Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Intersexual friendship

Susan argues that it's not possible:
The reason: pure projection by both sexes. Guys want to have sex with their girl friends, and assume girls feel the same way. Girls do not want to have sex with their guy friends, and assume guys feel the same way.
This is largely true, but the logic obviously permits one exception, and it is an exception that I have personally observed.  Men of higher SMV can be friends with women of lower SMV unless they convert the female friend into a harem member.

I've had a few genuine female friends with whom I've never had any romantic involvement, three of whom were even attractive.  But in all three cases, my interest in them was either totally nonexistent or very limited.  In the one instance of the latter case, friendship was possible because her interest in me was equally limited, my being at least 100 pounds too light for her.  She was so predictable in this regard that if she was cheerful about a new prospect, I would quite literally ask her at which major football program he had played.  She would get mad, then, when pressed, reluctantly admit "Nebraska" or "USC".  She very much liked those big, corn-fed linemen.

The reality is that most men aren't truly friends with women, nor can they hope to maintain their friendships once their friend pairs off with another man.  Unless the man's SMV is much higher than the male friend's SMV, he simply can't afford to tolerate the friend lurking about and waiting for his opportunity to make a move.

Regardless, the reality is that even when male-female friendships are possible, they tend to be transient and situation-based.  I don't know a single man or woman who has maintained a lifelong friendship with a member of the opposite sex that is even remotely comparable to their lifelong same-sex friendships.

47 comments:

Anonymous said...

If a woman isn't a sexual prospect, a comfortable distance should be maintained while remaining friendly.

Anonymous said...

I don't know what you are talking about. What are these "friends" you keep mentioning?

Anonymous said...

My wife's best friend is a man. They've been friends for over 20 years. He's rich. He's in great shape as he works out all the time. Unmarried, no kids. Fairly attractive. A great guy, really. And gay.

Cail Corishev said...

There's a video where a guy goes around a college campus asking girls if they think guys and girls can be "just friends." They all say yes, and then he asks them to name a guy friend, and then asks, "So, do you think he wants something more?" Every single one of them gets a guilty look, hedges for a bit, and then admits she knows he does. So she knows she's stringing him along, while pretending she believes him when he says he's happy being friends.

Men want sex in relationships. So as you say, the only way a man can be satisfied being "just friends" is when he really, truly has no interest in having sex with her. Either his SMV is so far above hers that he has far better prospects, or she's completely unattractive to him for some reason. If she's genuinely fun to talk to or willingly helps him with other women, and he doesn't have anything better to do, he'll enjoy the friendship.

Transient is a good description, though. The friendship tends to go on the back burner or disappear entirely as soon as one of them starts seeing someone, because they start getting their sexual/emotional needs met in a full relationship.

Rollo Tomassi said...

https://rationalmale.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/intergender-friendship/

Anything you can do, I have done better,..

TLM said...

Except coming up with your own original moniker Rollo. To your credit though, it was a great movie.

Anonymous said...

I can't be friends with someone if i want to pump my seed within them and they reject it.

Evolutionary dead ends aren't worth hanging on to to play nice with and have talks with and be a shoulder to cry on for.

Anonymous said...

I disagree that it can't happen. I have had female friends that were significantly below me in SR and I had no interest in physically, and female friends that were so above me in SR that I never bothered trying to turn it sexual because I knew it would be futile.

Anonymous said...

i gotta wonder, was the Hugh or Rollo at the 2011 Tony Awards?

0:46

http://youtu.be/sYoX4s1Bsa8

Trust said...

Largely true.

I'm a rare man that has been very.close friends with a very beautiful woman for 16 years. I've been friends with her boyfriends and she's friends with my wife of 8 years.

I have always been content being just friends. She's fun, drinks beer, watches sports and plays poker. But through all this, the fact remained that I would have liked to nail her.

Is friendship possible? Yes. Likely? No. Do a hottie's friends secretly hope to nail her? You can bet on it.

VD said...

Anything you can do, I have done better...

It's your world, Rollo, the rest of us all just feel privileged to have the opportunity to live in it.

taterearl said...

You know the worst thing a man can call his wife.

"She's my best friend."

Stickwick said...

I'd guess forgoing intersexual relationships is less of a sacrifice for most men than it is for some women. Never mind women who use beta orbiters to fulfill their various emotional and egoistic needs, I'm talking about women who cannot get their intellectual needs met through friendships with other women.

I have various male friends I talk to about science, politics, history, religion, philosophy, etc. I feel intellectually stifled around other women, but I can freely express ideas with men. I am at times aware that some of my male friends may be attracted to me (with zero hope of anything coming of it) - and now, with the understanding that they may be secretly hoping for more, it sounds like it would be prudent to back off from these friendships.

