DO YOU BELIEVE THAT MEN AND WOMEN CAN BE JUST ‘BEST FRIENDS’ ?
The love that I have to them grow in a different path
Friendship between men and women, or also called cross-sex friendship is one of the most common phenomena in human relationship field. The idea of men and women uniting in a pure friendship, or a platonic relationship is relatively a new one. Have you ever experienced a condition when you have an intimacy in communication with your close opposite gender friend, and think whether or not it will turn into a romantic relationship? The big question rise when the friendship between men and women occurs in a long term and the communication between them become more intensive, that is also reflected in the title of this article. That is, do you believe that men and women can be just best friends?
Some people believe that men and women can just be friends, while others not. Opportunities for interaction between women and men are increasing in the workplace, educational place and the community, in which individuals have the chance to meet, interact and develop a cross-sex friendship with one another. As the individuals communicate intensively each other, they are sharing mutual interests, spending much time together by doing the same types of activities, and experiencing similar life experiences and sharing values and beliefs with the close opposite gender friend as their conversation become deeper.
The main goal of this article is to present a narrative description of cross-sex friendship in order to get more understanding of the romance challenge between men and women in a friendship. The examination into the challenge through narratives hopefully generates insight regarding the process of communication and interpretation of how cross-sex friendships construct, and change their recognition of their friendship. Previous research by Werking (1997) suggests that cross-sex friendships is different from same-sex friendships. The following narrative approach highlights the creation of love feeling that friends create for a cross-sex friendship development in the communication process.
This article is constructed by a qualitative method using the combination of desk study and social experiment in order to answer the main question. The desk study was conducted by gathering and sorting relevant articles and previous findings. The social experiment was conducted by self-experience of the author through undergoing a cross-sex friendship with a woman for more than four months. The period of at least four months was chosen in accordance to psychologists say that in general, a crush lasts on average for four months, if feelings persist beyond that period, one can be considered to be “in love”. Establishing whether a crush, which lasts over four months, transforms into love is very subjective and depends on detailed finding upon a specific individual. Hence, the result of both desk study and social experiment will be described in a narrative way.
What Previous Studies Say?
There are several previous studies discussing cross-sex friendships. Monsour (1992) suggests that adult cross-sex friendships give different benefit for men and women that are hard to be achieved in same-sex friendships. Monsour also explained that cross-sex friendships could improve communication among the sexes. Moreover, cross-sex friendships bring more insights and point of view on the way members of the opposite sex think, feel and behave (Sapadin, 1988). Kulander (1991) suggests that cross-sex friendships allow men expressing their feelings which they tend to hid from their same sex friends.
Journal Evolutionary Psychology published a study who found that mismatch of understandings raise problems in platonic relationships between men and women. Whilst men interpret women’s friendliness as sexual interest, women interpret men’s sexual interest as friendliness. Another study conducted by Scientific American in 2012 revealed that women were less possible to be sexually attracted to their men friends. On contrary, men were more possible to incorrectly think that their women friends were sexually attracted to them. This findings supported by the study of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology which surveyed respondents consisting of 308 heterosexual undergraduate students about their friendships, sexual attractions and experiences with misperception of social signals. The results showed that men tend to overperceive sexual interest from women, vice versa.
Another study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin suggest that men usually have romantic feelings for their women friends, while women are generally not attracted to their men friends and have the view on the relationship as strictly platonic. Moreover, men also have incorrectly believed that the romantic feelings are reciprocal, and they are more willing to act on their error view of mutual attraction. Thus, the study states that women in general think that men and women can just be friends, while men are secretly expecting that there’s a chance their relationships with their opposite sex friends can turn to be something more. Hence, this study provides scientific explanation for the phenomena called “friend zone.” Conclusively, women and men are often on different way of thinking about their cross-sex friendships.
One of the consequences from a close cross-sex friendship is the probability that at least one, if not both, of the members feel some kind of romantic feeling to the other. Nevertheless, according to several studies, having such feeling between cross-sex friends is not a bad thing at all, and to some extent, it is actually a good thing. For example, a study by Julianne Holt-Lunstad of BYU in 2009 found that having this kind of close friend is good for both emotional and physical health.
