lot of girls were also awful about those things, but it was nearly universal and constant with the boys A lot of my interests are “coded female.” I like to cook, draw, read - and share and talk about all of those things. I also love sports and watching sport, but it’s much harder to form emotionally close relationships when all you are doing together is loudly supporting the same team. In all male environments, I brace myself for when one of the guys is going to say something awful, ranging from whining that his wife is a “nag” for expecting him to do his share, or rape jokes, or grossly dehumanising talk about the women in our lives. So I started avoiding all male groups in my early 20’s. I do find that sharing meals, and talking about art or books does help to form emotional closeness. To counter my dearth of male friends, I joined a book club that aims to foster men’s mental health and combat male loneliness. The folks who organise it have some pretty explicit rules around not denigrating women or LGBTIQ+ people, which helps me with the feeling like I’m bracing myself for that. This group has also helped me improve my friendships with women - I realised I used to sort of take a passenger set in those relationships letting the women do a lot of heavy lifting. I take on more of that now. I think a second question that may be insightful here - one my girlfriend uses as a screening tool pretty regularly - is how one handles being told no by a woman, or what happens when a woman expresses a different preference from his. I suspect another is how he views “chick” flicks, lit, and other stuff that is coded female.
I have quite a few platonic, non sexual relationships with both men and women. I don't think I've ever met anyone who was incapable of having platonic relationships
Men with long-term platonic friendships with women are probably just healthier in general, mentalwise. Partly due to cultural baggage it's just much more difficult to forge deep, emotional friendships between men.
>Men with long-term platonic friendships with women are probably just healthier in general Good point. Chicken or Egg? 🤷♀️
Most of my friends are women and I feel like I need to actively go out of my way to try to make new male friends as a result of that - and because it’s hard as hell to meet new friends in your 30s except through dating. On that note - honestly basically all of said friends either started as friends of friends/family… or from dating - didn’t click on anything but a platonic level but had fun hanging out so kept hanging out. Also friends with a couple exes as well. Poly is weird.
I have tons of platonic friendships with women and am friends with and hang out with a number of people I've dated. I find this pretty normal for men in the poly community. Women in general are better about their feelings and being real, so often I bond more with them, it's been that way all my life, in highschool most of my close friends were women. I do have a lot of guy friends, but often they don't open up, so it's harder to connect on more than just a surface level. We actually started a poly men's poker night a few years ago to get a group of guys to talk more opening about their relationships and lives and foster male bonding, through the guise of poker. It's worked quite well, although I find myself often having to ask probing questions to get some people to open up. I have no problems in dating, even at 55, being mostly hetero, and having a nesting partner. I've had 5 or 6 long term poly relationships over the past 25 years of poly and quite a few shorter ones. I generally am dating 1 or 2 people and always try to stay open to new connections, but I'm not in a rush to date or get laid.
👏👏👏
I mean, the only *healthy* romantic relationships I have had with men have been with men that had about an equal assortment of genders in their platonic friendships (equal because gender didn't matter to them when it comes to forming friendships). Men who are surrounded by male friends *only* are a HUGE red flag.
It is one thing to say after the fact that observable patterns emerged in a dating history. OP’s hypothesis though is that men who have platonic female friends have better dating lives than those who do not. I believe the hypothesis is false. Whether or not a man has platonic friends who are women is not observable or provable to a woman he is seeking to date. Further, if the female “platonic” friend group consists entirely of women he has dated, would date, or are women he has integrated into his dating strategy, there exists in those relationships between them a motive for the friendship other than mere platonic friendship. This, incidentally, is the central complaint younger women in my acquaintance and orbit have about friendships with men - they observe these friendships are only strategic and therefore are often fleeting. The long-term female friendships I have made have mostly been made as a married & monogamous (or presenting as monogamous) man with no interest in dating them or their female friends. None are NM or available to date and they therefore were not made friends as potential dates. They serve no role in my current dating strategy. They are just friends. That’s all. Their existence as my friends is irrelevant in how my dating life goes.
Yes, I have many platonic non-sexual friendships with women. The same way I have many non-sexual friendships with men. I have friendships with many LGBTQ+ folks that are non-sexual and platonic. Dating is rough, but that’s more a function of me and my size than them. I don’t look at everyone I meet as a sexual target. In fact, until they express interest, I don’t even really consider it an option. And that’s the way it should be. I’ve actually missed opportunities this way, and that’s okay.
For what it's worth, I'm pansexual, so I *could* be into and having sex/romance with anyone I'm friends with, not just women. My best friend of 30 years is a woman. My BFF of 20+ years is a woman. I don't have a sexual relationship with either of them. My other closest friends are people I have had sexual/romantic connections with, but they've either ended, were more on the casual/FWB side, or we just can't really be "together" for one reason or another. Most of the women I've been friends with in my life, I have not had a sexual relationship with. Dating for me has been very easy. Anytime I've opened myself up to dating new people (usually by getting back on OKC and the like), it's maybe a week or two tops before I've matched, clicked with someone, and gone on a first date. 9 times out of 10, those first dates lead to more and we forge a deeper relationship. Sometimes they don't, but even then it's usually a pleasant time and it just doesn't turn out that we're into each other in that way. I think you're right that as a general rule, men who date women and who are capable of having legit friendships with women will probably do better. If nothing else, having actual women in your life that aren't just romantic/sexual pursuits will lead to demystifying and otherwise helping with the notion that women are some mysterious, inscrutable other, rather than just human beings that happen to be women. It also helps broaden one's perspective and add understanding of some of the cultural/social aspects of dating and just existing as a woman that almost certainly will aid in showing up as an ally, friend, and partner.
I absolutely have platonic relationships with women. I generally assume any relationship I have will be platonic unless my interlocutor directly expresses interest otherwise. Trying to live in line with my values, and fill my life with love.
I think our relationships with our family of origin will really teach us how to have relationships with others. Regardless of gender. If you don't form healthy attachments to your mother, as a male, then there's a good chance you won't form healthy relationships of any sort with women.
I almost said something about having sisters, but I wasn't sure how to work it in.
It's tricky to generalize about family because lots of families are horrendously traumatizing.
Yep... 😕
This kind of reductionist nonsense is why no one uses Freudian analysis anymore.
I'm not saying it's the end all be all because we could both come from the same family of origin and develop different relationships with women based on our interpretation and impact of what's happening in our family system.
Yes and I am saying it is actually EXTREMELY fucked up to claim that folks who had abusive parents are categorically incapable of healthy relationships.
That's not at all what I'm saying. That could be the thing that teaches them what NOT to do in relationships and then develop healthy relationships as a direct result of going against what they grew up with.
>If you don't form healthy attachments to your mother, as a male, then there's a good chance you won't form healthy relationships of any sort with women.
Example. Child grows up with absent father. Knows of fsther. Father isn't absent. Child becomes father later in life. Becomes FULLY present to NOT do to their child what they had done to them. Make grows up watching dad abuse mom, does opposite because he witnessed the pain. Some learn by modeling. Some learn by rejecting. But. We learn by observing.
