January 27, 2025 • 35 mins
It's an age old question - can men and women ever actually be friends? In today's episode we explore the social psychology and studies that help us understand why the genders sometimes have so much difficulty being close friends, as well as how to assert boundaries and keep friendships platonic, including:
- The differences in male vs. female friendship style
- Why we prefer friends of the same gender
- How romantic attraction ruins things
- The checklist for healthy male-female friendship
- How gender is creating more divide
- The benefits of having friends who are different to you + much more
Listen now!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here,
back for another episode, as we, of course break down
the psychology of our twenties. There are some episodes that
I do just for me. You know, no one has
(00:21):
really asked for them. I'm just super fascinated by the
topic or it's just really showing up in my own
life and I feel like I can't move past it
unless I do an episode on it, like that sort
of thing. So like the recent episodes that I've done
on how to Pursue your creative Passion, that was one
of those, as was the one on hobbies. And then
(00:41):
then there are the episodes that you all the listeners
are almost begging me to do. And anytime I ask
for topic suggestions, anytime I ask people to guess what
episode is coming next, overwhelmingly I get this response. Please
talk about the psychology behind male female friendships, why they
(01:04):
seem so rare, why they can be so hard, what
makes them work, what makes them doesn't. And today, my friends,
is the day that we talk about it, because you know,
I have to give the people what they want, and
I have to also give you all the psychological answers
behind this big question can men and women be friends?
(01:24):
I think the reason that it's taken me so long
to do this episode is because I don't want it
to be like surface level so as not to offend anyone.
I don't want to make general claims and like gloss
over the facts and the research. I wanted to really
go deep into this question of whether men and women
can be friends, like the age old when Harry met
(01:47):
Sally Trope, and in doing that, we are going to
explore so much. We're going to explore how societal expectations
around gender and friendship have changed over the past sixty years,
what the key difference is between male to male and
female to female friendships, non binary and queer friendships, before
(02:10):
really jumping into what makes male female friendships in particular
so tricky, whether it is just romantic attraction or something
deeper like communication or expectations, but why also these kinds
of friendships, when they work, are really important and really fulfilling.
We'll also touch on what happens when one person gets feelings,
(02:35):
how to reassert boundaries, and some stories from the listeners,
I asked you guys to submit your opinions and your
stories on this good, bad, and ugly about your experience
with male female friendships. One thing that I got out
of all of those dms is that there is not
a general consensus when it comes to this question. I
(02:55):
definitely have my own opinion because I do have quite
a few really close male friends that will always be platonic.
But you, all the listeners, you also had opinions and
there was not a single, you know, overarching, overwhelming answer.
So we're really gonna dive into some of the fascinating
(03:16):
studies done on this in social psychology, debunk some of
the misconceptions, but also provide a bit of a checklist
for what makes female friendships work. If you can't already tell,
you are in for a treat and a big discussion.
So I hope you are strapped in. I hope you
are excited to learn or perhaps to maybe confirm something
that you already did know. But without further ado, let
(03:39):
us talk about the psychology of male female friendships. I
want you to do a quick exercise for me right now.
How many friends do you have that are the same
gender as you? I want you to keep counting until
(04:00):
you reach maybe maximum of fifteen. Now, how many friends
do you have of the opposite gender. They can't be
partners of friends, that's a big one. They can't be
related to you. They can't be people that you have
previously been romantically involved with. Chances are that the second
number is much smaller than the first. For most of us,
(04:23):
our friendship preferences do tend to be skewed towards people
of the same gender because there is a lived experience
there that we share. But also we've been socialized by
society in the same way, so we are more likely
to enjoy the same activities, like the same things, have
similar language and a way of communicating, And research really
(04:45):
does show that people often form friendships with those of
a similar age, religion, education, occupation, and also gender, with
some exceptions. Of course. One study to find that younger
gay and bisexual men are more likely to have cross
gender friendships, while lesbian women are not. They're more likely
(05:06):
to have more female friends. I think it's also worth
noting that not a lot, actually very little of this
research has been done on this population, and very little
has been done on non binary people as well, so
that is a big research gap. If anyone needs a
PhD topic or a thesis idea non binary friendship preferences
(05:28):
by gender or something like that would be very interesting.
