It’s Not Complicated—Unless You Make It: My Thoughts on Male-Female Friendships Part 2

Last week, I mentioned an article titled Can Men and Women Just Be Friends? that I was planning to read, and I gave my answer to the question without having read the article. I said that my perspective is: No, if you see women as objects. But Yes, if you see them as equals.

Well, I read the article over the weekend. Its purpose was to explore the enduring question of whether men and women can maintain platonic friendships without sexual attraction getting in the way. The term platonic comes from the philosopher Plato, whose writings explored the idea of love that transcends physical attraction.1 A platonic friendship means:

  • There’s emotional closeness and trust,
  • But no romantic or sexual involvement,
  • And no desire or expectation for the relationship to turn romantic.

So basically, a deep but non-romantic friendship between two people.

Easy enough, right?

The article was really interesting, and here are some things that caught my attention:

Research by April Bleske-Rechek shows that men in platonic friendships are more likely than women to feel sexual attraction and mistakenly believe the attraction is mutual:

“A man’s assessment of how much his female friend fancies him matches how much he fancies her, and is unrelated to how she really feels.” This suggests men are often “prone to wishful thinking,” but this doesn’t mean such friendships are doomed, many people can and do control their urges.

Cross-gender friendships correlate with lower levels of sexism. Using Facebook data from 1.8 billion users, researchers created a “cross-gender friendship index” (WHMSI, or When Harry Met Sally Index). The WHMSI scale runs from 0 to 1. Higher scores indicate more gender-mixed friendships and tend to align with higher female labor force participation:

“Workplaces give men and women opportunities to chat without chatting up.”

Cultural and Regional Differences:

  • Most segregated: Conservative Muslim countries like Libya and Egypt (WHMSI ~0.1).
  • Most integrated: Caribbean, parts of Africa, and South America.
  • Within-country variations: East Germans are more open to cross-sex friendships than West Germans.
  • The United States scores just over 0.6, followed closely by Nigeria. Mexico is about 0.8, and Ethiopia is close to 1.

Places with more sexual freedom tend to have more mixed-gender friendships. This supports the Turkish religious claim that “companionship leads to sin,” but the article suggests that liberal norms promote healthier social dynamics. For example:

“Turkey’s state religious authority recently issued a more scolding version of it, to be read out in the country’s 90,000 mosques: ‘Friendships between men and women, which begin with thoughts of companionship or confiding in one another, drag people into the pit of adultery.’”

Gender segregation often sustains outdated stereotypes. In countries like Turkey and South Korea, limited cross-gender interaction is linked with retrograde gender roles.

“Where men’s honor depends on women’s seclusion, cross-gender friendships are rare,” says Alice Evans of King’s College London.

“At my university, men from the faculty meet up for tea…without women. When women are not included, they miss opportunities,” adds Nuray Karaman of Usak University.

Friendships can reshape attitudes. A study in Germany found that adolescent boys who had more female friends became more egalitarian over time:

“Boys…learn from socializing with girls that girls expect to be treated equally.”

Early Intervention Works: Laura Hanish and Carol Lynn Martin of Arizona State University studied a pre-school intervention called Buddy Up, where boys were regularly paired with girls for activities. The goal was to reduce gender segregation and encourage mixed-gender interaction.

The article also mentioned the negative extreme: a form of hard-core sexism known as the “patrilineal/fraternal syndrome,” which includes:

“unequal treatment of women in family law and property rights, early marriage for girls, and retrograde attitudes towards violence against women (for example, if rape is seen as a property crime against men).”

The article ends with Professor Carol Martin saying, “The more friendships you have, the more positive your attitudes,” and Dr. Karaman adding, “Friendship may seem simple…but it is a powerful step towards real equality.”

I completely agree with both Professor Martin and Dr. Karaman. I also believe we need to be intentional about creating meaningful and respectful connections. As I mentioned last week, if men can see women as equals and build true friendships, society will benefit greatly.

It seems my answer was about right. What do you think?

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_love ↩︎

51 thoughts on “It’s Not Complicated—Unless You Make It: My Thoughts on Male-Female Friendships Part 2”

  3. You truly go the extra mile in sharing your insights from your findings in articles, Edward. I really appreciate the deep dive and great information extrapolated here. It truly all depends on what the intention is of each person and when people are respectful of boundaries friendships can thrive. Thanks for the great post! ❤️

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  5. A corollary is how male-female conversations are interpreted. When a woman is friendly and smiles, a man may think that rather than a conversation, it is a message of interest in him. I think that may go with the sexism territory, however. That makes community building difficult.

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  8. This is great information, Edward. I totally agree that more friendships help to demystify our perceived differences. Both my kids have good friends that are opposite gender and I hope that continues.

    And this quote had me nodding along “At my university, men from the faculty meet up for tea…without women. When women are not included, they miss opportunities,” adds Nuray Karaman of Usak University.”

    Exactly! Great post, my friend!

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    1. Thank you, Wynne. Good for Mr. D and Miss O.