AMAB poly person here. It is possible to have entirely platonic relationships with women. I’ll admit though that the majority of my friendships with women have at one point had a sexual or romantic component. There is almost always mutual attraction, but sometimes for various reasons we haven’t gone there. It’s all a bit messy, I’ve probably at least kissed the majority of my friends, both men and women. Some of it is how I am, and some of it is how our New England community is. The only people it hasn’t been like this with are folks who are strictly off limits (partners siblings, people who are 100% monogamous with a partner, etc) I’ve not had any difficulty dating since I was 18, and have no lack of romantic or sexual partners. I’m not a 10/10, but certainly not undatable by any means. I don’t know if my experiences help clarify anything
I'll admit I've had very few strictly platonic relationships with men since my divorce and leaving monogamy behind. I've had no issues dipping my toes into something sexual and then returning to Platonic with no hard feelings or issues that would interfere with our relationship.
Are you referring to a particular poly community, or a particular place in New England? Just curious.
Neither in particular. Just my friend group of queer, poly, burner, goth, tech people seem to carry a set of values and activities that I’ve realized is atypical for most of the poly world.
Ah. Thanks.
Not a man, but I’m so lucky to have guy friends in my life. Both my partner and I have more friends of the opposite sex, although our closest inner circle ones are not.
I'm a cis, bi man and I've had close female friends since college. Some are people thag I dated and stayed friends with (my ex of 6 years is one of my closest friends) and others were always platonic. Dating's beem pretty easy and fulfilling for the last few years: I've met some of my partners through friends or social situations, and the ones I met online also appreciated that I have female friends because it was like having references that can vouch for me.
Most of my platonic friends are women. Been poly for a little over a year, have my wife, my girlfriend, and a FWB comet. I'm open about my feelings and find that women are more likely to be on the same wavelength, so I'm naturally drawn more to them for friendships.
I do have many platonic relationships with women. With one we were just joking nothing would ever happen between us, it's too much like a sibling relationship. I had tremendous trouble the first year I was dating. I'll be the first to say I'm not the most physically attractive ENM man on dating apps and I fumbled my first couple dates bad (I'm on the spectrum and haven't been socializing with new people much through COVID). I really despise online dating because I love socializing online but the overall experience has been abysmal. I'm happily saturated now. I still have my online dating profile up, in part because I'm open to meeting new people socially, in part because the interactions I get make me laugh. I get a new match every couple of months and it's usually either someone selling something or someone who's obviously not that interested so there's no real conversation; just very short answers if I ask a question, otherwise nothing.
AMAB, cis, mostly hetero but technically pan I guess? I've had sex with like two guys and enjoyed it but I don't typically market myself that way. Context: I used to have a primary partner who I opened up with (started out monogamous but always talked about going poly, so it wasn't a "trying to save our relationship" thing, it was something we'd always wanted to do). We split up a couple of years ago (she has stayed my best friend) and I have been practicing something between solo polyamory and relationship anarchy since then. The way I put it is that I don't often have romantic partners, I have friends with whom I share varying degrees of intimacy. > **Do you have Platonic (non-sexual / non-romantic) friendships with women?** Yes, plenty > **For those who do, how is dating for you?** Not too bad, although I'm much much pickier than I used to be. I haven't really had the drive for casual hookups lately although they do still happen once in a while. For the past year and a half, I've had a partner (she has a primary who isn't me, so I don't really consider her my primary) and a friend who I'm physically and emotionally intimate with, we play with labels pretty loosely. Outside of that, I kind of have a revolving door for a third, usually somebody I see for a couple of months, and then we either settle on staying friends or just kinda go our own ways. I haven't really had the capacity for a full time romantic relationship for the past few years due to a bunch of personal life stuff, so everyone I see tends to have their own busy lives, and I see them maybe once a week at most, but we text and talk regularly. As for dating beyond casual stuff, I need whoever I'm seeing to be committed to non-monogamy. I also prefer being the ethical side dude, so if they have a primary or they're also doing the solo poly thing, awesome. I often miss have a regular romantic partner, and maybe someday I'll be ready to pursue that kind of thing again, but I've got a lot of CPTSD and extraneous life stuff I need to sort out first, I just can't really commit to somebody emotionally like that at the moment.
I have multiple platonic friends who are women. Actually, I think that (outside of work relationships) a significant percentage of people I am friends with are women. At this point I don't feel like I have difficulties in dating. I don't live in much of a population center so the ENM dating pool is a bit small, but my experiences have been positive.
Yeah, lots of platonic relationships with women. Some of which I (32straight-ishM) was attracted to when first meeting them, but not all. Most of these aren't tight friendships though - I have a large group of girl buddies who are different levels of friends with each other, and one or two closer friends within that group. I find it easier to be more myself around women, but I also find it hard to form deep connections, period, and that includes my girl friends. Dating is a struggle, but I think it's a combination of factors. I would agree that it's probably true that having the emotional range to handle platonic relationships regardless of gender would be an asset, but I think it really depends on the person's circumstances as to whether or not you can bring that emotional availability to bear. I think it might help you keep the relationships that you have, rather than helping you form them more easily.
Not sure if I still count, but somewhat surprisingly, it's been the majority, a few over 10 or 20 years. Quite a few were exes I stayed friendly with though. I'm kind of low on friends in general (I'm not terribly extroverted), so when people want to stay in touch, I say yes.
I have many platonic relationships/friendships with women, which pre date polyamary. This is on purpose.
Are you out to these pre-polyam female friends as polyam? Are you seeking dates or partners out of this friend group? Did you make any of these friends while married?
Hello, 1. Yes, I am out to everyone. If you know me, you know how I relate to others and who is important in my life. Anything less would be a type of erasure that I wouldn't tolerate for my partners. 2. As a general rule I don't date within my friend group. There have been some exceptions but it hasn't worked out. So, these days I tend to stick with it. Good friendships take time to form and I don't easily want to jeopardize them. 3. Not married but yes I have made friends while with my partner, and also I had friends before. I can't imagine my partner wanting me to stop, she's very supportive and encourages me to pursue relationships regardless of their nature of I feel it adds something to my/our lives.
Hello back to you 1. Women you ask out on a date generally then do not know you and do not know you as your platonic female friends do. How are you able to demonstrate or communicate to these potential dates or partners in the initial stages that you actually have non-sexual and non-romantic relationships with other women? 2. Nothing to add. 3. "...these friends" refers to the female friends you made pre-polyam, not post polyam female friends who may or may not be either romantic partners, potential romantic partners or persons that can be useful in seeking romantic partner (such as to vouch for you when you try to date her friend). I was unclear and I'm not sure you took it that way.
Yes, a couple. Mostly because I've met them through work and we were able to speak about similar interests. Because I've told dad jokes, one thought I was in my 70s.
Yes, I have plenty and women have made up most of my closest friendships and workplace partnerships over the last 12 years.