I envy you men and the friendships you have with each other. I've never experienced that with another woman, and probably never will.

Retrenched said...

I think it's possible for a man to be friends with a woman, but only if:

1. she's unattractive, or

2. she's married, especially to a good friend of his.

I don't think it's possible for a man to really be friends with a woman who is both attractive and available.

Rollo Tomassi said...

Women have boyfriends and girlfriends. If you're not fucking her, you're her girlfriend.

Rollo Tomassi said...

Actually this is one of the rare occasions I concur with something Aunt Gidget wrote.

Athor Pel said...

"Rollo Tomassi said...

Women have boyfriends and girlfriends. If you're not fucking her, you're her girlfriend.
October 30, 2012 1:13 PM "




There is an upside to being the "girlfriend", at least once.

Women tell their girlfriends things they would never tell their boyfriends. If you listen with a non-judgmental attitude they open up. You will learn things about them you never would have otherwise. These things are the truth and they are not pretty because they are telling what they did rather than how they felt.

Back in my blue pill days it was my first exposure to unbridled female sexual behavior. It helped me see some of the truth.


Daniel said...

I envy you men and the friendships you have with each other. I've never experienced that with another woman, and probably never will.

Nah, there's a sub-cult of women that still quietly exists on the fringe of society. They used to be called "boon companions" or something like that but now because public gayness wrecks everything, most everyone just assumes them to be lesbian couples.

The thing I've observed about these intense yet perfectly normal long-term female friendships is that they almost always have about a dozen years separating them in age. Don't know why, but it is extremely consistent. Maybe it is because a young woman needed an older sister, or because an older woman needed a lively companion who wasn't trying to compete on the same level or something.

But such friendships have been very good, can be between married and single, single and single, or both married. The ones I'm thinking of are at least twenty years in duration, and each one started at a different age - in youth, middle age, or retirement.

Every one of these relationships is thought by the midwitted extroverts to be "a little odd" because it doesn't fit the script.

Here's the other thing about those relationships: of the five or six "boon companion" relationships I'm thinking of (I'm counting a set of cousins, who did not develop their friendship until adulthood), not one of the women has a close friendship with another woman. Most of them complain about the general company of women.

So, I guess I'm saying, "Who knows?"

For what it is worth, that's the only sort of friendship I actively encourage for my daughters - older, sensible, somewhat solitary young adult women, or somewhat dependent "younger sister" types. Certainly not their peers. My wife is one of the older types, having practically raised her companion (emotionally) since junior high.

Sorry, totally random tangent. It just made me think about those platonic relationships that have their own structures but are otherwise off the pecking-order grid.

Feh said...

"I can't be friends with someone if i want to pump my seed within them and they reject it."

A great many (most?) male "friends" of women are beta orbiters who lack the courage to make a bid to pump their seed into her. They haven't been rejected, but they hope that if they hang around long enough they'll get to pump the seed without risking rejection.

SouthTX said...

The only exception I know of this of is having a late suprise from God who wears pink. It mellows you, because they are so earnest when they make stuff to give you.

Stickwick said...

@ Daniel: I have mentored a younger cousin in a manner similar to what you've described, and we were very close. My problem is the need for cranial stimulation. I have a few good female friends, but, with the exception of one (sort of), there is no intellectual dimension to the friendships. That's one big reason I have male friends. However, it's kind of gross to think there's is a sexual dimension lurking there under the surface, and this will likely change my stance on having certain types of male friends. :-/

Markku said...

I was friends for a decade and a half with a girl of my SMV, or perhaps higher. But we became friends when we were four years old. I always felt like she was my sister, and any thoughts of sex felt almost incestuous.

Eventually I realized the feeling was not mutual, she actually had a thing for me. But hey, didn't we all learn from My Secret Garden that chicks dig incest...

Markku said...

And when I say "eventually I realized", I mean "how the F*CK was I that blind?!"

SouthTX said...

Really? Kid's make sure I have a great breakfast and sleep in in my days off. They see Dad as a stablizing force less affected by hormones. It doesn't mean they love their mom any less. It's just that emotionally I am the designated driver.

SouthTX said...

All but one of my friends are male. Yes, oh shit happens, middle of the night, trying to survive a storm that should have made us evacuate while we managed to keep the lights on. Sandra was a latecomer. I'll admit I almost pissed my pants when I realized the severity. I was in a bunker but most friends weren't. Don't be involved in a judgement call unless you can handle it. Only female friend is my wife. BTW. I know I have fucked up, and I will admit it.

SouthTX said...

