Is it possible to have platonic female friends?

Here's my hot take, as a woman:
If you are not yet capable of experiencing friendship with a pretty woman without feeling attraction (different than acknowledging that she's attractive), you have no business dating yet. There should be lots of women who are attractive that you don't feel attraction to because their personalities aren't romantically compatible. When you're dating someone, you have to be capable of being friends with other attractive women without your brain turning them into potential partners. The inability to be friends with them without fantasizing/imagining them as potential partners means that you are still heavily objectifying and not thinking of them as just people who have lives and interests outside of possibly dating you. I have a very high sex drive and also a dozen or so very attractive men who are good friends, who I have zero romantic or sexual interest in because they are people and not just potential sex partners.

Having platonic friends of the opposite sex is literally just about seeing them as people, in the same way you do your male friends. A lot of that for you is going to be getting into long-term recovery where your brain is no longer trained to view women as body parts you scroll through.
 
It's possible to have platonic female friends and it's easier if there is no attraction between you. If you are attracted to a female friend, you may always want to take it further, but depending on the situation or her attraction to you, it may or may not develop any further.
Just treat women as any other friend and you will be fine.
 
I have a good female friend. I think we have a good connection because we have several things in common. We were both once fundamentalist Christians. We both know what it's like to be a part of and walk away from a religion. I'm white/Asian, and she's Asian but was adopted by a white family, so we both know what it's like to be a part of both worlds. We both have an interest in psychology and have somewhat similar political views. We have had a few disagreements, but there's enough respect between us that we've never personally attacked one another.

I will be honest, I do find her somewhat attractive, but she made it perfectly clear at the beginning that she had no romantic interest in me, and I was cool with that. I'm not being her friend in hopes of having a relationship one day, I see her as nothing but a friend. Our friendship happened by accident, really. I had no intention of having such a good friendship to her, it's just I got talking to her one day, and we discovered we have a lot in common.
 
Ninjutsu Jukai said:
What are your tips on having many platonic female friends. Is a career change necessary?
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I've never had an issue with it. Are you attracted to every female? I guess if you can have female friends you aren't physically attracted to is where that is going to happen. Also, elderly women can be your friends.
 
UpyetDown said:
I've never had an issue with it. Are you attracted to every female? I guess if you can have female friends you aren't physically attracted to is where that is going to happen. Also, elderly women can be your friends.
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No, but few women I meet doesn't want to be friend. I am trying to think what I really need, so one or two women I really like doesn't think I am a social outcast.
 
i dont think so. you can be friendly

the sexual intent will ALWAYS be there. the guy (or girl) can mask it, ignore it, not act on it, whatever. but it is there.

if you think a guy only thinks of a girl as a friend....if the girl is moderately attractive and if she was to take off her shirt and say "fuck me right now", the guy WOULD DO IT.
 
My understanding is that guys cannot be friends with girls that they find attractive after puberty. (and I think it works the same way with women , although with women it's more about personalities they are attracted to)
I think different personality types have a much easier time being platonic friends with girls but it's been my experience that anytime I was actually friends with a girl, they always wanted a relationship. Looking back on those times relationships would have worked because I liked them too.
I think extrovorted personalities have an easier time in this sense but even when I observe how extroverts interact with the opposite gender I sorta notice that they treat the opposite gender more like acquaintances.
I think what really makes it possible to be more friendly has more to do with incompatibility. where they can sorta be friends because they have high self control, and understand that they have different priorities, goals, world views, ex.
even then looking at the people in my family 14 people including in laws, only one of them has a personality type like that. everyone else either has only friends of the same gender or aren't very close with "friends" of the opposite gender
 
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so far the only thing that helped me with that is when they are already "taken". really.
otherwise there is always this battle in my head, and i today i still don't react well to rejection. however when i have been rejected and it happened to go well this is how i would accept being friends with a girl, by experience, when it happened correctly. the problem is that it's always the girl that sets the boundary here. not how a responsible adult (man or woman) should behave.

today my position is to let them make the first move or talk in necessary situations. it's a bit punitive, but it's something i know how to do, sorry. however i know i can talk if i MUST, but yeah that should be normal i know i know.

that's my only practical solution from my small experience. again i am sorry.

but really, i ... i wish i could have stayed friends of some sorts with failed relationships, really, maybe something would have allowed the girls to like me for the same stuff i liked about them, which is how i make friends with some boys.
 
Is being rich the only option, I am not very tall or handsome. I guess rich and famous brings more perks. How celebrities gets many friends and it's easier to do business. I want to do business but having difficult time to make correct male and female friends. lacking serious social intelligence.
 
Ninjutsu Jukai said:
What are your tips on having many platonic female friends. Is a career change necessary?
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I will say that you will not live a meaningful life without platonic female friends. Some of a man's greatest friendships will be with the women he meets in his life. They are more caring, sympathetic, and honest with you. They are so much easier to go to for advice than your homies. Being vulnerable with a woman is so much less intimidating. Some people might notice that and figure they just need a girlfriend, but that is false. If you are only close to your girlfriend and have zero female friends, that reinforces a belief that women are nothing more than potential partners.

