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| im not against a girl having guy friends BUT
Posted: 6/4/2008 9:38:25 PM | | Yes, at your age I would be worried about that other "one eyed trouser trout" coming out from under the rocks. At my age, we measure how far our chins are hanging down on our chest; and most likely naked is an unsavory idea. | |
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| im not against a girl having guy friends BUT
Posted: 6/4/2008 11:29:39 PM | If she is telling you that she is meeting the guy, then why would it be a problem?
There is a problem if she is meeting guy friends and trying to hide it from you. | |
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| im not against a girl having guy friends BUT
Posted: 6/5/2008 3:35:31 AM | | If you date a girl and she doesn't let the other men slide within a couple of months then it will never happen. Just smell the coffee and don't get used. | |
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| im not against a girl having guy friends BUT
Posted: 6/5/2008 6:49:35 AM | "Exactly... I don't get how women (and men) can still hang out with their ex's and say they're "just friends". You were in a close intimate relationship with that person... so it's always going to be a little more than "just friends", unless you've completely cut off contact with them.
Actually, Shaun, it is possible. Sometimes you just have stuff in common outside of sex that keeps it going. It's a matter of good conversation. But not with everyone. | |
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| im not against a girl having guy friends BUT
Posted: 6/5/2008 10:04:08 AM | It's a matter of trust and respect. I wouldn't give up my friends nor would I want him to, but I would want to know if those "friends" were exlovers, if so then no he/I should not hangout go on dates with them alone. I do have very close male friends that I hangout with. Most of them have girlfriends/wives and became friends with them as well, out of respect for them I wouldn't go out with their man alone (even tho he's my friend) if they were not ok with it. Funny my closest male friend started seeing a girl a few months back, now she calls me all the time to hang out and get advice about him, I have to be careful not to take sides as I have grown to care for her too. Important point, nothing sexual with my guy friends, there is a very deep and clear boundary between us and we respect each other. What is great is that I can go to them for advice on dating ect or cry on their shoulder w/o any worries of things getting outta hand.
It is something that should be communicated with to my man. Again trust and respect. | |
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| im not against a girl having guy friends BUT
Posted: 6/5/2008 1:21:03 PM |
Actually, Shaun, it is possible. Sometimes you just have stuff in common outside of sex that keeps it going. It's a matter of good conversation. But not with everyone.
I agree with this - most of my exes I was friends with first (even tho there was attraction and we knew it would become more) and so the friendship bond is there, and we still talk here and there and hang out even though the rest really didn't work. I never got the whole "never talk to someone again" thing after a breakup, but I also never ended anything on terms bad enough to do this...it's not all physical with me. If they were important enough to date, it was because I had a ton of things outside the bedroom in common with them. | |
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| im not against a girl having guy friends BUT
Posted: 6/6/2008 1:30:10 AM | i was probably young, but back then when i dated my husband, i wasn't interested in my guy friends anymore.
i don't see it as the man not being able to trust me. I just see it as disrespectful to the person you are dating or married to if someone else were to see me alone with another man. it's okay if you go out with a bunch of girls and guys, but not alone. Why do people say that if you're jealous and can't trust the other person, you shouldn't be with them? I feel that if I'm jealous of a particular man, then that's who I want to be with, not the guys that I'm not jealous of. | |
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| im not against a girl having guy friends BUT
Posted: 6/6/2008 9:47:53 AM | | dude, honestly, if you're having these issues this close to shipping out, i'd recommend cutting the relationship off until you come home. I've had the same sort of issues when I went away to school and all the other person does is stress you out and worry you and prevent you from growing, they hold you back, it's not healthy, i'd recommend breaking it off and allowing yourself to grow in the new situation without an attachment overseas | |
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| im not against a girl having guy friends BUT
Posted: 6/6/2008 9:50:17 AM | "i don't see it as the man not being able to trust me. I just see it as disrespectful to the person you are dating or married to if someone else were to see me alone with another man. it's okay if you go out with a bunch of girls and guys, but not alone. Why do people say that if you're jealous and can't trust the other person, you shouldn't be with them? I feel that if I'm jealous of a particular man, then that's who I want to be with, not the guys that I'm not jealous of."
