is it harder for men and women to be friends as they get older?

Since i left university, and the town i called home, i have found it really hard to make friends- i am getting there step by step but i've been here a year and sometimes it's lonely.

how so?

Going to have to do this soon, myself, since I've been reviewing my social circles and realized there are no likely, eligible dating prospects in ANY of them. Alone with cats, I'm going to die alone with cats.

Also, I am allergic to cats. Which makes my future all the more tragic....

Sooooo, I was dumped a week ago and the dumper felt very bad, so he decided to tell me something he considered reprehensible about himself so that I wouldn’t like him so much any more. He cultivates friendships with hot women just because they’re hot. But then he makes no attempt to sleep with them as he’s not into casual sex.

He didn't mention any other criteria or anything, like liking her personality. I was too out of it on self-pity at the time to question him further. Maybe during one of the awkward pauses in conversation next time we talk.

Do men really do this, just for the visuals, no sex involved? Actual friendships?

No. That is weird. And his break-up maneuver is weird. He sounds like a sociopath.

haha

i don't see how that's THAT reprehensible, so much as just kinda odd

anyway the first response in this thread is otm

i'm hoping for a future where the overwhelming proportion of my female friends aren't ex-girlfriends

xp re 'weird manoeuvre': after dissecting everything, and once you've got the vitriol out of the way and the ok-what-actually-happened part as well, sometimes during a break-up conversation, you're both kind of exhausted and can end up congratulating each other lamely on how well you're both managing the situation. It was after one of those moments. I think he suddenly felt he didn't deserve it.

I don't think it's reprehensible either, just... very unrewarding?

It sounds more like a self-punishment thing by the way you describe it, like he's into the denial of pleasure. And I only say that because of the way HE frames it as a reprehensible thing. Befriending attactive people and not sleeping with them is really not a big deal unless you place a huge value on sex. Unless he's trying to get these hot women attracted to him to the point where they DO want to sleep with him because of the friendship. But that doesn't sound like what he's doing. Sounds like a bit of an odd fellow...

Hmmm, yeah, maybe there's something in the denial of pleasure thing.

But the other possibility is that there's just a lot of pleasure for him in hanging out with hot women. Just seeing them. Being around them. Any men who feel this way and wouldn't die of frustration?

and yes, very lovely fellow, fell for him completely, but definitely a few oddities.

Maybe he's like an up-close voyeur....

uggghhhh

Sorry. Too real.

hello ljub! the dude might have some weird psychosexual issues but hey - at least he's honest. if i was in his situation...well a lot of the time i AM, just unwittingly! the older i get, the more female friends accrue, and the weirder this grand morass of love/lust/propriety becomes. it's not the worst arrangement; often i'll find a friend extremely attractive, but i won't be disheartened when nothing sexual happens between us. it doesn't have to; i have their friendship and their beauty, if not full carnal knowledge. that will come from others, people with whom i share a wavelength and a sexual impulse, rather than the former and a reduced blueprint of the latter. oh god i don't know it's 5 am and i've been drinking ffs

xpost heh, V-grrrl, it's fine, I should have added an emoticon. I should be rights be upset by this potential voyeurism but I think I just find the whole thing too strange for it to bother me.

LJ, totally see where you're coming from, drinking or no drinking. But that's very different from *selecting* friends for their hotttttness, isn't it?

I mean, what does 'friends' even mean, then?

yeah no i totally don't do that although tbh you should take it as a physical compliment even while disapproving of his shallowness...it's no friendship if he doesn't desire your mind

this issue has been quite lol with me of late because i was drinking at my BFF's the other night and sure nothing was gonna happen but we did sleep in her bed together and spoon which was kinda nice...thing is i thought she was out of the romantic loop completely but she arranged an impromptu date the next day with some lawyer, so basically what do i know about anything, also another lol ha goes out to my new coursemate friend who simply can't *help* herself, yeah we enjoyed the party without you and your new buddy XD

i.e. friends flirting w/ u then dating/shagging someone else is kinda mixed feelings but mostly lol

Depressing thread is depressing.

Aw, LJ is not being depressing. He's full of the joys of the ladies and the friendships.