Yes it's bad. I will further refrain from describing it.

SouthTX said...

Simple pray for the ilk. Good dreams and restful nights.

SouthTX said...

I still scream at night sometimes.

Stride Rite said...

A friend at work was lamenting that a co-worker seemed to just want to be friends. Definitely a pedestalizer.

I told him to do what I did with her: make intentions known now, and if she doesn't respond, move on.

I made her cry when she tried to Friend Zone me and I said, "I'm not your fucking friend. I have enough of those." Haven't talked to her since.

In fact, she is at another building, and when, upon a recent visit there, she tried to talk to me in front of a group of colleagues, I ignored her and kept walking. Twice.

Then I was with two girls Saturday night. FZ=oneitis=hand love. Avoid the FZ. Enjoy the poon.

SouthTX said...

Good God? really? I don't even want to go there because. Yep the Brain broke down the puedo science.

Derrick Bonsell said...

This is a subject that still gets to me, because it comes down to remembering my blue-pill days.

Anonymous said...

I gotta go with the consensus here. It's really hard to be friends with a woman. To be friend-caliber, she's got to sort of mesh with you, and if she does, you'll want to take it to the next level. You can be good and moral all you want, but you'll still want to tag it and if she feels the same way it gets real complicated trying to keep the friendship, particularly if you're married or in an LTR.

a good ROI said...

...unless you have a lot of self-control and discipline.

I am just saying it can be done. Not that it won't be difficult, but it can be done.

MMR said...

It's hard for me to grasp that all of the guys I thought were friends over the years weren't actually my friends but were hanging around to hit it. That's a bitter red pill to swallow. I loved them like brothers. My mind doesn't want to believe it

Yep said...

@MMR -- unless you are an abysmally ugly beast, and maybe even if you are, it is absolutely true they wanted to hit it. Especially if they were beta males.

Daniel said...

Hmm. I've never considered intersexual platonic friendship to be a possibility except with the "gap" exception from above.

So - if a woman wants an intersexual relationship, she needs to connect with a man who is quite a bit higher value than her. If she does it with a groundling, he's going to overvalue himself and wax romantical.

If a man wants one, he needs to go for old and ugly. Even if she "gets the wrong idea", he's unlikely to ever let it happen, and women live quite contentedly with wrong ideas all the time, so the net effect could be a stable friendship.

Problem: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Patty Baena.

So yeah. Long-term, meaningful intersexual friendship is outlier city.

But if you are a girl, who cares if your "friend" is actually an orbiter hoping to land? If you don't want him, and he satisfies your intellectual needs, I don't see any harm. You aren't his fantasy hall monitor. It isn't going to last a decade or anything like that, but it isn't something to waste time trying to avoid.

Popular, interesting, attractive girls are going to have orbiters. Having interesting conversations between the two parties is certainly not the worst result.

Liz said...

MMR said...
"It's hard for me to grasp that all of the guys I thought were friends over the years weren't actually my friends but were hanging around to hit it. That's a bitter red pill to swallow. I loved them like brothers. My mind doesn't want to believe it."


Ever since I hit puberty my Dad's been telling me that men and women can never be just friends; to beware of all my male "friends". I of course dismissed him as an old fuddy duddy. It sucked to find out he's been right all along. There is a solution however. Cultivate your relationship with siblings of the opposite sex if you're lucky enough to have any. In adulthood, my brothers and I have become quite good friends. And due to our shared childhood, that relationship carries an understanding of one another that would be difficult to attain in any other friendship.

Feh said...

"But if you are a girl, who cares if your "friend" is actually an orbiter hoping to land? If you don't want him, and he satisfies your intellectual needs, I don't see any harm."

It harms the male. He needs to grow a pair and start approaching women rather than wasting his time orbiting.

Not to mention, plenty of women use their beta orbiters as errand boys and emotional tampons, which is morally questionable at best.

Daniel said...

It does not harm the male for her to "allow" it. He's harming himself if it so bad for him. She, after all, can't grow a pair for him.

How is it morally questionable to ask favors of people who provide them, or lend an ear? Did the contract between the two explicitly require sex? If not, there's nothing immoral about asking favors and venting to a guy, regardless of what he's hoping to exploit from the time.

If it ain't in the contract, the responsibility is on him and him alone. She's not the den mother of his perception.

Feh said...

It does not harm the male for her to "allow" it. He's harming himself if it so bad for him. She, after all, can't grow a pair for him.

She is very definitely harming him by allowing him to hang around. She is thus enabling his self-destructive behavior.

She can't grow a pair for him, but allowing him to hang around inhibits him from growing a pair for himself. The best thing she could do for him is to tell him to get lost.

