The friend zone: Can men and women ever really be just friends?
Can heterosexual men and women really be ‘just friends’?
Can heterosexual men and women really be ‘just friends’? If we are to believe rom-coms, platonic relationships between the opposite sexes rarely exist. The second her biological clock starts ticking, even the most independent woman will consider the hometown hick. If it wasn’t the village idiot the movies were peddling, it was the painfully bashful Hugh Grant-type, who self-effacingly mumbled his way into bed with the women he used to call friends.
Fashion influencers Damien Broderick, 31 and Michelle Crossan, 34 are close friends and neither party has ever considered taking the relationship to the next level, says Damien.
“I definitely think it's possible, especially for someone like me who works in one of the few industries that is female-dominated. I have to be able to be friends with women; for it not to always be leading toward some end goal.”
While Damien believes it is possible to be just friends, he has been in other similar situations where feelings have developed.
“I’ve thought we would have made a great couple and if the chance ever came about, I would definitely have pursued it.”
When it comes to body language and flirting, straight men and women can often be operating on very different wavelengths, Damien says.
“Maybe I can speak for men. We are really simple beings in lots of ways. We often pick up those signals very wrong. So many men mistake someone being polite for flirting.”
Acknowledging that someone is attractive doesn’t mean you have to pursue romance with them, Damien says.
“Michelle is a beautiful girl and an amazing human being and any man would be lucky to be with her. We've talked on the phone until all hours of the morning. We've slept in the same bed. But we’ve never so much as kissed each other on the cheek.”
Damien believes women think more about the consequences of adding a sexual element to a relationship.
“A man will never have to look at a woman and think you're an immediate threat to me whereas women are forced to set those boundaries.”
Michelle Crossan (34) is a Dublin-based content creator. She met Damien through Instagram during the pandemic. Each friendship has its own set of parameters, she says.
“Early on in the relationship, if it is intended to just be friends, you need to make it known because men do tend to think that women who are friendly with them are interested.”
She deliberately surrounds herself with men who align with her own values system.
“I met Damien during the pandemic and we instantly connected over style and tattoos. Early on, I was able to tell that this was somebody who actually wanted to be my friend and had similar interests.”
Perhaps the Harry met Sally effect has rubbed off on Michelle as she believes lifelong friends can inexplicably just develop feelings for one another.
“It's very possible for those friends who have known each other for years to end up falling in love.”
Michelle wouldn’t be offended if a male friend brought up the question of romance in a respectful way. Going for a kiss without establishing consent is a whole other ballgame, however.
“If somebody is violating your physical boundaries, that's completely different.”
At 34, Michelle feels she can articulate her needs, including when something feels wrong.
“If they were to do anything inappropriate, I'm very confident in myself to say no. In my younger days, I probably wouldn't have known how to deal with it quite as well.”
Melissa and Carl’s relationship started with a house party in Tallaght, progressed to some mild Bebo flirting and now they are married with two children and living happily in Dublin.
When they met, Melissa was in a relationship and had sworn off going out with friends.
“I had a very bad experience going out with a close friend where they cheated on me. It completely ruined the friendship.”
When Carl went to LA on a J1, Melissa was one of his only friends that made a big effort to keep in touch and they wrote to each other all summer.
“When I got back, she invited me to her birthday. I was going with the intention of doing the gentlemanly thing and maybe cop off with one of the friends but it turned out she already had ideas about me. Her granda kept buying me drinks. I didn’t stand a chance.”
Before they got together, Melissa’s previous partner had expressed a dislike for Carl and she reckons he saw the chemistry even before they did.
“With Carl, it was just sort of accidental. We’d been mates who started smooching. It’s fifteen years later and we’re still just kind of hanging out.”
Carl believes there are two types of straight men; the ones who think they have a chance with everyone and the ones that think they have a chance with nobody. He’s definitely in the second category. He’s very happy he took the chance with Melissa.
Charlotte Laws is famous for taking down Hunter Moore, the man who practically invented what he calls ‘revenge porn’. If you think her views of heterosexual men have been shaped by this experience, you are wrong.
“I’ve always had a very positive view of men. I probably have more male friends than female friends. The men on that site (Is Anyone Up) are misogynist trolls but that’s a subset of guys.”
Charlotte believes friendships with heterosexual people of the opposite sex will often often lead to one person wondering about romantic potential when they are both young but once you hit the age of about 50 or so, that sexual tension dissipates.
“When I think about the friendships I had with men when I was younger, I realized that deep down inside, they were really all interested in me, except the ones who were gay.”
Research shows that heterosexual men are often threatened by their partners’ male friends.
“I've had boyfriends who did not like me being friends with other guys. In fact, one of them is Sir Tom Jones. I dated him for three years, he was very possessive. I remember this one particular occasion where he was four hours late and was jealous that I had been hanging out with an 80 year old bellhop.”
Viren Swami is Professor of Social Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University. Instead of asking can heterosexual men and women be friends without sexual tension, he says we ought to approach it from a different perspective.
“When you get to the heart of this question, what it's actually suggesting is that men and women can't control themselves. It’s steeped in misogyny and the denigration of women and what they are and how they behave.
The perspective remains bleak no matter what way you approach it, says Swami.
“The alternative point of view is essentially a form of misandry, which is that men are only driven by their sexual urges and they can't control themselves which is clearly not the case.”
Wanting to connect with other people, irrespective of what you're going to get out of it, is a marker of a healthy relationship, says Swami.
“There was this famous quote from Cosmo many years ago about men thinking about sex every seven seconds. If that were true, men would not be able to function.”
Although we can’t treat human beings as homogenous subsets, historically relationships have been more difficult for women to navigate.
“There is such an imbalance of power economically, socially and politically - women have to be on the lookout for signs. They're much more likely to be the victims of violent attacks.”
Men often have lower thresholds for what they consider to be sexual behavior, says Swami.
“Heterosexual men are much more likely to misinterpret information from a woman as a sexual sign. If they want to be considered masculine, they have to demonstrate sexual prowess. This is part of the socio-cultural baggage that men have to carry.
“It’s only once you start challenging that and seeing it for what it is that you realise friendship with a woman is not a big deal.”
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