But as a general rule, women tend to be friends
with more women, and they express greater closeness to their
female friends, and the same goes for men. There are
a few reasons for this, some of which we've already mentioned,
but I think a large part of this gender divide
(05:51):
is actually quite historical, and it's remnant of a time
where male female relations could not be platonic. You were
either courting, married, or family. And even then there was
still a great deal of separation. We had male quarters
female quarters. As an example, a woman couldn't be alone
with a man who was not family or her husband.
(06:12):
That's still the case in some parts of the world.
So that makes it kind of hard to be friends
with someone of the opposite gender, doesn't it. It's not
very likely we can also trace this general pattern back
to potentially things like the division of labor. So men,
you know, historically went out hunting, women participated in child rearing,
(06:35):
and you know, women only recently, and I by recently,
I mean in the last one hundred years entered the
workplace where they actually had a chance to make friends
with men and had a chance to exit the home.
That's only like three to four generations of progress. So
this long historical division has also that I mentioned before,
(06:57):
changed how men and women were socialized or caned basically
just a fancy word for how we were raised and
the values and personalities that were instilled in us. Women
are typically seen as more vulnerable, they're more feeling giving, nurturing,
that is the traditional consensus, whereas men have been seen
(07:18):
as more adventurous, tough, less emotional, so that has dictated
how they relate and interact with those of their own gender.
So let me explain this a little bit further. So,
there was this really cool research study downe at Duke
University in twenty sixteen, and it wanted to see the
difference within female female friendships and male male friendships. It
(07:41):
found that women we tend to lean into self disclosure
when hanging out, so when we catch up with our
friends were more likely to tell them about things that
have happened in our life that have hurt us or
excited us, or that have caused us to be angry
or sad, whatever it is, we're more likely to be vulnerable.
(08:02):
Whilst men, when they get together they often do a
shared activity, or they're helping each other with a project
or a task. I have seen this with my own boyfriend,
where he prefers to play three hours of video games
with his friends, whereas me and my girlfriends will go
out for like a three hour dinner and a three
hour chat. And after he has seen his friends, it's like,
(08:23):
very typical. He's gone out for a beer, they've gone
to the beach. I'll be like, oh, yeah, so, Like
how is so and So's girlfriend? Like what's happening there?
Like are they still together? She's so nice? I really
like her, Like what's happening? And he'll be like, I
don't know. We didn't talk about it. Or I'll be like, oh,
you know, your friend, how is his terrible job going?
(08:43):
Like has he been able to find a new job?
I don't know. Again, we didn't talk about it. And
it leaves me so confused because I'm like, what else
are you meant to talk about other than each other's lives?
Like that's what a friend is for, but obviously that's
not really the case. For him and like he has
a preference or maybe a conditioned preference towards more of
(09:05):
a hangout than a catch up. So there was another
twenty seventeen study done on this from none other than
Robin Dunbar. You may know him from Dunbar's number, which
basically tells us how many friends we should or could
have at a particular time. But he does a lot
of research on like. He's a social psychologist, so a
(09:27):
lot of his research is on how we interact, how
we learn each other's behaviors, how we hang out, how
we talk, how we gossip, all those things, how relationships
are formed. And his research from twenty seventeen found that
women also tend to prefer to socialize one on one,
whilst men prefer to socialize in groups. Again, I see
(09:50):
that reflected in my own experiences. What's all so different
between women women friendships and male male friendships is that
women tend to have higher expectations of their friends, and
they expressed greater disappointment upset at last minute cancelations of plans,
not seeing their friends for a while, that sort of thing,
(10:11):
whereas men are kind of okay with their friends having
agency even if it doesn't match what they want from them.
One final big thing that I found really really interesting
and that I promise i'll stop. But women are more
likely to have a best friend compared to men, which
again checks out. So for a long time, friendships exhibited
(10:32):
something we call gender homophilly. Women were only friends with women,
men are only friends with men. That has changed a
lot recently. I want to explore how that shift took place.
So the big factors trace back to society just becoming
gradually more liberal, women entering the workforce more after World
(10:53):
War One and World War II, the rise in co
ed schools, and just more rights for women in general
to exist in the public sphere rather than just at home.