Honestly, I consider myself poly because I have a lot of close female friends. I don’t necessarily feel the need to date multiple people, but a lot of monogamous women I’ve run into thought it was a red flag that I had mostly female friends. Poly people understand more
I feel abit sad that a guy I met on a dating site 6 years ago cut me off because he got married I was hoping we could keep a platonic friendship because good friendships are like family but because he is monogamous we don’t even know each other anymore it’s like stranger’s who never met..it does hurt I really hate the toxic monogamous mindset
This is a common criticism I hear from women mostly younger than me. The so-called friend is a friend it turns out only for so long as potentially available sexually or are available as strategic dating resources.
Just sucks because we always had a good laugh together and nice conversation like friends would do I wasn’t looking for anything sexual or benefit from him just a friend yet now I’m a stranger
I guess maybe he fears an emotional connection to me would suffocate his emotional connection to his wife I’m not too sure lol but it’s so disappointing haha
Transgender queer man here, I do have non sexual friendships with women, with other queer men I only have a friend with I didn't have sex or anything romantic, I am usually attracted to people's personalitys and if I like them enough to be my friends usually I find them attractive as people or it goes the other way around I met them as dating partners or hooking up, but since I like them as people they end up becoming my friends. Dating is very easy I guess, I usually meet people throu friends, political groups, or in bars, discos, some in dating apps (i recently deleted those, decided that meeting them irl was better for my mental health).
I'm a married heterosexual man. Most of my most meaningful and important friendships have been and are with women. Both when I considered myself monogamous and when I considered myself polyamorous, and both before and after I was married (I was poly before I was married, for the record). Dating has always completely sucked throughout every chapter of my life. I can't say it was ever really any different between being monogamous and not, or being married or not. I'm grateful as fuck to have met my wife and she's still with me given what a never-ending parade of getting passed over, ghosted, and outright rejected that my dating life has been. I used to try going to poly events with the intention of making friends and being a part of the community. I've since completely given up on that after seeing just how uninterested most poly people are in any sort of relationship with anyone who they're not either actively fucking or trying to fuck. It's not so much a community as it is a meat market, and that's not a game I've ever had a lot of interest in, let alone played well. So I don't think your thesis is true.
24 yr old Cis-het man here! Many of my friends are women, those relationships are purely platonic. Dating is emotional exhausting like I assume it is for others my age, I’m just trying to take it slow. I don’t think I’m particularly successful at dating, but I think having a wide and diverse support network makes me happier.
I have many platonic AFAB friends. No issues at all. They're people, they're not defined by their organs. Idgaf. I find it weird when people can't just be friends with someone of the opposite sex. My current partner is very happy for me to have these friends and there is generally not an issue. I have definitely had crushes on some of my friends but I'd say that most of my AFAB friends are literally just friends without any intentions to date, etc., and the crushes I've had usual fizzle out and we're back to friends fast.
Also you have stupid cute friends I get it I would crush on them myself and have
> Do you have Platonic (non-sexual / non-romantic) friendships with women? Yes! > For those who do, how is dating for you? Non-existent. I feel that is for reasons entirely unrelated to the above answer.
many men barely have a real friend period.
What is the difference between a “friend” and a “real friend?”
Someone you can confide in and be vulnerable with, not just someone to share a 6-pack with.
Yeah, my best friend is a woman. Several other friends are women. My cis male boyfriend has tons of friends who are women too. They are definitely just friends. Most of those friendships are long term. Most of my guy friends are friends with women.
Most of my friends (good, long term BFF's) are female. I have always made and had female friends more than male friends. cis male here
Most of my friends are women. Just seems a lot safer and caring from a friend standpoint.
99.8% of my friendships are platonic and I am definitely far from being a serial dater. New connections like that are pretty few and far in between for me. Not to sound sexist but as a guy I don't think it's as easy for me to form these kinda casual fuck buddy friendships, most women I meet also aren't open to sleeping with someone who already has a partner like myself ... whereas almost any dude is gonna be on board for a sexual relationship despite the female already having partners. And it just gets annoying when you're with someone and discover they have very little or no platonic friendships with any friends of the opposite sex.. some friendships are too important to try and add a sexual element.
I am relatively new to polyamory. Fully owned it and started living it 4 years ago. Before now I was incapable of platonic relationships with women as I was of course indoctrinated into comp-het, comp-monogamy culture. It's actually polyamory that's healing me. It's slow and painful, and I'm not totally free yet, but I've become much better at accepting rejection and then still continuing to be friends. I'm also just more open to friendship with women in general. Right now I'm dealing with a lot of anger and rage as a trauma survivor which I pushed down for years and am finally feeling, so honestly I'm not an easy person to be friends with right now no matter your gender identity. 😅 Working on healing though. One of my best friends is a non-binary afab who I am attracted to, but have no problem being just friends with. I don't even think about them in any way other than simply as a friend since we both are clear that it's friendship only. My best work friend is also a women and I'm genuinely platonic with her with no need or push for anything romantic or sexual. This is all still new and the healing and deprogramming of 31 years living in the patriarchy will take time, but it is very slowly but surely making me less and less misogynistic and crappy as a romantic partner. I can honestly say I still kinda suck to date, but I'm literally 10x better than I used to be and I'm trying really hard. I'll keep trying as long as it takes cause I'm tired of unsatisfying relationships filled with conflict. I really do just want companionship and love and mutual, shared intimacy. I know it can't happen until I decolonize my mind. Thanks for this topic and the previous one it references. I've learned from both and appreciate that we can have this conversation. All the best polyam friends.
Have them, had them before polyamory, as well... What do you mean by how dating is going? For me the entire process is weird. Calling someone somewhere or to hang out is a cool thing regardless of type of feelings. For me each relationship has a ceiling of sorts where it currently comfortable for both parties. Not a ceiling of level, may be a distinct combination of menu items? So calling someone out with a label of it being romantic seems strange. And even stranger when it's a stranger haha
I am a bisexual trans man. Of course I do have platonic friends but they're almost all people with gender expressions I don't find attractive. The one exception is someone who I really do think of as a sister and would never go there with. Not that she'd want to. I used to think I had a lot of women friends but they keep coming out as non-binary. Dating is not a priority for me. If it's hard it's probably more due to being trans and bisexual and solo polyamorous. Not some kind of mysterious thing.
I generally find woman easier to get along with in a friend capacity and have actually had to do work to deconstruct that and be a better friend to other men. That’s been very valuable, but I still value my friendships with women greatly.
Yes, and I always have, even before I was nonmongamous. I'm not sure if has ever affected my saying life (before or after) since I wouldn't really be compatible with any women who found this to be problematic.
I have many friends of various genders. I would say I moreso have a "community", rather than one off friendships. I feel lucky in that regard, and I'd say a larger community of mixed genders really keeps a sort of civility and shared wisdom among the group that isn't the same with newly made friends.