Dude who goes out of his way to befriend pretty women is kind of funny, though. I wouldn't be too worried about it, it's probably a kind of ego trip for him to believe that beautiful women associate with him, and vice-versa. If you reverse the sexes and knew a girl who liked to hang with handsome men we'd probably just think of her as being an insecure person trying to compensate, and that's what that prob is.

x-post

And by "like to hang" I'm referring to the intentional seeking out, but no relationship oddness etc.

Good point Cunga. More likely 'ego trip' than 'insecure', but he's post-divorce, so maybe some of that too. Not worrying about it - not my business any more! But was intrigued to see if others would say 'I do this too'.

Well, there are multitudes of men who would love to be friends with beautiful women for whatever, or no, reason.

Ooh. Post-divorce, you say? Could it be his own passive form of 'revenge' or self-protection? Like hahaah you won't hurt me?
Sorry, my 5c psychologist is really kicking in with this guy :)

i find it hard to take his line seriously. if he's recently divorced it seems far more likely that he just isn't ready to couple up again yet.

sorry ljub

exactly Trayce, both directions of tease can involve emotion behind the sex. Often (attach huge caveats here), when women are sexually frustrated by men, they have some kind of emotional attachment to those men. But not *always*, ymmv, women are sexual beings, etc. etc. I'm obviously biased here since that's what happened to me.

emotionally more often, in actual fact!

Hoo boy. Yeah.

xp

I imagine almost any woman who has dated a man has been emotionally manipulated by him in one way or another. And I cannot honestly say that the women who have dated me are in any different boat. Particularly, say, ten years ago.

Which maybe kinda gets back to the thread question. It's harder to make friends as you get older, period. But it's less gender-specific at the same time. Women's bullshit detectors get better, men (optimally) get more sensitive to the consequences of their actions, and sex itself becomes a different calculation for both genders as you put more failed relationships behind you.

Dude, stfu

uncalled for.

Applaud Kenan's regrouping in direction of the thread question! (my whole deal here is a bit of a side-riff on the thread question, tbh).

men (optimally) get more sensitive to the consequences of their actions,

Nah, it gets harder because the older the man, the more confident the playa.

The older the woman, the less likely to get played. One of the reasons that an older man dating a much younger woman is a little bit creepy. (All depending on the woman, the man, and the circumstances, but we've had this argument before.)

Well hang on, shouldnt we be separating out friends and conquests here? Never the twain, for me, ugh. Especially not these days - all my friends are all fat and old.

shouldnt we be separating out friends and conquests here?

That's kind of the whole thread question.

Yo Kenan you are aware you have a penis right

I don't know if I'd go here, frankly, after your ardent defense of Roman Polanski. How about you stfu.

i'll temp you both if you continue bickering

I'll agree to those terms.

There totally is such a thing as a cunt tease. Or a fanny dangle. Let me refer you to one former boyfriend (oh wait, not boyfriend, he wouldn't want me to get the wrong idea) of mine who shall not be named as he sometimes posts on this board (or at least is still friends with many people who do.)

He had this whole idea that if you didn't actually have *sex* with someone, then that would mean that you were not "involved" - so despite the whole thing of like, going on what looked for all the world like Dates - hanging out, doing things, drinking, snogging, etc. - you couldn't *actually* ever have expectations of him.

Even if your only expectations were, you know, hang around, have a good time, get laid, have a fling and stuff.

not that I'm bitter or anything - HA!

This guy is still up to his old tricks. He's especially fond, it seems, of doing this to women who are coming out of long-term relationships because then there's *really* no way that he ever has to worry about a proper relationship, rebound or otherwise - and can MAXIMISE the psychological damage inflicted on the woman when he's the first man that expresses an interest after coming out of a long-term thing.