Exactly, the opposite of love isn't hate or control, it's indifference | |
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| im not against a girl having guy friends BUT
Posted: 6/6/2008 9:58:27 AM | | here's the deal, you will never build the wall high enough to stop someone from cheating, the key is to see if you can trust the person before you date them, otherwise you will always question | |
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| im not against a girl having guy friends BUT
Posted: 6/6/2008 1:56:33 PM | Here's the deal, and maybe it's something women just don't get. It's inappropriate to have close friendships with other men when you're in a committed relationship with someone. Close friendships are based on emotional intimacy on a variety of levels; they're based on a deep trust, an extraordinary degree of commonality in several areas of your life, and on a legitimate liking, if not type of love, for the person(s). The guy who you're calling your boyfriend has a right to be uncomfortable if you have this level of relationship with another man. Quite simply, it's inappropriate, and disrespectful to the man you call "boyfriend". It isn't that your boyfriend should be the "only man" in your life, but in terms of who you discuss your deepest feelings with, the quiet, intimate things that you hide in your daily life so you aren't wearing your heart totally on your sleeve in front of strangers who have no reason to be respectful of your boundaries, this should only be your boyfriend.
Perhaps you're using the word "friend" when you actually mean "acquaintance"? That's something entirely different; there are women at work that I'll have lunch with in the break room; I can tell you whether they're single or not, I can tell you about a couple of their hobbies, I can tell you about personality traits. But I'm not the one they go to when they're having a rough time. I'm not the shoulder they cry on.
Which brings up another reason why it's inappropriate to have close male friends when you have a boyfriend: who do you go to when you're having difficulties? Say you get in a big fight with the boyfriend (and a big fight always happens sooner or later in a relationship). Do you then go to a "close guy friend" to cry on his shoulder, be consoled, and talk to him about it? Inappropriate. If you're in a committed relationship, you should not be seeking comfort in the arms of another man, even if there's otherwise nothing romantic or sexual going on between the two of you. Don't be ignorant of the basic chemical realities of heterosexual men and women: any degree of emotional intimacy forms bonds, and those bonds might not be appropriate when you're committed to someone else. You shouldn't be going to another man to talk over your problems with your boyfriend, and to be hugged and comforted when you're upset. If you're seeing another man to talk about relationship issues, the only time that's appropriate is when that man is a licensed therapist whose job it is to help you through those issues. They (most of the time, at least) aren't going to cross those boundaries that they know, for reasons more than just jeopardizing their license to be a therapist, are inappropriate to cross.
It's one thing if you're going to a female friend to talk over a fight you just had with your boyfriend; guys, likewise, are going to seek out our buddies to try to understand what just happened, to see if we were in the wrong, or just sometimes to get a thump on the back and some reassurance that we're right (even if our buddies can patently see we aren't).
The thing I've personally noticed is that women who are fine with having close male friendships even when they have a boyfriend are often the types who'll say "I just get along better with men than with women." There's a reason for that. You're hardwired genetically to have levels of interaction with men that you wouldn't have with women. But to disguise that as platonic friendship when it's very firmly rooted in a fundamentally non-platonic concept is dishonest, both to yourself and to the man you're in the seemingly-committed relationship with.
The guy who tells his girlfriend she has to leave off all her existing male friendships is being an ass. This said, if things grow serious enough, the women should see that whatever degree of support, comraderie, and emotional fulfillment she was previously getting from her male friends, she's now getting from the man that she's become serious enough with to consider the long haul (whether that manifests as marriage or just a domestic partnership). In that case, she should be the one who just starts spending less and less time with her male friends. At the same time, if she has no female friends to keep up vital non-romantic connections with, maybe she should really examine herself to figure out why she can't get along with others of her own gender. We're likewise hardwired to have a certain degree of emotional and intellectual compatibility with our own gender; we can relate to shared experiences, common perspectives, and mutual understanding. We aren't going to get that with someone of the opposite gender; a man can't understand what it's like to be a woman, he can only understand that he likes what he knows of women.
Does that make any sense, if you're willing to be legitimately honest with yourself? Some degree of self analysis is always helpful; if we know our true motives, we're in that much stronger a place to be able to accept someone else into a life that we can build with them. | |
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| im not against a girl having guy friends BUT
Posted: 6/6/2008 4:00:02 PM | No it shouldnt. I have male and female friends. By friends lets define this simply. Just that. Friends. Not ex's, pure mates and have been for over 15 years.