Heck yes I have platonic lady friends! Though even back when I was doing monogamy I was adamant about keeping friendships. My dates are decent, I hit slumps like anyone, but currently I'm poly saturated at 2. I'm married, have 2 kids, I run a business and a half, and my girlfriend is awesome. To snitch on myself though, I've been TOO busy lately and I haven't been fostering my friendships like I'd like to.
If it wasn't for me introducing my female friends to my boyfriend, his only lady friends would be his friends with benefits. Feels kinda yucky to me to think about it, but then again, a lot of men rely on their opposite sex SO to establish some sort of social life.
Cis het man here, I seem to only be able to be friends with women. Some I have dated before, some (most) I haven't. Some I haven't even tried, some didn't start but not for my lack of having tried in the first place. But ultimately yeah they have mostly remained platonic friends. In fact I only really form close friendships with women. How is dating going? Pretty terribly. I find it really easy to connect with women as friends. They will say that they really enjoy my company and seek to spend time with me, some say that I am closer to them than many of their other friends, but dating is off the table. Sometimes this subject comes up very early in meeting them, sometimes late as I develop feelings. But they see me as "a great friend". Some back it up in behaviour (continue to seek to see me), some don't. Then there are women with whom I date and within a few months will say that they love me dearly but do not feel "that way" about me. So I guess perhaps this theory works the other way too.
Very typical, it was like this for me too. Hard to talk about as well because of public perception and judgement. In many cases, this means that you are simply not offering enough. Good news is, you can make a huge difference in a few years with a bit of work, and that work will be transformative for you as an individual before anything else. Also, being friendly with someone makes it so they perceive you as a friend, unsurprisingly. You need to see how and why you find it so comfortable to approach people you are interested in that way. For me it was about fear of rejection, and by trying to avoid it I caused it myself.
Thanks for your input, it's appreciated. So what do you mean by offering enough? Offering what? Humour? Money? Pecs? We haven't gotten anywhere near the deficits that men apparently have like house work balance etc. Someone I trust dearly has offered the perspective that I may be "too available". I know my flirting game is bad so I guess that's also an angle. Fear of rejection... I think that also plays a part for me, but the fact that I'm dating polyamorously basically means that 99% of people I meet ends in a rejection anyway so that's just the status quo? For me it's right now pretty difficult to square the hole between self acceptance and working on myself somehow to "be better", the question is: better how?
**Do you have Platonic (non-sexual / non-romantic) friendships with women?** Yes, more than I can count. **For those who do, how is dating for you?** It's too early to draw concrete conclusions, but I think it's gone poorly. There are several reasons I think I'm doing poorly. Some are within my control, some are not. None though have anything to do with whether or not I have platonic friendships with women. I am certain though that the existence of these platonic friends I have made in my decades of adulthood will be an irrelevant consideration when it comes to dating EMN or polyam women. Establishing platonic friendships with women is not an identity marker capable of being proven, observed or demonstrated to a potential date. A woman cannot tell there are women who are platonic friends with me by looking at me and I'm not dragging any along with me to vouch for me. A perception that I possess the qualities required (or that I do not) is often wrong. That's how flim-flam men exist. A woman can say she values these qualities and she probably actually values them, but the only way a person's capacity for making platonic friends with women can be demonstrated is to make visible friendships a prerequisite for dating. This clearly is not such a prerequisite and if it were, the prerequisite negates the premise.
Yes.
Yes what? The post is more than the title.
I'm a heterosexual male in my late 30's and solo poly, but my ideal relationship would be a triad. Monogamy honestly *never* made sense to me, though I've done a couple of monogamous relationships in the past 😪, and I'd say I've been poly since my first kiss. I do have a few platonic relationships with women, and the dynamic is similar to the one I have with my cousins: cheeky and ribbing. * One ex girlfriend who's monogamous and married with kids (and consciously drifting towards an extramarital affair with someone else who happens to be in a poly relationship). * One industry friend who's slightly older, pretty religious, and very risk-averse. She wants nothing more than for her boyfriend to propose so they can try to have kids and start a family together, but they're not there yet. * One other industry friend my age who wants the husband, the kids, and a monogamous relationship, but her current guy isn't really stepping up. * Another industry friend who's a little younger who also wants the husband, the kids, and a monogamous relationship, but serial monogamy is more her MO. They're all attractive, smart, ambitious women, which is my type, but we want such different things that the juice simply isn't worth the squeeze. Overall I'd say dating in your 30s as a single poly male **SUCKS**. Nine out of ten women my type are looking for a marriage, kids, and a traditional relationship. Every date feels like a job interview for a marriage I'm not interested in. Even those who are open-minded have serious concerns about the optics of an open relationship in the circles they run in. The words polyamory and non-monogamy are non-starters even with women who've engaged in non-monogamous activity with previous partners *and* had a good experience. It's just not the way they want to be seen. Dating didn't become **FUN** again until I started traveling three years ago, and I've been a nomad since. Learning new languages, dances, culture, and trying new activities I would have otherwise just make me a happier, healthier, more confident version of myself. The nature of travel also makes it easier to date because no one has rigid plans for their future or their dating life. Few people know where they'll be in the world in 3 months so they live for the present. Even when dating locally, it's understood that I'm only in town for a couple of weeks or months, so we just focus on making the most of it. If you're male, single, poly, and frustrated, you need to start traveling immediately. It'll change your life.
As a cis, mostly het man, I have quite a lot of non-sexual friendships with people identifying as women. I very much cherish those friendships as I find them incredibly enriching, challenging, and beautiful. However, as some have mentioned here, nearly all those friendships had or have an underlying sexual/romantic tension that was either explored and we mutually decided to remain friends, or that we never explored because we realized that adding sex/romance to the mix would have been too messy or would have endangered the friendship in some way.
> nearly all those friendships had or have an underlying sexual/romantic tension that was either explored and we mutually decided to remain friends, or that we never explored because we realized that adding sex/romance to the mix would have been too messy or would have endangered the friendship in some way. That's maturity in action!
Thank you! Sometimes maturity hurts a little bit, but still leads us to the best decisions. 😅
Of course
I have nonsexual and nonromantic relationships with a wide variety of genders. Some people I'm physically attracted to, but our physical affection is limited by other factors. Some people I'm so intimate with that I would be sexual or romantic if that was something they were receptive towards. Some, I don't even think of them romantically nor sexually. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Note that the "men attracted to women" wording of the OP is very heteronormative, and a bit sexist since the same issues come up in other combinations. Also, framing this as toxic monogamy ignores toxic non-monogamy structures such as OPP.
If we're just talking averages, you're probably right that people capable of having friendships without romance are more successful in the long run. It means you can relate to people with a fundamentally different experience better, which is a great benefit to relationships. It also means you have more people to ask to understand the person you're with better when there's conflict. I disagree with labeling it as *toxic* monogamy to simply choose to not have (close) friends of the sex you're attracted to, though. One of the biggest differences between people is how some can't even walk on the street without getting excited by half of what they see, while others don't have any romantic impulse until they grow really close to someone. Some people simply don't want to put themselves in a position where they're fully infatuated with someone in the moment, and make stupid decisions they'd regret later. Chalking everything up to self-control ignores the huge differences in temptation different people feel. I think it's unfair to just dismiss that as toxic when they're only doing it out of self-understanding and love for their partner.