Social Experiment: A Real-life Experience
The Ancient Greek divides the word ‘love’ into four different words to describe its meaning. According to Lewis (1960), the words including Eros, Storge, Philia and Agape.The first word is Eros, which intended to show sexual love or the feelings that are shared between people who are physically attracted to one another. The second word is Storge, which refers to a natural, familial love, the kind of reciprocal love shown by parents and their child. The third word for is Philia, which talks about the affection shared between friends. This word express the feel of love for friends in the sense of being kind and care. Lastly, the word Agape could be defined as the self-sacrificing love, the love that leads people into action and seeks for the well-being of others, no matter the personal cost. From the four words of the Ancient Greek describing ‘love’, the experiment conducted in this article tried to find the difference between Eros and Philia. For Lewis, Eros is love in the sense of “being in love” or “loving” someone, while Philia is the love for friends as much as for siblings.
For the first case of the experiment, let’s say the case as Lady. I have met one of my close opposite gender friends, Lady, since 2014. It was an orientation for new college student event that bring us together. As time goes by, we became close friend and she helped me a lot in my period in the college, but that’s all. However, during my last semester of college life, I started this experiment. We began to communicate intensely, and became more open and shared about our life, our thought, even for random thought, and put our trust in each other. I knew quite a lot about her life, and so did her. We did several activities together, and in my point of view, we already got the chemistry between us, in terms of understandings to each other’s meaning of words as well as our comfort condition. This might be an indication of a best friend to me. Nevertheless, implicitly from our conversation, I could conclude that we knew that we couldn’t be together and step to the next stage of a relationship. I estimated that this might occur mainly due to our difference in religion background, which was a very sensitive issue in our culture. The point is, from my relationship with her, I felt love in Eros term as I have to admit that I have been attracted to her and have such an affection to her. During our time together, I have attention and attraction to her as more intimacy built in the process, just like a friend but with the taste of a couple. From this case, I learn that this is the Eros love.
The experiment also aimed to feel the love in Philia word. For this case, I’ve got the feeling also from one of my opposite gender friends in college, let’s call her Ruby. We met in an occasion where I became her senior in college. In this case, we also communicated quite intense and shared our daily life activities, thoughts and beliefs, as well as laughed at jokes together. We put trust in each other, too. However, I didn’t feel the same attention and affection as I felt to Lady. I love Ruby as a friend, a Philia love. This made me realize the truly difference between Eros and Philia when I have a relationship with opposite gender. Although I have a close relation to Lady and Ruby, however I have different feeling, attention and attraction for them. The love that I have to them grow in a different path, that’s what I want to emphasize in this article. A close cross-sex friendship could lead to a different kind of love.
Further, from the experiment, I try to confirm some opinion and previous studies that I get from the desk study. Although men and women can be best friends, however it can’t be denied that one party may fall in Eros love to each other. The reason is that sometimes in close friendships, caring gets blurred for feelings to the partner. Assuming an individual is heterosexual, when he or she is best friends with someone of the opposite gender, any action that he or she take to show his or her friend regarding how much he or she care could be passed off as a secret sign of showing Eros love. Moreover, we never really know their feeling toward us, whether she secretly in Eros love with you, despite denying the possibility – such as in the case of Lady. Either it would make everything fall into place or it would ruin everything, full of uncertainty. Furthermore, another reason is because the social condition that we have to look to our friendship groups for romantic chances.
The simple way to know that you have an Eros or Philia to your close opposite gender friend is through examining yourself, whether you find yourself getting jealous when your best opposite gender friend spends more time with a new potential significant other. If you have that jealous feeling, then you are considered to have Eros feeling to your best opposite gender friend, vice versa. This happened to me for the case of Lady, yet it was not for the case of Ruby. Another way to find out what kind of love feeling that you have to your best opposite gender friend through questioning yourself, whether the relationship you have with her or him is held to a different standard than other friendships. Should you expect certain things to happen and/or not happen, or in other words, you have some kind of expectation about your feeling, then you are considered to have Eros feeling, vice versa. Moreover, when you hold your close opposite gender friend to a higher standard because the relationship, to some extent, is more intimate although it is just a friendship. Anything that might go wrong from your expectation hurts more than usual since you feel that you’ve lost more than any other normal friendship.
