Can men and women just be friends?

[Anonymous]

I have close friends of the opposite sex. One I dated a long time ago and it was pretty intense. We are now both married to other people. He was my "man of honor"at my wedding and I was the "best gal" at his.

I also have lots of male friends that I made at work. My husband and I now see these friends with their girlfriends/spouses as couples. I also see these guys at work and we'll have lunch together without either spouse. I think the key for me and probably for the guys is that each of us will go home and tell our spouses that we had lunch with the each other that day. We've also made genuine efforts to get to know the other's spouses/girlfriends and go out as couples.

In the cases I am thinking of there was always a point in the friendships where one or the other of us was single. There was never any whiff of anything other than friendship. When one of my guy friends was single I used to invite him golfing with my husband and I. The three of us had a good time. He is now in a serious relationship and we go out as couples together. I also now get together with his significant other for happy hour with a few other women without him around.

My husband also makes friends with work collegues who are female. He invited a bunch (both men and women) to a party we threw recently. The people he invited seemed nice. I didn't really think about who was single and who was married unless they came with a spouse or significant other.

[Anonymous]

Yes, but it's easier if they've gone out and it didn't work out. No more sexual tension.

[Anonymous]

It seems like the collective answer is mostly: you can have superficial friends of the opposite sex if you have a chaperone.


That's understandable if you read most of the other posts on here but I am not sure if that is real life.