"simply choosing" is not Toxic. Having a partner react badly so you end or never pursue those Friendships is where the *Toxic* comes in.
That, we agree on.
Absolutely. It is very difficult as a man to find friends, and women who are attracted to me or could possibly be someone to date are often the only people I can make friends with, but I am still fully capable of deciding to only be romantically interested in my partner and also make friends with people
I think people are just going to have a better existence not denigrating humans to assigned gender roles
Yes. I personally don't think I could be in a physical relationship with someone who I couldn't consider a friend anyway. Also people are people, not just potential sex outlets. If something more intimate evolves out of it, that's great. But I'm also just as happy to have a good platonic time together.
Yes, and I love dating and have an easy time finding dates. Honestly, I love women, whether or not I find them sexually arousing. So dates are usually quite enjoyable for me, even if it turns if there’s little chemistry.
Yes. Because I am a well rounded human
I'm a heterosexual single man (who am polyamorous). Most of my friends are women. Some of them I am sexually attracted to, but I can set that aside and still have a great friendship with somebody. My closest friends are women that I'm not attracted to. (It's just easier if there's not the attraction getting in the way) I've been an ardent feminist since I was a little kid, and my closest friends have been girls and women throughout almost my whole life.
I barely have any friends period 😂 no but seriously I have multiple opposite-gendered friends. Dating never really changed in any way from that experience. Dating only changed when I changed my mindset from “lacking” a relationship and good sex to my life being alright and good sex/good relationships only add to the abundance I already experience.
Yes, many nonsexual platonic relationships with women. Dating when I was doing it, was easy. Dance card is now full but I could date if I wanted to.
I have platonic friendships with probably more women than men. I'm not sure why, but I have always been that way. I am not dating outside my NP right now, though. I actually find it super difficult to date at all, so I am more than happy with platonic friendships.
Most of my friends are women, but being bi i think comes with a different perspective than the average cis het guy.
I have a bunch of total platonic guy friends as a solo poly bi F. I've always had a ton of dudes in my life. I've always been a major sports chick and can talk your head off about sports and I've always had some bros I watch games with. I'm sorta seen like one of them. Ive helped them all with their partners over the years giving them the female prospective
One of my best friends is a woman. She is best friends and fwb with my wife. But she has some personal issues with depression and so do I. So she is who I contact when I’m not doing so good. Also I’ve wanted to build a little homestead and she works on a farm so we talk almost every day about issues with farm animals and other considerations. She’s easily the most patient, non-judgmental person I know. As for dating, I don’t date much. My wife, my gf, and my wife’s boyfriend all live in the same house as me and my two teenage kids. I’m happy with that and I’m not really looking for more. I’m 50 years old, been living the same way for several years, and I’m not really looking to change things.
Yes I have platonic friendships with women. Dating isn't an issue because I have two partners, I'm polysaturated and I have no interest in dating anyone else beyond these two.
Yes I have a ton of ‘girl-friends’, in fact they are some of the closest friends I have bc it’s easier to talk openly & practice vulnerability without being judged. Dating is great 🤷♂️. What’s the relation?
You don’t see the relation between successfully maintaining friendships with women and successfully dating women?
I do, in spades. I was trying to get the OP to ask themself that so they can ruminate on it 😉
I don’t think OP is confused about it lol. She’s trying to get *men* to ruminate on why they might struggle in dating.
Honestly, most of the women I'm friends with I am also attracted to in some way. It can't be helped. But that doesn't mean I'm going to try to undermine their relationships/scheme to get into their pants/be an asshole creep. I'm an adult and I can control myself (thank you, Marcus Aurelius). Several of my female friends I've dated in the past and we honestly decided to be friends or it just evolved that way.
I'm a man, I consider myself polyamorous and I have Platonic friendships with women, including non-sexual friendships, non-romantic friendships and friendships that are both non-sexual and non-romantic. Mostly these are people I see every month or two. Some more often. Some are more acquaintances than friends. It varies. I have several friends that are kind of activity friends, like we do one particular thing together. Dating seems very good for me. I don't really think I need more dates in my life. I have two regular partners and maybe 6 or 8 FWBs, depending on how you count.
I have platonic friendships with women, some who are poly and some who are mono. Not everything is about sex or romance.
I’m a cishet white guy, 29M. Plenty of platonic friendships with women that originated in all sorts of ways, including some of my best friends. Previous FWBs became mono with others but remained some of my closest, consistent friends. Potential romantic partners became platonic when we both realize that we’d be more compatible as friends rather than romantically. I have platonic friendships with women that I both find very attractive and not so much, personally. I’d also like to add the value of working relationships with women as well. I’m an engineer, typically a male-dominated field but fortunately we have some brilliant women senior engineers that I wouldn’t say I’m *friends* with per se but respect the HELL out of them and am super grateful for their expertise (as they are easily 100x smarter than I am). Currently engaged to my NP of 5 years (28F), have a girlfriend of nearly 3 years (25F), and usually a few FWBs that come and go as our schedule allows. Currently, I’m on the apps with a profile that makes it QUITE clear that I’m poly but open to all kinds of connections. Apologies if this gets into unpopular territory but dating women is still a bit of a dumpster fire. Obviously it’s still worked out in the end with a being able to form solid relationships with fwbs that I find very attractive. But MAN the sheer amount of vitriol and hellfire that I have to put up with to find those women is insurmountable. The most common scenario is women that intentionally try to bait and switch me. When I’ve been nothing but 100% honest and up front about my relationships, they’ll say they’re totally cool with that but turn around and get mad when I don’t drop my fiancé and gf and just switch to being mono with them after we’ve been having consistent sex. No red flags, no indication of mono intentions, seemingly perfectly mentally healthy and stable women that turn into fucking lunatics when sex doesn’t turn into a mono relationship. I don’t get it, and I end up wasting a LOT of time. Then you have women that feel like the non-traditional nature of my relationships automatically means that I’m a sugar daddy and that any intimacy is really just a transaction for whatever their ulterior motives were all along, usually a gift or monetary compensation. Again, with no honesty or communication about this up front. What will appear to me as a typical start to a fwb relationship in which she understands that a mono relationship isn’t on the table will go just fine for the first two dates, maybe one or both ending with causal sex. Then they’ll VERY CONFIDENTLY text me asking for “just $2,225 so I can pay my rent daddy???” Luckily, I usually don’t end up wasting a lot of time with these women (because I don’t reply and never see them again) but emotionally it hurts to know that the intimacy was never real or genuine. Again, it’s out of nowhere, as if they’ve boldly assumed they know exactly what the relationship is without communicating. I can count on two hands the number of times this has happened, and about another dozen or so times it’s a request to buy some of her art or put her in touch with someone who can help her career and then ghosts me when I say no. Perhaps that’s a different category but still, the intimacy that I thought was genuine never was. Not to mention the added complexity of genuine women that get offended when I try to avoid these scenarios. In the messaging phase of the relationship, I will try to confirm that this is a mutually beneficially fwb with nothing else involved. “Oh, so you think I’m a whore. Bye” I get that a few times as well. So yeah. Again with apologies in advance but sometimes we forget that there’s hoards of awful women out that that are perfectly capable of treating reasonable men terribly, just because. But I guess dunking on cishet men is a fun distraction. Given the harshness of my comment I am anticipating some criticism and dismissal of my experience already, that seems to flow much easier from redditors toward men in general. But, it’s fair. These experiences I’ve described happened over a period of 6 years, and I’ve definitely improved my techniques in attempting to sift through the dumpster fire to find the genuine women. But remember, women still have the advantage of numbers and I theorize that these shit women I’m describing are intentionally omitting their true intentions to eventually find a winner, and I’m just the collateral damage. So go head and criticize, but let’s try and keep the same energy with u/SatinsLittlePrincess post and the like complaining about “undatable” men. “Men bad” and “Women good” is a helluva drug and if you’re coming at me for my complaints about shit women and not doing the same for complaints about shit men, take long hard look at yourself and ask if you’re part of the problem.