Thus, it seems that the answer for the question in this article that developed from the experiment is one confirmed by most everyone’s real-life experience: it simply depends on the situation. Each person faces a different circumstance. Nevertheless, I would like to say that in my view and based on my experience, there is such a positive correlation between phase of life and the complexity of a cross-sex friendships as having cross-sex friendships becomes progressively harder, at least from middle school to college. This means that the less people think of getting into serious relationships, the easier the cross-sex friendships are to navigate. Cross-sex friendships in college is little uneasy as more misunderstandings arise regarding whether or not you’re really “just best friends”, and have more complexity than cross-sex friendships in middle or high school.
So, Can Men and Women Just be Best Friends? A Conclusion
This article is not intended to say that truly platonic friendships or Philia love between men and women are impossible. Previous studies and the experiment in this article have documented that men and women could indeed just be best friends and that there are actually benefits that come with cross-sex friendships such as learning from the other side how to best attract a mate, which you can’t get from same-sex friendships. Nonetheless, the cross-sex friendships are typically more complicated and need much more communication and transparency than same-sex friendships. Although I have to admit that the experiment was subjective enough, but it doesn’t matter as in order to observe a specific individual feeling, a subjective study can’t be avoided.
As a psychiatrist says that I also express my agreement in this article, while men and women can just be best friends, it is quite difficult for the relationship to be truly platonic. Several factors such as gender and genetics could lead an individual’s attraction to the opposite gender. The possibility that at least one party is attracted to the other sexually is quite high, which also means a higher possibility for Eros feeling to occur in a cross-sex close friendships. As Oscar Wilde once said, “Between men and women, there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship”.
References
Bhattacharyya, A. (October 30, 2016). Retrieved from https://bigthink.com/arpan- bhattacharyya/opposite-sex-friendships-in-heterosexual-young-adults
Christian. S. (December 26, 2013). GQ. Retrieved from https://www.gq.com/story/can-men-really-be-just-friends-with-women
Coffman, K. (April 8, 2015). Thought Catalog. Retrieved from https://thoughtcatalog.com/kiki- coffman/2015/04/7-reasons-why-girls-and-boys-cant-be-best-friends/
Deresiewicz, W. (April 7, 2012). The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/opinion/sunday/a-man-a-woman-just-friends.html
Harvey, V. (2003). “We’re Just Friends”: Myth Construction As a Communication Strategy in Maintaining CrossSex Friendships. The Qualitative Report, 8(2), 314-332.
Kale, S. (December 1, 2016). Vice. Retrieved from https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/xwqz3w/can-men-and-women-really-be-friends-a-scientific-and-cultural-investigation
Kulander, L. (1991). Women’s friendships with men: Six accounts at odds with the cultural myth. Unpublished master’s thesis, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
Lewis, C. (1960). The Four Loves. Northern Ireland: Geoffrey Bles
Luciani, J. (2018). Shape. Retrieved from https://www.shape.com/lifestyle/sex-and-love/can-men-really-be-just-friends-women
McKay, B. and McKay, K. (October 20, 2015).The Art of Manliness. Retrieved from https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/can-men-and-women-just-be-friends/
Monsour, M. (1992). Meanings of intimacy in cross-and-same-sex friendships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 9, 277-295.
Sapadin. L. (1988). Friendship and gender: Perspectives of professional men and women. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 5, 387-403.
Stoneham, B. (November 9, 2016). Australian Mens Health. Retrieved from https://www.menshealth.com.au/can-men-and-women-just-be-friends
Werking, K. (1997). We’re just good friends: Women and men in nonromantic friendships. New York: Guilford.
LOVE OF OUR LIVES: A THOUGHT ON THE ‘SIGNIFICANT OTHER’
To commit in a relationship is not like playing game. Rather, it needs pure and true love for ourselves and our (potential) partners.
Love Styles: Which One Do We Have?
There are many ways to define the meaning of the word ‘love’, specifically in a couple relationship context. In short, love could be defined as an emotional and passionate experience between two individuals[1], which could be manifested in several aspects, including attitude, emotion and action. Love is not only a feeling, but also a collective set of behaviors and a complicated mix of emotions to some degree. Furthermore, among several theories analyzing the concept of love, one of the earliest and most influential is the Colors of Love[2], proposed by John A. Lee.
The theory explains that there are two main colors of love: primary colors and secondary colors. Particularly, the theory suggests that there are three primary colors of love. The first one is eros or a passionate love, which could be defined as the attraction on physical following commitment to a loved one. Second is ludus or game-playing love, a playful love without commitment or great depth of feeling. Third is storge or friendship-based love, an intimate relationship which grows gradually from a friendship.