So there was just more opportunities for exposure and for
meeting and for friendship making. But this, really, you know,
(11:14):
takes us back to this big million dollar question. For
all this progress, for all the male female friendships that
we do see, can men and women ever actually be
friends without romantic attraction getting in the way. Despite all
of the progress, does romance still always find a way in?
So I wanted to hear from you all the listeners
(11:37):
before I reveal what the psychology says so far, And
I asked you all over on Instagram, give me your perspective,
what do you think? What have you seen happen in
your own life? And the answers your responses they were
split perfectly fifty to fifty, right down the line, right
down the middle. And also no one who DMed me
(11:57):
had a neutral opinion. What I mean to say by
that is that no one was messaging me saying oh yes,
sometimes yes, sometimes no. It was either some of my
best friends a men or women or the opposite gender,
and I trust them and I love them more than
anyone else, or this always ends in disaster stay away.
(12:17):
For example, I heard from one woman who said her
closest friends are all men. She has deep trust for them.
They've known each other for almost a decade, and she
was also in their wedding parties. I got a similar
message from a guy who said he had recently mceed
one of his female best friend's weddings. How he will
eventually include his female friends as part of his groomsmen.
(12:39):
How he and this was actually a really refreshing message.
He was like, my female friends have changed my worldview
compared to some of my other mates, you know, like
I see the world and I see life differently, which
I was like, huh, this is actually quite beautiful, and
that was reflected in another message from someone who was like,
my male friends have taught me what it means to
(13:03):
be considerate and caring for someone in an unconditional way,
which how beautiful is that. I also did get a
few messages of like, men are just easier to deal
with compared to women, which, yeah, I'm sure that's the
case for some people. I don't find that to be
the case, Like, I think it's just different, but that
was a common message I also got. And then the
(13:25):
other side of the coin, the dms about male female
friendships that were destroyed by someone catching feelings by deep
betrayal in some cases, trauma and hurt, jealousy and unrequited
love all very common. A surprising insight was that a
lot of the dms from women who had male friends
(13:47):
actually said most of their male friends were gay or queer,
which kind of supports the common argument the male female
heterosexual friendships they don't work because of sexual attraction, but
when you take out that lam it can flourish. All
of that aside. We are going to take a quick
break and when we return, I want to talk about
(14:08):
what makes male female friendships so hard, why they fail,
but also how to set boundaries, how to approach the
friend zone and perhaps keep the friendship, and so much
more so stay with us. So we're going to talk
about the romance, the lust, the feelings, the Harry met
(14:30):
Sally's situation, which is a great movie. Actually showed my
boyfriend that movie the other day and that's really like
as research and we had a really interesting discussion about it.
But firstly, I want to touch on some of the
other reasons, less known, less thought of reasons why male
female friendships may be a bit harder. The big first
one is gender differences in emotional expression and communication styles.
(14:54):
Try as we might, men and women do emote differently,
and they have been socialized to show vulnerability, compassion, empathy
in different ways. For men, empathy is often seen as
a sign of weakness. For women, it's a sign of kindness,
a good soul, it's a strength. So when you combine
(15:16):
these reactions, when you put them together, sometimes there can
be this divide between what either party wants and what
the other party gives. So I will say one of
my closest friends Jack. He's a guy, and I've never
experienced this with him. In fact, I think sometimes he's
more sympathetic than some of my female friends. But I
have seen this in other instances where a male friend
(15:39):
is like, you know, they're there, like, don't cry, child like,
and I can see that he's really struggling because he's
never had to practice this skill, and so that does
make it difficult if time and time again you realize
that going to this person for emotional comfort isn't necessarily,
(16:00):
you know, going to give you what you want. There
was a DM I received from one person that matches
this assumption. She said, I don't feel as comfortable around men.
They don't show empathy, they have no idea what struggles
women often have to face. I don't relate to them,
and I don't feel validated, which might be what some
people feel, and they just tend to find more support
(16:22):
in people who get their lived experiences, and gender does
influence how we experience the world. The second difficulty comes
down to jealousy and insecurity from partners, and I think
this is the problem with assuming all bale female friendships
automatically have an underlying level of sexual attraction, it can
(16:44):
ruin the friendship in other ways, it's the assumption that
they do that ruins them. I e. You know, when
the boyfriend or the girlfriend or the partner of your
friend feels insecure or jealous of your platonic bond, or
they have a low residing level of competition, it's like
a form of platonic retroactive jealousy almost and doubt even
(17:08):
if there isn't no, there is no sexual attraction there.