How is it morally questionable to ask favors of people who provide them, or lend an ear?

Because she is manipulating and exploiting him (duh).

This is not to say he is morally blameless himself, by the way.

Did the contract between the two explicitly require sex? If not, there's nothing immoral about asking favors and venting to a guy, regardless of what he's hoping to exploit from the time.

He's not the one exploiting her; she is the one exploiting him. This is immoral.

Furthermore it is very common for the unspoken "contract" not to be reciprocal; she will ask for favors and vent, but she will not do any favors for him or listen to his emotional problems. Her role is, again, manipulative and extractive, getting her (non-sexual) physical and emotional needs met while providing much less in return.

If it ain't in the contract, the responsibility is on him and him alone. She's not the den mother of his perception.

There is no "contract" that makes it right for you to facilitate the self-destructive behavior of others.

SarahsDaughter said...

"There is no "contract" that makes it right for you to facilitate the self-destructive behavior of others." - Feh

Alphas and PUA's around the globe just busted a gut laughing.

MMR said...

"But if you are a girl, who cares if your "friend" is actually an orbiter hoping to land? If you don't want him, and he satisfies your intellectual needs, I don't see any harm."

I care. I've never been able to do this. I can't knowingly lead a guy on. It isn't fair to them and I don't feel right about it. I want to be able to be myself around my friends and if I'm worried about one of them being attracted to me then it makes me pull back and feel more reserved. For me - it kills the friendship.

Athor Pel said...

"Liz said...
...
There is a solution however. Cultivate your relationship with siblings of the opposite sex if you're lucky enough to have any. In adulthood, my brothers and I have become quite good friends. And due to our shared childhood, that relationship carries an understanding of one another that would be difficult to attain in any other friendship.
October 31, 2012 8:43 AM"



That this solution is considered a novel idea and not common sense is a sad statement of how low we have sunk as a culture.

Jacob Ian Stalk said...

@Anonymous [October 30, 2012 9:57 AM]

"My wife's best friend is a man. They've been friends for over 20 years. He's rich. He's in great shape as he works out all the time. Unmarried, no kids. Fairly attractive. A great guy, really. And gay."

You sure about that, soldier?

Anonymous said...

just saying, I've had multiple female friends that I had little to no sexual interest in, while being with another girl. Its kinda been that waay forever, but usually the friendships disappear over a couple years. Though ill admit most of my female friends are more than friends at one point or another, but were just friends 90% of the time.

Anonymous said...

"Money attract woman like picnic attract fly."

The concept of SMV underscores the transactional nature of relationships.

What makes platonic relationships difficult between men and women are the following dynamics:

1. Male biology is difficult to override without training. It can be done over time, but the first time a guy will be defenseless.

2. Women use one-sided "friendships" to exploit men who are into them, for money, attention, and resources.

3. In cases where the man has a higher SMV than the woman, the woman will almost invaraibly want him, whether or not she admits it. In the case of the football-groupie above, it seems like you had an interest in her so that fit the one-sided model. Most women of lower SMV will go nuts if a guy with higher SMV puts them in the friend zone.

4. Beautiful women have no difficulty finding sex. They have great difficulty keeping friendships, so they value them more. I oft4en say to women that if sex ruins the friendship, then friendship ruins the sex.

5. Men, particularly thanks to internet-marketing-brainwashed PUAs, don't see the value in platonic relationships with beautiful women, even though there are many. The women make great pivots, but it is also great to learn how to RELATE to them outside the bedroom. Take sex off the table, and be that "safe" guy she can open up to, and you are satisfying her more than any lover ever could. I have a saying in my book that "Level II is her Level III," meaning that she values friendship the way men value sex. The smart man can turn the "friend zone" into the RED ZONE if he understands this. It's like getting a free PUA bootcamp with a world-class female instructor rather than some guy who is just regurgitating theory he learned online.

The problem with the friend zone for most men is that they stop pursuing other women. A good female friend should be a bonus on top of a vibrant love life, not something over which he hovers, hoping for a way in, a way to beat the system that will spit out too much rejection for his liking.







Anonymous said...

@Betteroffsingle but the only teachings one will ever extract from a female instructor are her actions since women very rarely give common sense advice for relationships.

By the way, I think you don´t seem to understand that due to the dynamic #2 that you mentioned many a women will never reciprocate real friendship "perks" because they are not interested in that (real friendship perks like advice, serving as wingman, intellectual estimulation etcd.)and number 5 is just a strawman you put since very few men go for PUA artist resources and most pickup artist materials are in the web for free so just a few pay to have someone regurgitate either theory of life experience.

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