Moreover, the three primary colors could combine in pairs and create three secondary colors that have their own particular properties and characteristics: pragma which refers to realistic and practical love with rational calculation and focus on desired attributes of the lover; mania or possessive love, which is a combination between eros and ludus, an obsessive, intense and possessive type of love held by a person who have a strong need to be loved; and agape or altruistic love, which is a combination between eros and storge, refers to people who have affection for loved ones without having personal interest.
This article is actually aimed to discuss some thoughts regarding some love styles with the significant other that some people may experience, at least once in their lives. In addition, it also attempts to remind the importance of having a true love in a relationship. Nevertheless, the discussion is emphasized on selected love styles, which are pragma and agape. Therefore, in order to equip the discussion with recent and actual fact, a mini survey regarding perception of love style – so called because of the limited and small sized in number of respondents, including individuals aged 19 to 24 years old – was also conducted. Thus, although it should be careful to interpret the result, yet it’s still useful to know love style that perceived by at least small portion of millennials in Asian culture.
The questionnaires in the mini survey follow the questions in Lee’s discussion of the love styles, each of the six love styles was measured by 3 statements. The statements were scored in range of 1 to 5 – score 1 represented a strongly agree and 5 expressed a strongly disagree. Hence, the lower the score of a love style in average, the more a subject attributed to that love style. The mini survey result reveals that most friends of mine tend to engage in pragma as the average score for that love style is the lowest (2.02), and sequentially followed by storge (2.36), eros (2.5), agape (2.6), mania (2.83), and ludus (3.1). This is not a surprising result since previous study[3] suggests a greater tendency of people in Asian cultures to engage in pragma, while Western culture have a greater tendency to engage in eros.
Three Types of Love Occasion during A Lifetime
A friend of mine tells a common phenomenon in relationship – that many people probably fall in love for real in three occasion, or with only three people during a lifetime. First occasion happens when we are young, usually known as crush. It may appear as ludus or mania. We enter into a relationship with the belief that this shall be our only love and it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t feel quite right. Furthermore, it may be a kind of relationship that some individuals get involved to conform with the society since most of young individuals have a need for social acceptance, hence making others’ perception towards them more important than how they truly feel regarding the relationship. No wonder that this style of love is often not long lasting, although in some outlier cases, it lasts until the couples get married.
The second occasion of fall in love seems like it is the ideal love and significant other based on an individual’s perspective. It is the love that give experience and educates a person about herself or himself as well as learn about others. This is the kind of love that often appear as pragma, the type of love which at least most friends of mine had a greater tendency to engage than other types. Pragma is a practical love raised by reasons or conditions, and usually based on a person’s long-term interests. The attraction to the significant other might come from personal qualities and compatibilities, common objectives, and the way to make the relationship work.
People who engage in pragma have perspective regarding love with the significant other which they assume to be rational. On one hand, they might be genuine about being useful themselves, yet on the other hand, it also means that they have certain expectations of a significant other and of the relationship. Moreover, they tend to select and reject partners based on what they think as desirable traits, ideal mate, and feel compatible with them since they want to find certain value in their partners. A greater tendency to have a suitable significant other based on careful consideration and reason. A deeper need for having a sense of value from their relationships and feeling that they can play a perfect role with their significant others to achieve common good or future objectives.
One implication of being practical in this love is that some people just have their hearts closed off because they don’t want to get hurt. They usually keep their heart closed from a relationship until they feel as though that significant other is willing to take care of it and love them no matter what. This kind of love style probably become the reason of why there exists some people deciding to be single for a while, and patiently looking for the best partner who can fit with them based on their value and perception. Hence, when people involved in this love style truly knows and is at peace with themselves, there are happiness and satisfaction to be enjoyed in the relationship once they find the significant other who fit their values since pragma emphasizes trust and tolerance and develops with greater deliberation and self-control than do other types of love[4].
However, the expectation in this love style may rise problems. The struggle of people who involve in pragma is in being too strict with their expectations and stick to the desirable and compatible traits and values. Not only could this influence the relationship they are in, but it could also limit their sights to the extent that they might miss out on the best potential significant other due to being too strict with what they want. Furthermore, their love style also assumes that they know themselves well enough to know what kind of person they will fit and be compatible with. Nonetheless, in fact many of us simply do not really know ourselves as well as we think we do. This kind of egoistic and selfish trait that possibly cause this case of fall in love to end up with a break.