Some people do worry about emotional cheating and they do
see platonic friends of the opposite gender as a threat
in that way, like why do you need to have
female friends now that you have me? Why do you
need male friends when you have me? As if you know,
gender is the only thing that defines the bond. I
(17:31):
received a message from someone who said that she had
been friends with her guy friends for over a decade. However,
when they started getting into relationships, they stopped talking to her,
and now they have no relationship at all. And I
think the assumption there is that their girlfriends probably maybe
weren't comfortable with them having such a close female friend.
(17:52):
One woman said, and this actually shocked me when I
got this, she said, my male best friend's ex used
to accuse me of and running her car so that
I would get in trouble with him. Like when I
read that message, I was like, oh my god. Like
the image of that, like this woman showing up and
like somehow, you know, finding a way to dent her
(18:14):
car to blame this friend of her of her partner,
is just ridiculous. And I honestly think that does indicate
already a general insecurity or lack of trust that goes
far beyond a male female friendship. But for some people,
they just can't understand again why you need friends of
the opposite gender when you have a partner. I am
(18:37):
going to say this, and I don't like to make
hot takes like this, but I don't think that's particularly
socially intelligent to have that assumption. But I also respect
that if you've been burned by past experiences, maybe this
does feel like a natural protective reaction, Like I don't
want to be hurt again. This is past, you know,
a past situation that has hurt me. So I'm going
(19:00):
to have boundaries and rules for myself, which if it
works for you, it works for you. I do just
think that it's nuanced and its case by case. It
is something I used to be very aware of in
my male friendships, because you know, I didn't want to
come off as threatening. I didn't want to come off
as like someone anyone had to be worried about. But
as I've gotten older, you know, I've expected more maturity
(19:21):
from people, like I've known this person for eight years.
Of course, if either of us had any kind of feeling,
we would have figured it out by now. Like you're okay,
Like I do really think that as you get older
it gets easier as well, because you're like, well, yeah, again,
if it was going to happen, it would have happened.
So we're in the clear. But if you do believe
male female friendships always end with someone getting feelings, it
(19:42):
is a hard intuition to move past. So let's talk
about it now. Let's finally get to this point. I
want to talk about one study in particular from twenty
twelve published and Scientific America. So for this study, they
wanted to see male female friendships possible, not possible, What
is the threat of sexual attraction? So they brought in
(20:05):
eighty eight pairs of undergraduate opposite sex friends into a
science lab and they separated them, but before they did,
they made both friends promise verbally in front of each
other that they weren't going to talk about this study
with each other afterwards. Anything said in the separate rooms
would be private. Have a guess what they asked them. Well,
(20:26):
they took them into separate rooms and they said, all right,
this friend that you brought today, would you ever consider
dating this person? Have you ever felt attracted to this person?
Would you like your future partner to have qualities like
your friend? Do you want to ask them out? Do
you think they feel the same way about you that
(20:47):
your feelings are reciprocated. Here is what the results said.
Men were much more attracted to their female friends than
vice versa, so they were more likely to say, Yeah,
I think she really hot, I would date her. They
were also more likely than the women to think that
their opposite sex friend was attracted to them, even when
(21:09):
it wasn't the case. So a lot of the men
were saying, I have feelings for her, I think she's attractive,
and I think she feels the same about me, And
really that had virtually nothing to do with how these
women actually felt. Most of the men would just say it.
In general, there was no pattern, like, it wasn't like
they were picking up on cues. They just assumed romantic
(21:31):
attraction and they assumed that it was mutual. Women, though,
they were also a little bit blind and they were
blind to the mindset of their opposite sex friend. So
some of them were attracted to their male friends. Most
of them, though, weren't, and when they were, they didn't
(21:52):
assume that their attraction was mutual, so they weren't being like,
oh yeah, he were totally date me. They were a
bit more cautious. They were also more sensitive to their
male friends relationship status. They were more likely to say
that they were uninterested in pursuing their friend because they
(22:13):
were already involved with someone else. Men just didn't really
seem to care. Basically, the age old wisdom may be true,
but it's not women who struggle with being just friends.