Some men believe that women want a guy with no female friends, and while that may be true for some, that is unhealthy. That type of woman struggles with trust and jealousy. If she wants a true, healthy relationship, she will understand that a relationship built on trust comes with trusting her boyfriend around other women.

The scale of attractiveness does not matter so long as you can trust yourself around them. This goes for both friendships while in a relationship and while being single. You don't want to cheat on your girlfriend, but if you're single you don't want to go around trying to get with your female friends either. I have a lot of attractive female friends I would never consider as a partner, but I have also been the guy to mess up and pursue attractive female friends. It's the type of thing that landed me on NoFap. So, the best I can do is encourage others to do better and recognize the importance of women in their lives!

I encourage you to challenge yourself. Set out for meaningful friendships with women you know. Test the boundaries of your trust and see if you can hold your own around them. You will discover a lot about yourself. You will make connections you will cherish for the rest of your life. I promise you.
 
Ninjutsu Jukai said:
What are your tips on having many platonic female friends. Is a career change necessary?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, it is different for men than a women.

If you have female friends that you see every now and then and communicate from time to time, then yes.

if you are taking about female friends the same way you would have male friends, then no.

if you are attracted to the woman, you are always going to have thoughts about her and hope something more comes from it. Especially if this is a friend you spend a lot of time with.

I have female friends, however I don’t see them or speak to them anywhere near the amount I do my male mates.

women are good at drawing the line in the sand and putting up a barrier when it comes to male friends. Men on the other hand will slip up the moment the woman presented an opportunity for him.

generally, men get close to woman because they either want a relationship with them or they want sexual desires fulfilled.

money also won’t make more people gravitate towards you, in fact, it can draw the wrong people who just want to use you for resources. I am financially successful, and my closest mates are the mates I have had since I was a teenager (currently 35).

In todays world, society wants to push the idea that you are somewhat of a deviant creature who can’t control urges with women, when in reality, men are just wired this way due to our biology. Men have testosterone, it’s what makes us desire sex more and why we can be drawn to women just based on sheer attraction. It is also that exact reason to why over 95% of porn viewers are men.

I am not saying that men should act out and in no way defending sex addicts or any form of sexual harassment and giving men a free pass, I am just stating why men view sex and temptations differently than women

women have testosterone but in such small comparison to men, they don’t have the same sexual desires men have. They find it easier to resist these thoughts and temptations compared to men.
 
I've responded here before, but since I am struggling with my platonic female friendship, I will answer it again.

It all depends on the level of your attraction for the female friend and does she have a mutual attraction to you? My theory in life is there are about 5 women or less that you will meet who are the ONE! When you meet that ONE, the sparks fly and it sets something off in your brain that can't be denied. I'm married, and have a few platonic female friends that are no different from my male friends because I'm not sexually or romantically attracted to them.

Unfortunately, I have another platonic friend who I know is the ONE. She has everything I want in a lifetime partner, but I can't pursue her because I'm married. I've been seeing her for 3-years as a friend, and every time I leave her I think how perfect she is. The right thing to do would be to stop seeing her, but she brings me great joy and I don't want to lose the friendship.

This platonic relationship makes me relate 100% to this quote, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation" - Henry David Thoreau
 
Ninjutsu Jukai said:
What are your tips on having many platonic female friends. Is a career change necessary?
Click to expand...
If there is little to no attraction it could work. I have many female friends. Some are objectively pretty but most of them are not people I would consider dating for various reasons. I find that whenever that balance is skewed and one of us starts flirting, it complicates things a lot.
 
Ninjutsu Jukai said:
Tends to happen when you have very few female friends or none at all. So you talk to only one beautiful woman and are needy. Maybe if there were 100's of female friends it would not happen as often.
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I have a lot of female friends. I have never had issues when it comes to socialising.

you out out a theory if you have 100’s of female friends this might not happen. Let me ask you this, who has 100 female friends? Also, have you tested that theory?

if I have sex 100 times, it makes it no less desirable than having sex only 1 time.

as much as people want to make it out to be the other way around that men can have female friends, it just isn’t true. Men will look at a woman that just walks past them and they don’t even know the woman.

you can have female friends, however it’s how you limit the interactions. If you are trying to have females friends in the same dynamic as male friends (seeing each other frequently, constantly talking and sharing things all the time) then it is impossible to maintain the idea of her being just a friend.
 
Keepitsimple1989 said:
I have a lot of female friends. I have never had issues when it comes to socialising.

you out out a theory if you have 100’s of female friends this might not happen. Let me ask you this, who has 100 female friends? Also, have you tested that theory?

if I have sex 100 times, it makes it no less desirable than having sex only 1 time.

as much as people want to make it out to be the other way around that men can have female friends, it just isn’t true. Men will look at a woman that just walks past them and they don’t even know the woman.

you can have female friends, however it’s how you limit the interactions. If you are trying to have females friends in the same dynamic as male friends (seeing each other frequently, constantly talking and sharing things all the time) then it is impossible to maintain the idea of her being just a friend.
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No no, I am not saying you won't feel sexually attracted. I am saying desperation might be lower and you will have abandance mindset if you have lots of options. That friday you may not have to wonder if your only female friend Tina won't come to boat cruise and you have to go alone, instead of you will go to cruise anyways with bunch of female friends and have a good time, even if you don't fuck them.
 
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