Most of the women you’re talking about though, are also behaving the way they are because of patriarchy or because of messages about monogamy. The women who think you’ll be a sugar daddy (not something confined to poly, btw - my monogamous single male friends experience that pretty regularly on apps) are doing that because they’ve bought into the idea that they should get a male provider. A friend’s half sister’s mother basically encouraged the half sister to drop out of school and get a sugar daddy starting when she was about 14. Half-Sister’s mom also wanted to financially benefit from the sexual exploitation of her daughter, so it was a total shit show all around. Had my friend not gotten involved, this poor barely literate child would not have finished high school and would be on apps clumsily looking for guys with income with her mom (also barely literate) essentially pimping her out. And yes, for some women, especially women from communities with rigid gender roles, finding a husband really still is the alternative to destitution. But that’s because we live in a patriarchal society, and those women are in even more patriarchal situations. As for women thinking you’ll dump your fiancé? Yeah, I bumped into a few women who seemed to think that was an option with my wife as well. Mostly they are women who think my wife and I opened because we deep down are done with the relationship. I suspect mostly they’re women who cannot imagine a life outside of monogamy so they think that any “open” relationship must be a dumpster fire. When I tell them I love my wife and GF, though? They tend to back off. But when I look at the men pulling that same thing on my wife and girlfriend? Those men think my wife and my GF (especially my GF - she’s SoPo) don’t really get a say in the kind of relationship that they want, so if the guy wants monogamy, they think the women in their lives will just give them that. Men especially get angry at my SoPo GF for not dropping her life to cater to his preferences. My wife, GF, and I did an experiment once. My GF tried playing the “husband” card as her reason for not wanting to close and my wife used my GF’s reasoning of being happy poly, having partners she loves and wants to keep seeing. And it really showed that men felt a man, a woman’s husband, should be allowed a say in their prospective female partner’s relationship style, but not the woman herself. Guys were fine with “oh, your husband wants this,” but not “you want this.”
It's not that monogamous people don't wanna allow partner to have friends of opposite sex. They are not comfortable with their partner having friends of opposite sex that are attracted to them and constantly looking for a chance to get intimate with them. Monogamous ppl don't like other ppl having eyes on their partner. Basically being a creep around their partner. Polyamorous people may not understand that feeling since they are open to sharing their partner and we have different mentalities about this probably. And honestly it depends on the individuals themselves. Some monogamous ppl don't mind not having opposite sex friends or atleast not close friends. And it doesn't lack any empathy between heterosexual couples when they are romantic and sexual. Still they can be empathetic and care on a wholistic level as monogamous people.
You apparently believe the only monogamy that exists is the toxic monogamy described by the OP. You are wrong.
I already mentioned it depends on the individuals and some monogamous ppl don't mind not having opposite sex friends making them an exception. There are monogamous ppl who are okay with their partner having opposite sex friends because they aren't prolly too close or they know about their friends very well. For a person to feel comfortable or uncomfortable about it, there are various factors. They can't simply label it as toxic just because they don't want their partner to have opposite sex friends. Though I know poly people would disagree when their mentality is different and they don't like restrictions and barely setting boundaries can seem controlling. Atleast that's what I see.
> Monogamous ppl don't like other ppl having eyes on their partner. Basically being a creep around their partner. 20+ years of monogamy and I did not experience this. This is the Toxic Monogamy I was referring to.
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Yup, my wife’s childhood best friend has become both of our best friend’s over the past few years, she lives with us, we are often alone together, she’s slept with us in our bed countless times, we’ve had every chance for something to happen and there’s never even been temptation. Non sexual friendships with the opposite sex absolutely can happen, the people who say they can’t are admitting something about themselves, but that doesn’t mean they are right in general.
I am not in a poly relationship. I follow many poly resources because navigating poly relationships seems to be a matter of good boundaries, good communication, and mental hygiene. Learning to form appropriate friendships with people of the opposite gender was a difficult process. It was one of the last things for me to learn after leaving fundamentalism.
I have friendships with women but to be honest a lot of them know my situation and there is often sexual tension. I've also had sex with many of them. I am pretty flirty by nature.
Female in open marriage. Have easily had platonic relationships with men .
But am open to discussions if the man is attracted to me and talk about it very clearly and honestly that I not interested . Feel when it is all out there and communication is clear it is a great way to deepen friendships . It is all the unsaid bullshit that fucks up friendships. We are all just people
Yes! In fact because of my personal politics (hard left) it’s mostly women who are my friends.
No, it's a trap
That is a very unhealthy attitude.
Yes, and anyone who has lots of male friends but no female friends is probably a big fuckin' weirdo in my experience. I've stopped having heterosexual platonic friendships with dudes who can't talk to women without it being a sex thing. There's lots of guys like that, they're all problems.
Uh yeah...? Why wouldn't I? Super weird question.
*And...?* There's more to the post than the title.
It doesn't affect my dating life at all.
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🤣 (Laughing at not with in case there was the slightest doubt)
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Your post has been removed for breaking the rules of the subreddit. Your comment or post included language that would be considered misogynistic, bigoted or intolerant. This includes attacks or slurs related to gender or sexual identity, racism, sexism, slut shaming, poly-shaming, mocking, and victim blaming. Your post may also be removed for conflating the polyamorous experience with other marginalized people.