It's the men, which is perhaps why the friend zone
often is filled with a lot of guys and not
so many women. Now, before we jump to conclusions, I
(22:38):
really want to say a lot of people do and
will look at the study and be like, well, there
you go, that's it. It proves it. It's impossible. Men
and women can't be friends. It's in the science. That's
simply not true. Not every person or every man or
every woman in this study answered the exact same way.
(22:58):
There were male participants who did see their friends completely platonically,
and as did their female friend. So one thing we
need to understand about any kind of psychological research. No
one's study is going to prove something, and it's definitely
not going to give you a result with one hundred
percent significance, and the same is to be said about
(23:19):
this study. We cannot take those findings and apply them
to everyone. Also, because there were only eighty eight people involved,
so only forty four groups of friends. I also think
that if attraction was the only issue, lesbians wouldn't be
able to be friends with straight women yet they are. Gay.
Men wouldn't be able to be friends with straight men,
(23:40):
Bisexual individuals wouldn't be able to be friends with anyone,
and that's obviously not true. Just because you may think
someone is attractive, it doesn't mean that you'll necessarily act
on it. We do have self control, so we want
to take a nuanced approach to these findings. But it
does really lead me to my point what does it
(24:01):
take for men and women to be friends? Is there
a bit of a checklist or common factors that unite
successful platonic male female friendships in some way? Well, I
want to find out and report back my findings, and
this was the kind of checklist that I came up with.
The checklist for a successful male female friendship. Number one,
(24:24):
I think neither party can be secretly attracted to the
other because this creates a pining unrequited love situation where
someone is bound to be hurt whilst you know either
they're waiting for the other person's feelings to change or
they're also waiting for the feeling to go away. Like
when you're in that situation, in that emotional limbo, you
(24:47):
are just going to be repeatedly hurt, I think, and
you're going to have expectations for the relationship that aren't
the expectations that you would have for your purely platonic friend.
The other thing about unrequited love is that it makes
it really hard to walk away, even when you know
you should, because the possibility of the what if or
(25:10):
your hypothetical feeling about the situation feels so real, like
you are waiting for things to change when it might not,
and it probably won't if you cross that line as well,
if you do have sex, or if you do say
I really feel for you, I want to date you,
it can be hard to come back from. It is
(25:30):
very difficult, and I want everyone to hear this. It
is very difficult to come back from being friends with
benefits to just friends unless it is purely transactional. But
of course it never is because you're friends. You know,
you already had a prior emotional bond, so you obviously,
(25:51):
at least in a slim sense, like them. You've kept
up a friendship with them. So you can't kid yourself
and say it's just sex, it's just physical, because you
know the feeling most likely originated from a more mental place,
one of kinship, friendship, mutual respect, liking like you were
friends for a reason, and that blossomed into sexual attraction.
(26:13):
Now it's more than just that, you know, it's two
things combined. Think about all the movies that have been
made about this, all the storylines in television shows like Friends,
like The Office, like Parks and Recreation. I could literally
name dozens. They all have a predictable ending. Either they
end up together. Which is the best case scenario, or
(26:33):
the friendship disintegrates because it can't remain in that ambiguous
whatever we are zone forever. And when you have to
either move on or commit, what if both people are
on the same page, one of you wants to move on,
one of you wants to commit, the friendship's done. So yes,
no attraction, definitely, no sex. Second, a successful male female friendship,
(26:56):
or any friendship for that matter, needs to be respect spectful,
gender aside. And honestly, that's what I really heard from
a lot of women who dmned me. It was that
their male friendships ended because of a lack of respect
and a failure to learn or understand their perspective. So
there has to be respect for each other's opinions, perspectives,
(27:19):
and individuality. And I'm gonna say it again, like any
friendship can end from a lack of respect. But since
men and women have been socialized to show respect differently,
I think it can be a learning process for some people.
And so yeah, again, gender aside. You need this and
kind of links to the next thing, which is emotional safety.
(27:40):
You have to feel emotionally supported and safe in confiding
in them. And if you're perhaps a woman who has
previously had bad experiences with male behavior. That emotional safety
can be hard, and that can make male friendships difficult
following a betrayal. With that, we also need mutual trust
as well and equality in the friendship, so both parties
(28:03):
are putting in effort, both are putting in attention time.
