Scientific American: Men and Women Can't Be "Just Friends"

[VincenzoG91]

Can't argue with science:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=men-and-women-cant-be-just-friends

"The results suggest large gender differences in how men and women experience opposite-sex friendships. Men were much more attracted to their female friends than vice versa. Men were also more likely than women to think that their opposite-sex friends were attracted to them—a clearly misguided belief. In fact, men’s estimates of how attractive they were to their female friends had virtually nothing to do with how these women actually felt, and almost everything to do with how the men themselves felt—basically, males assumed that any romantic attraction they experienced was mutual, and were blind to the actual level of romantic interest felt by their female friends. Women, too, were blind to the mindset of their opposite-sex friends; because females generally were not attracted to their male friends, they assumed that this lack of attraction was mutual. As a result, men consistently overestimated the level of attraction felt by their female friends and women consistently underestimated the level of attraction felt by their male friends."

Seems obvious to me and many guys that I know, but now we have some evidence. Reminds me of a post by a woman here at LoveForum a couple of years ago about her guy friends. When she was single, she had about 20 friends who were guys. After she got engaged, she was soon down to 10 guy friends. After she got married, nine more of her guy friends dropped out of sight. Her last guy friend is probably the only one of those guys who truly considered her a friend, and the others were just hoping for their shot at dating her.

[Maple1714]

Thanks for this! I agree...men and women can not be "just friends"...