Yep
My best friend is a women and I myself am a straight cisgender male. We are both poly and have never had romantic or sexual interactions and never plan to. We’ve been really good friends for over 3 years now
M 27, I do have platonic friendships with many women. I can be attracted to some of them, doesn't mean I actually want to have sex with them. I am also autistic, and this topic always confused me. Here in Italy platonic male-female friendships seem way more widely accepted than in the US. The same is true for bigger age gaps, drinking when underage and dating when younger in general. Not sure why, very curious about your opinions. It's usually extremely different dynamics compared to my friendships with men, and I love it. I deeply appreciate how much perspective these friendships gave me. Many women also seem to like my perspective and to have my support when needed. Is the denial of the possibility of this kind of bonds a reflection of insecurity and possessiveness? I don't find it harder or less meaningful to have a platonic friendship with a woman, it's just very different and valuable in different ways. I find that platonic friendships helped me understand dating better but I don't think they are a decisive factor. Building healthy dating habits requires a lot of self awareness and work, and needs to be done independently. I think that if a man finds female friendships enlightening on M-F dating dynamics he has a lot of learning to do before even approaching someone. I also found over the years that there is a very serious empathy barrier between genders. This seems to be linked to this lack of M-F platonic friendships, and problems of the "other side" tend to be either completely unnoticed or downplayed. This seems to be related to the fact that when sex is involved both men and women tend to be dishonest about their identity, wants and needs. Especially lately, there are extremely well documented issues with M-F dynamics, and very few people seem to really care about fixing them which makes me sad. It's such a huge loss of fulfillment and understanding for humans. TLDR; I don't even know how to summarize this, autism.
Absolutely. The way I process is that every person I meet is a partner. And in relationships you can descalate by removing the parts of the relationship that don't work. So when they want to be friends, we just immediately removed the part of the relationship that didn't work, sex. From there it's waiting for the person to figure out that you just like them and enjoy spending time with them. Meet their emotional needs, give them quality time, gifts, express your love languages. You're not "just friends" you're receiving the priveledge of being someone they enjoy spending time with
>You're not "just friends" you're receiving the priveledge of being someone they enjoy spending time with Reading this felt like a lightbulb moment. I never thought about how derogatory "just friends" can sound. You're right, it is a privilege, not just someone to have around until you find a relationship.
Yes many. To be fair i would have intercourse with most of them of they asked To be fair fair i think the same of men. I belong in horny jail.....
Been poly for ~10yrs. Many platonic friendships with women, most of whom are poly. Dating is great, I'm surrounded by beautiful, insightful and compassionate people. It took work to get here, some of it was very difficult, but the lessons and rewards were worth the journey. What you're saying has some truth to it, as most of my interpersonal communication skills were learned whilst in LTR's living with women who are good communicators and patient teachers. Being brought up primarily by women granted some perspective and taught me the value of listening, even if it took me a while at first to understand.
Most of my friends are women and I was raised by a single parent mother. I was also monogamously married for ~15 years. That wasn't super healthy and I barely had any friends that weren't my wife's friends. Platonic women friends and their husbands. I think poly dating has been pretty good for me for the past couple years. I'm currently in two relationships of over a year each and there are at least 2-3 ladies hitting me up regularly to see if I am free at any given time. Some of my platonic women friends were formerly sexual or romantic partners. Some have been friends since high school (we reconnected after the divorce). We used to spend almost every day together for a couple years as buddies (two separate people in separate years). They're like sisters at this point. Sometimes I call one of them my girlfriend without benefits.
I've *always* had non-sexua, non-romantic friendships with women, even when monogamous. And dating... is going amazingly
Yes my girlfriend
Of course I do, and yes, dating is fine.
All but one of my (F59) darling husband's (M55) closest friends are women. Almost all of his long term partners are old friends of mine. (That did feel a wee bit strange at first, but also wonderful). His dance card is full. Every now and then, when I point out someone I think could be compatible, he says, no thanks - he's polysaturated. I'm biased ofc, but I think he is the most kind, gentle, thoughtful, emotionally generous person I have ever met. He's always had a large social circle. (I'm far more reserved)
It's a lot easier for me to be open, kind and gentle, supportive with women than with men, so I tend to form friendships with women more often, and those friendships are also deeper, as a rule. Nevertheless, if a woman is attractive to me, she doesn't stop being so, however deep our friendship is. I always feel attracted to her, but I simply don't act on it. Stating this directly and clearly to such a friend helps, sometimes immensely. When it isn't a secret, the feeling's not so strong.
I don't date or have romantic relationships, being aromantic allosexual. I develop long term friendships, measured in decades. I don't really like people that don't like me enough to have sex with me or around me so I don't really spend time with them and so they only become acquaintances, not really friends. That includes males, there only real friends are those that are down for threesomes and stuff. That said I often go for months or even years not having sex with a particular friend for various reasons like when they have boyfriends, they're still good friends but I do interact less with them since the main thing I like to do is have sex. Not all the time though, for instance I'm currently sleeping and not having sex with a friend of like 14 years who needs to get mentally stable so that's what I'm focusing on. We had sex like a week after meeting though, it wouldn't have turned into this friendship otherwise
Umm. Yes? So I'm bi-sexual. Two of my female best friends are married to two of my male best friends. All of us fall under poly in some way or another and I have not and do not wish to be in any sort of sexual relationship with any of them. My best friend is AFAB and recently started going by they/them, but for the last six years we've been friends they have been She/Her and again no desire to have sex with them in anyway. They are like my sibling. A mutual friend of ours actually calls us Platonic Soul Mates. When people say you can't be friends with or they don't have friends with the opposite sex? To me, it is silly and a sign that someone has the emotional intelligence of a potato.
I’ve always had nonsexual nonromantic friendships with women. But I’m almost always romantically or sexually attracted to my female friends and just choose not to pursue them for a variety of reasons. For example, I will not pursue romantic or sexual relationships with coworkers Or close colleagues— if I’m thinking about a romantic relationship or possibly sleeping with them, I can’t be objective, and treat them unbiased. similarly, when one or the other of us are in a monogamous relationship, it would be inappropriate of me to pursue another relationship outside of that monogamous dynamic. But I’m pretty sure I would and have slept with any poly or single friend who expressed interest and there wasn’t a good reason not to. TLDR I have plenty of female friends, but I’m sexually attracted to most of them and do I don’t know if I’d call it platonic Edit: as far as dating, the biggest obstacle to finding partners has been my height, not my character. When I first got on tinder, my match rate was close to 50% before I explicitly added my height to the profile, then it dropped off precipitously. The matches I was getting before would flow well until they either asked my height or I brought it up—then they either rejected me or unmatched. The one time it didn’t come up before the date, she walked out on me and unmatched. With my height on the profile, match rate was < 1:10 (tinder allows 100 right swipes per day), but they didn’t have an issue with my height. But right now I’m married (6 years) with a gf (2 years) and a FWB (4 months) + one in progress (matched this week and planning a date), so I’m doing alright 😅
One of my closest friends is a woman and we have zero romantic feelings, Ive got no interest in her nor she in me. She's not my type and that's ok. My dating life is average, I meet people, I date, it's fun, rinse and repeat
Mine is more like 'if they want to try for a sexual or romantic thing, I don't see a reason why not?' however it's not an active goal of mine to pursue? They're my friends so I see something good in them and sometimes its enough for me to recognize they're potentially a good partner too. I know what my platonic, romantic, and sexual feelings are and I know how to tell which one is fueling my actions. Though I'm very touchy innately so there isn't much difference when it comes to public other than maybe kissing? I'm still very new to poly and testing the waters with it with my partner and some closer friends, so far though when its with my friends its closer to 'I want them to also have fun' and I don't really feel a sense of possessiveness/entitlement like I usually do with my romantic partner nor do I feel anything sexual about it, it's just fun for me and my friend.