That can be difficult because, as we discussed before, differing
expectations between men and women when it comes to friendship
can cause this to become a source of friction. And finally,
I think for male female friendships to be successful, there
has to be an absence of jealousy, particularly around others
(28:25):
romantic relationships. So partners of these people cannot be jealous.
People within the friendship cannot be jealous of the partners,
and I think that jealousy in this case, like when
a guy gets a girlfriend and suddenly you know, his
female friend gets quite upset and distressed, that reaction is
really just a proxy again for romantic interest. So it
(28:47):
links back to that big umbrella point, you can't be
attracted to each other. Basically, I think a lot of
these points go beyond gender. If they're a good person,
they'll be a good friend and I don't think, at
least I hope those aren't hard criteria to meet, and
in all honesty, I think it's really worth finding friends
(29:07):
of the opposite gender that you can trust and care
about and vice versa. Obviously it's not a necessity for
some of us, but if you can get it right,
it is really rewarding because you do see a whole
new perspective. You may even see the world differently. I
also had one message from someone who was a woman
and she has autism, and she says, you know, being
(29:29):
around men allowed me to finally learn how people interact
because there's so much more straightforward, so I learned a
lot of social skills from them. Men may also experience
less judgment and more validation and emotional safety with their
female friends, so we are getting things from the other
person's perspective, even if it does look different to how
(29:53):
you would hang out with friends of the same gender,
i e. It's more activity based, or it's coffee and
a chat rather and playing soccer or whatever. I think
everyone does bring something new based on themselves as individuals,
and gender is a facet of who we are, so
bringing a different perspective whether you are male female, non
(30:14):
binary like that is important and allows people to see
things differently. I will admit, for many a lot of
the comments I received said it is becoming harder because
of how gender has been weaponized in politics and in
our society recently, it does feel like there is a
(30:34):
bigger social and psychological divide between men and women. So
this amazing article from Vox actually interviewed people about this
after the US election and found that there is a
lot of social momentum pushing men and women apart, you know,
from reproductive rights to which parties young men versus young
(30:57):
women choose to vote for, how social media has become
more intense and pushed men into these weird corners of
the internet that nobody quite frankly needs to be in,
Like it has made it harder to see eye to eye.
And I get it. If you're in the US and
you're a woman whose basic reproductive rights have been squashed,
(31:17):
and you have a male friend who just doesn't really
seem to get it, or really doesn't really seem to
care how serious this is, it can take a toll
you don't feel seen, and that's not good for any friendship.
But furthermore, the difference has become more and more apparent
because of you know, how society is currently being I
don't know how it's being manipulated and how it's different
(31:39):
from how it was before. It's harder to overlook, and
I think a lot of resentment can also arise. But
I also don't want to see us go back to
pre nineteen fifties or nineteen sixties, where male female friendship
was even more rare and strange. And I think that
will occur if we continue to believe that men and
(32:02):
women can't be friends, if we continue to suggest that
there was always romantic sexual attraction, and I think that
just stretches the divide further and it means that we
are less able to learn from each other. But I'd
also love to hear your opinions as well, because I
do believe men and women can be friends if there
is no sexual attraction, and I do think that there
(32:23):
are a lot of you know, situations where that isn't
the case. And I also think that it's possible to
have really respectful male female friendships that are reciprocal, that
are you know, work for both people, where there it's
emotional validation and emotional safety and listening. All those things
(32:43):
are possible. I do want to hear your opinions, though,
I would also really love to see more research on
non binary, bisexual trendsgender friendship preferences, because I think that
could just give us such an amazing insight and more
knowledge about why we do see a divide between genders
when it comes to friendships. And I think it could
also undo so many assumptions about you know, attraction, friendship preferences,
(33:09):
lifestyle like dating, jealousy, all those things. So if anyone
needs a fun research project, you can have that one.
That one is for you, Please do it, report back
your findings. I would love to hear about it. But
just to summarize again, I think male female friendships are possible,
but they don't come without difficulty. Some of the difficulties
(33:31):
are attraction. They are that men and women have been
socialized differently. They are a difference in lived experiences that
can create a divide. But if there is respect, if
there is you know, no interest in a romantic partnership,
if there is emotional safety, mutual trust, and ability to
(33:52):
listen to each other, I think it's beyond possible and
you can learn so much you can learn so much,
which so always reminds me of those like videos that
I used to watch on YouTube back in the day
of like questions women want to ask men, or the
biggest questions girls have for guys answered, And I think
that like when you have friends of all genders, either gender,
(34:17):
of just a variety of people, your worldview is more expansive.