The older the woman, the less likely to get played. One of the reasons that an older man dating a much younger woman is a little bit creepy. (All depending on the woman, the man, and the circumstances, but we've had this argument before.

omg totally read 'circumferences'

a 45mm man dating a 16mm girl is just perverted

even the metaphor makes me uncomfortable. Maybe especially.

metaphwoar

I don't think this is possible if both parties are straight.

harry met sally was like 25 years ago, when will people stop saying this????

you can be great friends for years but the moment you push just a little and he/she demurs, it is over

No way to repair that shit either

^ false btw

some of my best friends are straight women who demurred my ass a long time ago, water under the bridge, man

yeah I'm still good-to-great friends with women who have declined my advances, and with women whose advances I have declined, and with women with whom I've had fleeting reciprocal romances

that makes my life sound like way more of a romantic whirlwind than it actually is btw

ppl are generally less dichotomous than assumed imo

urgh I was recalling one really bad experience where I was too insecure to handle the rejection and things went bad -- but you guys are right, it doesn't have to be that way

It's nonsense to say that men and women specifically can't maintain platonic friendships. Most of my closest friends are women (belonging to all of the categories crut mentions above), and my life would certainly be poorer without them. I'd say, if anything, that it's become easier to maintain platonic relationships with my female friends at the same time that it's become more difficult to maintain friendships in general (as I think tends to happen as one starts to build an adult life that isn't as centered around "hanging in the quad" or what have you).

some of my best friends are straight women who demurred my ass a long time ago, water under the bridge, man

yup. this question is bullshit

there are no bullshit questions

I beg to differ

"why isn't there a Men's History Month?"

actually as I get older I find myself deepening my friendships w/ the women in my life, way moreso than the men. (tbf I am not married/kid'd)

It gets considerably easier ime

my bff and I successfully transitioned from fwb to platonic, which was a first for me

That's really neat! a couple of my closest female friends started out as pretty serious crushes (years and years ago)

This was harder when I was younger, mostly because I didn’t understand the other perspective very well. Ime (as in, don’t “not all men” me), problems arise because sometimes people are only used to that kind of intimacy/closeness in a romantic relationship and it trips them the wrong way. Ofc you do get some people whose motives are rather less complex (i definitely had a couple of people drop out of my life when I got together with the husband).

But yeah it can be difficult and several friendships of mine have been ruined by this. I’ve always had male friends since childhood so it’s not something novel or interesting to me, but if the person mistakes closeness for intimacy and then for sexual interest then it can get messy and not in a good way.

in part this revive was prompted by a quote from my manager (who is a nice guy about my age, married in the burbs w/ two young kids) in response to the news that I was moving in w/ a female friend : "I've never really had a female friend that wasn't a partner or partner of a friend. Certainly no one I would consider moving in with"

I guess I would broaden (update?) the uh cis-centric original premise of this thread to say I think it's cool and nice when people who could feasibly date or have an affair or whatever are super close pals instead

I've always had women friends but I've spent a lot of adulthood being bad at drawing a line between friendship and physical intimacy, I regret taking so long to learn to be less of a scumbag but I'm glad I feel like I've learned from stuff I've done badly. I dunno, trying to be a decent human being is a lifelong fluid process imo. I really like people and in an ideal world I kind of like a level of non-sexual touchy cuddliness but also well I'm glad for all the good people out in the world and Internetland who've been teaching valuable truths thru the years

"as they get older"? how much older are we talking about? i imagine my friendships with men when I'm 70 are going to be different than they are now at 45 ... definitely different now than they were when I posted on this thread 11 years ago when I was not single.

On the one hand, it's easier with age, because I am more comfortable with myself and less insecure, thus better at being a friend and expressing positive feelings towards someone, male or female. On the other hand, I am more comfortable with myself and less insecure and I realize how entitled, annoying, and stupid a lot of cis-men often act (i'm white btw, as are these men) compared to women, so they are actually less appealing to be friends with, on the whole. I do still have and value men as friends, just fewer of them.

sp

I feel a lot of that NV. a lot of being an adult for me has been spending a LOT of time alone to ultimately come to the conclusion that I'm better off less alone, and that I can actually be a positive force in other people's lives. I suspect but can't prove this is a struggle for a lot of men in particular

I finally did it, I typo'd "xp"

that's interesting simon because i would say it's been the reverse for me. i've been much happier the last few years having no friends (apart from 2 people who i exchange text messages a couple of times a year with around our respective birthdays)than i was when i was in my twenties and actually hung out with people.

i think i probably knew quite early on that i was most content when by myself but was always worried that this was the wrong way of being a person so tried to resist it, once friends started getting married and having kids it was easy to kinda gradually slide away and not bother getting any new ones and i've been glad of it.

interesting, and good on ya OB