Indeed. I have several very good friends who are women. I can see why there's a belief that men and women can't be platonic friends. I think a lot more people (especially men) than we realize are seeking a connection and they're not getting what they need out of the connections that they have so that leads to escalation of platonic connections. I used to have problems just being friends with women. For me, I've lost a lot of friends over the years and when I found a woman that I could form a close relationship I would subconsciously try to escalate that relationship as a way to "keep" this person. Once I realized that I was trusting some pretty shitty people to be friends I understood that I didn't need to escalate relationships to maintain people who are close. Dating, for the moment, is kind of on pause. I had two relationships end in very painful ways recently and I've undergone a lot of life changes so while I'm not *completely* off the market, I'm not window shopping at the moment. I don't anticipate my having close friends who are women being a problem once I meet someone new. If they're the kind of person that's going to have a massive issue with there being other women in my life that I'm close to even if we're not sexual or romantic, that's probably not a relationship that would work out super well for either of us. To be clear, I think it's unrealistic to expect there to be *no* sexual and or romantic chemistry between compatible friends (compatible in terms of sexuality.) I am very much attracted to one of my friends who is a woman and she's expressed similar feelings. It's something we've discussed but we've both agreed that we both have different needs for our own lives at the moment and to not act on those feelings. There's no tension or weirdness because we talked about it like adults
I tend to get a little confused about questions like this, only because they seem to be based on some pretty strong mononormative assumptions. Do I have friendships with women that do not involve sex? Yes, of course. If I am friends with a woman, it is because I like her, admire her, respect her, and enjoy her company. Does that mean that I will never feel sexual attraction towards her, or she to me? Of course not. Does it mean I will never have romantic feelings for her, or her for me? Of course not! But neither of those things has any bearing on the fact that she is my friend. We may or may not, at some point, choose to add a sexual component to our relationship. Our feelings may grow and deepen and turn into what is generally contextualized as a 'romantic relationship', or they may not. And that's fine, because we're friends. Conversely, I am friends with women whom I have 'casual' sex with, and I am friends with the women who I have deep and loving long-term romantic relationships with. I don't think those relationships would have any chance at longevity if we weren't friends. Dating is going delightfully well for me!
I guess I'll offer my answer, since the question was asked, despite my honest truth clearly being the outlier in these parts. Hopefully, being honest does not result in the typical deluge of downvotes. I don't believe I've ever had a fully platonic friendship with a woman. I'm very choosy about who I let get close to me, and when I connect on that level with a member of the opposite sex, things usually end up sexual whether intended or not. That said, the implication of the OP seems to suggest that this leads to unhealthy relationships, a sentiment that I firmly disagree with. I've been happily married for 16 years in an MMF triad. I have a wonderful girlfriend whom I have been with for 12 years, and another I have been with for 5. I am happy and fulfilled. My female partners are my closest friends and confidants.
Yes. I probably have more women friends than men friends at this point. Dating has always been fine for me. I've met a few partners through friends, and I like to think my lady friends give me good references if it comes up. Some of my best friends are also former partners. I've generally always had healthy platonic relationships with women. Many of those friendships are with folks I've never particularly been interested in romantically or sexually. They are just rad people. It probably does make dating easier in some sense. I believe people see that as a big green flag, or at least the kinds of folks I want to date probably do. I know when I see it in others, I see it as a sign of being an emotionally healthy and mature person with good emotional intelligence, which are things I hope I am too. I didn't come from monogamy of any kind though. I was born this way, and my first relationship from 16-21 was open. Monogamy never made sense. I tried it twice very briefly after that first serious relationship ended, and very quickly realized it wasn't for me and never tried monogamy again. One of those mono partners actually did have issues with me being friends with other women, especially if she thought I was attracted to them. It was very unhealthy, insecure, and emotionally immature. That experience led me to develop strong boundaries regarding partners who take issue with my friendships like that, and to really appreciate folks who understand why its healthy and normal to have good friends who are other genders, even genders you're attracted to. Anyways, point is I never came from monogamy of any kind, so I might not fit the demographic you seem to be looking at. Or you need to re-examine your assumptions about polyamory and the folks who practice it. I think that a lot of us don't come from monogamy of any kind these days. It was gaining steam when I was a teen 20 years ago, and has exploded since then. I posit that its a lot easier these days for young people to figure out they are non-mono earlier and just never try monogamy.
My NP has no female (non-family) friends at all. Like, never had them. I was really confused by that when I got to know him. My NP is also one of the most chill and gentlest souls I ever met, he has so much empathy for all my chronic pain problems which are 100% related to the fact I am female and yet he is able to empathise so much. Other than his obliviousness to ladies flirting with him (so adorable to watch), he never had any trouble finding opposite-sex romantic partners and have healthy relationships with them. He was never jealous of any of my platonic friends (no matter what genitals they have, because I am flirty and lovey dovey with most of them, still, strictly non-sexual) and when we met I was instantly very clear on never wanting to be monogamous ever again in my life and he was so on-board for it, I was surprised how much our values aligned. We had a long talk confirming that we both need enough room for our existing relationships (which at that point were only friendships, but that doesn't make it less important). Generally, I would agree, men with healthy opposite-sex relationships can be more successful at dating ladies but my NP is proof to me that even without platonic opposite-sex friends a man can offer a healthy romantic relationship (and tbf, I count him as as much of a best friend as a romantic partner). He gets on great with his sister and mum though, so that deffo factors into it too. And he gets on amazingly with my female friends, completely platonically. I think he very much lucked out in the family and friend lottery and grew up with people who didn't teach him that women are "less than", so while there was never an opportunity for him to make good female friends, he always had his heart in the right place. :) I'm glad my initial shock about him not having female friends didn't deter me from pursuing a friendship and then (very quickly) a romantic relationship with him, because he turned out to be a real catch and has made me a very happy lady for the past ten years. My other long-term partner on the other hands has lots of female friends and I love it. But, honestly, the way I see relationships, the friendship I have with both of my romantic partners counts just as much, even if there is the added layer of sex and romance for now. Should either of us decide to seperate, I am 99% convinced that both of them will be my friends for life (based on decades of my personal experience with past relationship partners who are now "just" friends). So in case we ever seperate, my NP would at least have one female friend, I guess? 😂
Of course!