So yeah, that's what I hope for at least. Thank
you again for listening to this episode. If you have feedback, thoughts, questions,
please drop a comment below. I would love to hear
from you. If you have made it this far, what's
the emoji I'm going to choose today? I'm going to
choose the little friend emoji, like the two people holding hands.
(34:40):
So if you've made it this far, drop that below
so I can say hi and I can see who
who are the true listeners? Who are the loyal listeners?
If you want to suggest an episode, this episode was
very hugely massively suggested, and that's why I did it,
so I do obviously came into public pressure. You can
DM me on Instagram at that Psychology podcast. Just make
(35:02):
sure that you're following along there as well to get
episodes summaries to see what's coming up next, to vote
on future episodes and give stories like the ones that
we're provided here. Make sure you're following along, give us
a five star review, and until next time, stay safe,
be kind, be gentle to yourself above all else, and
we will talk very very soon,
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here,
back for another episode, as we, of course break down
the psychology of our twenties. There are some episodes that
I do just for me. You know, no one has
(00:21):
really asked for them. I'm just super fascinated by the
topic or it's just really showing up in my own
life and I feel like I can't move past it
unless I do an episode on it, like that sort
of thing. So like the recent episodes that I've done
on how to Pursue your creative Passion, that was one
of those, as was the one on hobbies. And then
(00:41):
then there are the episodes that you all the listeners
are almost begging me to do. And anytime I ask
for topic suggestions, anytime I ask people to guess what
episode is coming next, overwhelmingly I get this response. Please
talk about the psychology behind male female friendships, why they
(01:04):
seem so rare, why they can be so hard, what
makes them work, what makes them doesn't. And today, my friends,
is the day that we talk about it, because you know,
I have to give the people what they want, and
I have to also give you all the psychological answers
behind this big question can men and women be friends?
(01:24):
I think the reason that it's taken me so long
to do this episode is because I don't want it
to be like surface level so as not to offend anyone.
I don't want to make general claims and like gloss
over the facts and the research. I wanted to really
go deep into this question of whether men and women
can be friends, like the age old when Harry met
(01:47):
Sally Trope, and in doing that, we are going to
explore so much. We're going to explore how societal expectations
around gender and friendship have changed over the past sixty years,
what the key difference is between male to male and
female to female friendships, non binary and queer friendships, before
(02:10):
really jumping into what makes male female friendships in particular
so tricky, whether it is just romantic attraction or something
deeper like communication or expectations, but why also these kinds
of friendships, when they work, are really important and really fulfilling.
We'll also touch on what happens when one person gets feelings,
(02:35):
how to reassert boundaries, and some stories from the listeners,
I asked you guys to submit your opinions and your
stories on this good, bad, and ugly about your experience
with male female friendships. One thing that I got out
of all of those dms is that there is not
a general consensus when it comes to this question. I
(02:55):
definitely have my own opinion because I do have quite
a few really close male friends that will always be platonic.
But you, all the listeners, you also had opinions and
there was not a single, you know, overarching, overwhelming answer.
So we're really gonna dive into some of the fascinating
(03:16):
studies done on this in social psychology, debunk some of
the misconceptions, but also provide a bit of a checklist
for what makes female friendships work. If you can't already tell,
you are in for a treat and a big discussion.
So I hope you are strapped in. I hope you
are excited to learn or perhaps to maybe confirm something
that you already did know. But without further ado, let
(03:39):
us talk about the psychology of male female friendships. I
want you to do a quick exercise for me right now.