Im a good friend and I dont dump my mates because I have a man on the scene. If I was interested in my male friends or they me then we would have had hooked up by now! Its silly and immature to think that just because a man has a c*** and I have a watsit that we gonna wana wanna bang eachothers brains out. So if I was bisexual basically I wouldnt be allowed any friends or to make new female friends? Or if a friend of mine was a lesbian Id be in some sort of corruptable position?
If someone is going to cheat then they gonna cheat. You cant clip their wings an try every avenue of stoppin them. Thats not loving or caring about them. Hell thats ownership and Im not an on lease car. I lived with someone years ago that wouldnt allow me out the house for fear I would cheat and me I never have and never would.
This is a very immature thread indeed in my eyes. People should be free and no one owns anyone in this world. Relationships run on trust. If Im at work and a new guy starts and asks a few of us for a meal and a drink fine yes Id go. The words 'oh my bf may not like it' will never come out of this womans mouth Im not that feeble. Not single I wouldnt go on my own for fear of giving wrong impression but at the end of the day that is my own decision. | |
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Nic36
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Joined: 5/21/2008
Msg: 113 | |
| im not against a girl having guy friends BUT
Posted: 6/6/2008 7:17:08 PM |
This said, if things grow serious enough, the women should see that whatever degree of support, comraderie, and emotional fulfillment she was previously getting from her male friends, she's now getting from the man that she's become serious enough with to consider the long haul (whether that manifests as marriage or just a domestic partnership).
No single person -- boyfriend, husband, girlfriend, whatever can provide EVERYTHING you ever want from human interactions in life. It sounds awfully cruel to load that kind of expectation on someone.
If this were the case we wouldn't have friends, we'd have friend. We would haven't parents, we'd have parent. We'd be perpetually paired to a single person. Ooops, dating a new guy? Well, guess I can't talk to Dad anymore, he's been bumped out of the only spot I have for interacting with people.
Which brings up another reason why it's inappropriate to have close male friends when you have a boyfriend: who do you go to when you're having difficulties?
To a FRIEND. Gender is irrelevant. I'm going to go talk to a friend that has known me for a few decades. Might be a man, might be a woman -- I'm going to choose the best person to talk to for that situation based on their personality and viewpoint, not whether or not they have a penis in their pants.
Personally, I would be genuinely disturbed if someone I was in a relationship callously threw out their old friends like so much rotten garbage. I would assume they would treat me exactly the same way if it suited them. | |
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| im not against a girl having guy friends BUT
Posted: 6/6/2008 7:17:33 PM | | You're right, relationships are built on trust. That trust ought not to be blind, however. There are differing levels of appropriate intimacy depending on how one relates to someone and whether someone's in a relationship or not. To me, "Friend" means just what I put in my earlier post. To maintain that level of intimacy with someone when you have a boyfriend is inappropriate and disrespectful to your boyfriend. It isn't about him not trusting you, it probably isn't about him not trusting your male friend (though trust me on this: men know other men in ways no woman ever can), it's about knowing what appropriate boundaries to set when you've committed yourself romantically to someone else. You cross those boundaries if you maintain the typical levels of emotional intimacy that friends traditionally have with each other. Acquaintances, people you go out to lunch with at work, people you invite over to a large party, that's one thing. People that you share the deeper parts of yourself with, that you go to when you have problems, that you're even likely to go to for comfort and discourse if a big fight in your relationship happens... those are levels of engagement that are inappropriate for a woman to have with a man if she has a boyfriend. | |
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| im not against a girl having guy friends BUT
Posted: 6/6/2008 8:06:32 PM | Silentman73,
You've just negated about 35 years of my life. The truth is most of my best friends are men, men I've never, never had sex with. They have treated me better as friends that a slew of women I have know--who have absolutely stabbed me in the back because of jealousy because I own a house or some crap like that. Besides, I was a tomboy as a kid and still am. Hanging out with women getting their nails done freaks me out bigtime.
As far as the men I have a sex/love life with, I don't manipulate them in "coy" ways, etc. I don't try to take advantage of them. Some times people are compatible in many ways, then we have a "home run" and off we go. Other times it's just animal sex, when when it wears out we are left with absolutely nothing in common.
The tempation is there to have affairs when people are younger. Believe me, the best time to experiment with sex and various lovers is when you are young. Then later on, like after 30 you are really ready to nest.
Military guys frequently get married way too young. You will be a whole other person at age 27-30. So, get married young, but wait to have kids. Divorce is hell, messy, very expensive, etc. | |
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