Is It Possible For Men And Women - 1589 Words

20 October 2015 Is it possible for men and women to be friends in the real world? I think not as I will demonstrate here. I’ll show some possible techniques to escape the friend zone and potentially turn from friend to boyfriend or girlfriend. Also, I’ll discuss this problem a bit more, sharing tips on how to avoid the friend zone in the first place. Research on Inter-Sexual Friendship Apparently this friend zone question has been on the table for about a decade. Bleske and Buss (2000) surveyed college students regarding the benefits and costs of opposite sex friendships in their lives. Generally they found that the costs and benefits were the same for both sexes. For example, both sexes enjoyed opposite-sex friends for self-esteem†¦show more content†¦Therefore, when friendships did not turn sexual or romantic, men were often left feeling rejected and used (i.e. friend zoned), while women felt uncomfortable with the unreciprocated feelings. In contrast, when friendships did turn sexual, most of these men continued to label the women as just friends - at roughly double the rate of women. This leads to the other friend zone women more routinely face, the friends-with-benefits zone, where sex is shared but commitment is not required. Women also had their own set of costs and benefits of opposite-sex friendships. They were more likely to experience the benefit of their male friends paying for outings and enjoyed the physical protection of those friends (men saw these as costs of time and money). Women also enjoyed the ability to network through male friends. However, as noted above, women found it to be a cost when those male friends desired sex or romance. They also disliked when their male friends caused difficulty in the women s other dating efforts. Revisiting the Friend Zone and Friendship Problems The research above supports the notion that men and women may sometimes have very different goals and desires in opposite-sex friendships. While women tend to have male friends without issues men tend to try to work these relationships into a full blown relationship, even if it takes