      It’s important to have friends not only from the opposite gender but also from different cultural backgrounds. Diversity is so important, especially in the workplace, and definitely a missed opportunity if people aren’t taking advantage of it.

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  9. Edward, I agree with you. Men and women can be friends. When honor and integrity are included, friendships can blossom. Without them it won’t matter what gender people are, there won’t be a healthy friendship. My husband and I agree on this and in our over 30 years of marriage, we’ve both had/have male and female friends.
    I’ve found this quote from the article to be true:
    “Friendships can reshape attitudes. A study in Germany found that adolescent boys who had more female friends became more egalitarian over time:
    “Boys…learn from socializing with girls that girls expect to be treated equally.””
    I’ve heard from male friends, “I didn’t know girls liked (motorcycles, sports, outdoors…)”. Expand your friendship circles and you’ll learn stereotypes are highly inaccurate.

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    1. I know, it’s incredible. Facebook is truly a powerful social tool and great for this kind of case study. I really liked the article because it discussed all the different aspects of the issue, and the Arizona State University study with the preschoolers should be the standard. Thank you, Michele, for reading and commenting.

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  12. Thanks for these insightful and thought-provoking posts, Edward. Ever since high school and today included, I’ve had and have male friends and never once have there been awkward moments where one side expected anything other than the friendship that it was/is. I guess I’ve been and am lucky in this area.

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  14. Yes, “creating meaningful and respectful connections” can truly benefit all. It’s about time to go beyond limiting beliefs and rules that, in a way, only serve to keep us apart and even fighting each other. I guess that some cultural and religious authorities and systems have been benefiting from that separation… True friendship is always enriching and definitely goes beyond gender. Thank you, Edward, for highlighting the main aspects of this article in a post that contains a lot to consider. Much enjoyed! Light and blessings to you, my friend; have a peaceful and meaningful day 🙏✨

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    1. I liked what you said about some authorities benefiting from the separation, so true. True human connection should take priority over biases or divisions. Thank you for your presence here, my friend. 🙏🏼

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  17. This really is a complicated topic, which seems to be strongly influenced by cultural expectations as well as individual experiences and instincts. Thanks for all your research on this subject. I certainly agree that the more often men and women work together collegially, as opposed to the women being in subordinate positions, the more likely it is for men and women to be platonic friends. I may be a distinct minority, but I have many male friends, all platonic.

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  18. Its sad that no matter the answer, someone will have a issue with it. Like the other lady said, you might just be trying to be nice, but people will talk, even if you view the relationship as ‘just friends’. Ask my husband if men and women can be friends. From his point of view the answer would be “no”. He is biased though. I feel its possible, but I believe the results of that study about men’s expectations.

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    1. Kim, you’re absolutely right, people will have an issue no matter which way we go. I think part of the problem is that people have all kinds of definitions for friendship. Obviously, there’s a difference between a married man, for example, inviting a male friend for a drink at a sports bar and inviting a female friend, unless, of course, he brings his wife along in both scenarios.

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    1. I know, right? Sometimes it feels like we’re researching the obvious, but as long as people keep ignoring common sense, experts have to keep studying and educating the next wave of close-minded folks.

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  20. This is a very interesting read! For most of my adult life I have wrangled with this question thinking that of course it is possible for men and women to be friends. The basis for this belief is that during childhood I was a “ tomboy” and most of my friends were male.
    Until Middle school upon which I quickly learned that ignoring my appearance and owning a football was frowned on. Heartbreaking time.
    Having few to no friends became a strong motivation for me to attempt to become a real girl.. whatever that was. Due to my turn around I has many friends in high school, quite a few of whims were male. Feeling like I could finally exhale and that my days of exile were over was short lived. Although I wasn’t exiled again, I often found myself dealing with the disappointment of my male friends, and the anger of their friends for “ leading their buddy on”. But that truly wasn’t my intent. I was just comfortable interacting with these guys as I might have when younger. As an adult I tried for many years to recapture the types of relationships with men that I might have had with their younger counterparts during child hood.
    But no matter how hard I tried, these new confusing rules stuck. Very confusing. And frustrating. Being accused of motivations that I truly didn’t have. Several years ago I was astonished by men who informed me that I was jealous .. when I simply wasn’t… because I honestly didn’t care if they dated someone.. because I thought we were just friends. Your explanation that males tend to project their own feelings onto their female friends clears some of that particular mystery up.
    Honestly, my experiences with men have cooled my jets even when it comes to friendship. It was so exhausting to not be taken at face value, and attacked for just being nice.
    Presently my daughter and I are quite contented to just live / hang out in our own little world of literature… and with our friends online.

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    1. Thank you for sharing this, Kimberly. Things get complicated sometimes for no reason, especially when dealing with people who are close-minded. They see things that aren’t even there.

      Online friends are great, especially on WordPress. You can interact with so many people and encounter different perspectives, which can be hard to find in face-to-face relationships. I love my WP community, it’s the best.

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