The third kind of love is the sort of love that comes as a surprise. It is an unexpected love. It’s the style of love where the connection couldn’t be explained and the intimacy never be planned. The connection between a person and the significant other is inexplicable. The couples just click somehow and the relationship just flow by nature. This is the love where we come together with someone and it just fits. There are no ideal expectations about how each person should act, neither is there pressure to become someone other than we are. We are just simply accepted for who we are, vice versa. Thus, this love style may appear as agape. It usually differs from what we imagined our love would look like. Sometime, the significant other is the one that never be looked for, the one that actually lasts, the one that feels like home with no reason. No wonder that usually it doesn’t take a long time for a couple with this style of love to get married.
In addition, agape – in universal context – encourages people to behave with unconditional kindness and forgiveness, to give without expectation for return, to accept others without judgment, to act with patience and understanding, to be modest and humble, to celebrate truth and honesty, and to have respect and commitment. It enables us to act in particular ways once we have and practice it. It enables us to slow down our reactivity to negative emotions, to eliminate jealousy or impatience, to not be self-oriented. It allows us to be free from all judgments, comparisons to others and self-hatred. It leads us to have peace with ourselves, to give of ourselves in the service of others. It makes us realize to give thanks instead of complain on any event in life.
Before Opening A New Page of Romance
You may have experienced only one of those three occasions of fall in love, or two or all of them – or even you may have not. Afterall, lately I have been realizing some important things which can remind us, especially for people who want to commit themselves in a romantic relationship and starting a new page of romance. However, it should be noted that this discussion is aimed for sharing some messages instead of patronizing, and any comments and thoughts regarding this topic are welcomed.
Some of us perhaps frequently ask ourselves whether we are ready to engage in a serious and long term relationship yet, whether our significant others are the right person to be trusted, and so forth. Nevertheless, we often forget one of the most notable things before we get to know our potential partners and get more involved with them in a relationship: to know ourselves better first. Therefore, it would be better if we introspect and ask ourselves whether we know ourselves for real, our strength and weakness, our good and bad nature – and importantly, whether we already love ourselves. Love ourselves in this context is not the same as narcissism and neither overconfidence. On the contrary, this means accepting ourselves as we are, feeling grateful for our existence and never feeling inferior. Once we demeaning ourselves, feeling inferior and losing confidence, we don’t love and respect ourselves appropriately.
We often assume that we really know and love our (potential) partners, whereas in fact we never really know and love that person because we also don’t do the same thing to ourselves first. How could we know our (potential) partners deeply if we do not know ourselves deeply first. We can never truly love our significant others if we cannot love ourselves right first. Furthermore, how could we engage and commit in a pure relationship if we don’t truly know and love our (potential) partners. So, before we decide to get involved in relationship, make sure that we already know ourselves, and fulfil ourselves with appropriate and true love, then we could love our partners truly.
It is also important to make sure that any problems related to the love affair have been resolved and clear. Any time we talk about our past relationship(s) that appear to offend or bother us means that some things inside us may have not been solved. It is a warn that we may not be ready enough to get involved in a new relationship since it may become another potential problem in the future. Another good example that I get from the social media is when we say something such as “we fall in love with people we can’t have”. Unconsciously, it means that we are afraid to commit in a relationship, probably because we avoid being hurt – such a trauma from previous failing relationship. Therefore, it also indicates that we haven’t practiced agape yet. Hence, any problem and deviation concerning our attitude towards romance and relationship must be solved first before we could claim to ourselves that we are ready to engage in a love affair. It could be done by self-introspection, knowing ourselves better and having peace with ourselves.
Thus, another main message of this discussion is to remind us that to commit in a relationship is not like playing game. Rather, it needs pure and true love for ourselves and our (potential) partners. It is important to note the meaning of love discussed here – love endures everything, patient, and kind; love does not envy, it does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs; love always protects and always trusts. So, are you ready to move on and build a pure relationship? Only you yourself know and can answer it.Eventually, it’s also worth to note the importance of having pure and true love – notably when it comes to our significant others – from the message of Paul to church in Corinth: “ If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love (agape), I am nothing”.
Endnotes
[1] see Berscheid and Walster (1974)
[2] see Lee (1973)
[3] see Neto et al. (2000)
[4] see Kelley (1983)
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hope. 