How many friends do you have that are the same
gender as you? I want you to keep counting until
(04:00):
you reach maybe maximum of fifteen. Now, how many friends
do you have of the opposite gender. They can't be
partners of friends, that's a big one. They can't be
related to you. They can't be people that you have
previously been romantically involved with. Chances are that the second
number is much smaller than the first. For most of us,
(04:23):
our friendship preferences do tend to be skewed towards people
of the same gender because there is a lived experience
there that we share. But also we've been socialized by
society in the same way, so we are more likely
to enjoy the same activities, like the same things, have
similar language and a way of communicating, And research really
(04:45):
does show that people often form friendships with those of
a similar age, religion, education, occupation, and also gender, with
some exceptions. Of course. One study to find that younger
gay and bisexual men are more likely to have cross
gender friendships, while lesbian women are not. They're more likely
(05:06):
to have more female friends. I think it's also worth
noting that not a lot, actually very little of this
research has been done on this population, and very little
has been done on non binary people as well, so
that is a big research gap. If anyone needs a
PhD topic or a thesis idea non binary friendship preferences
(05:28):
by gender or something like that would be very interesting.
But as a general rule, women tend to be friends
with more women, and they express greater closeness to their
female friends, and the same goes for men. There are
a few reasons for this, some of which we've already mentioned,
but I think a large part of this gender divide
(05:51):
is actually quite historical, and it's remnant of a time
where male female relations could not be platonic. You were
either courting, married, or family. And even then there was
still a great deal of separation. We had male quarters
female quarters. As an example, a woman couldn't be alone
with a man who was not family or her husband.
(06:12):
That's still the case in some parts of the world.
So that makes it kind of hard to be friends
with someone of the opposite gender, doesn't it. It's not
very likely we can also trace this general pattern back
to potentially things like the division of labor. So men,
you know, historically went out hunting, women participated in child rearing,
(06:35):
and you know, women only recently, and I by recently,
I mean in the last one hundred years entered the
workplace where they actually had a chance to make friends
with men and had a chance to exit the home.
That's only like three to four generations of progress. So
this long historical division has also that I mentioned before,
(06:57):
changed how men and women were socialized or caned basically
just a fancy word for how we were raised and
the values and personalities that were instilled in us. Women
are typically seen as more vulnerable, they're more feeling giving, nurturing,
that is the traditional consensus, whereas men have been seen
(07:18):
as more adventurous, tough, less emotional, so that has dictated
how they relate and interact with those of their own gender.
So let me explain this a little bit further. So,
there was this really cool research study downe at Duke
University in twenty sixteen, and it wanted to see the
difference within female female friendships and male male friendships. It
(07:41):
found that women we tend to lean into self disclosure
when hanging out, so when we catch up with our
friends were more likely to tell them about things that
have happened in our life that have hurt us or
excited us, or that have caused us to be angry
or sad, whatever it is, we're more likely to be vulnerable.
(08:02):
Whilst men, when they get together they often do a
shared activity, or they're helping each other with a project
or a task. I have seen this with my own boyfriend,
where he prefers to play three hours of video games
with his friends, whereas me and my girlfriends will go
out for like a three hour dinner and a three
hour chat. And after he has seen his friends, it's like,
(08:23):
very typical. He's gone out for a beer, they've gone
to the beach. I'll be like, oh, yeah, so, Like
how is so and So's girlfriend? Like what's happening there?
Like are they still together? She's so nice? I really
like her, Like what's happening? And he'll be like, I
don't know. We didn't talk about it. Or I'll be like, oh,
you know, your friend, how is his terrible job going?
(08:43):
Like has he been able to find a new job?
I don't know. Again, we didn't talk about it. And
it leaves me so confused because I'm like, what else
are you meant to talk about other than each other's lives?
Like that's what a friend is for, but obviously that's
not really the case. For him and like he has
a preference or maybe a conditioned preference towards more of
(09:05):
a hangout than a catch up. So there was another
twenty seventeen study done on this from none other than
Robin Dunbar. You may know him from Dunbar's number, which
basically tells us how many friends we should or could
have at a particular time. But he does a lot
of research on like. He's a social psychologist, so a
(09:27):
lot of his research is on how we interact, how
we learn each other's behaviors, how we hang out, how
we talk, how we gossip, all those things, how relationships
are formed. And his research from twenty seventeen found that
women also tend to prefer to socialize one on one,
whilst men prefer to socialize in groups. Again, I see
(09:50):
that reflected in my own experiences. What's all so different
between women women friendships and male male friendships is that
women tend to have higher expectations of their friends, and
they expressed greater disappointment upset at last minute cancelations of plans,
not seeing their friends for a while, that sort of thing,
(10:11):
whereas men are kind of okay with their friends having
agency even if it doesn't match what they want from them.
One final big thing that I found really really interesting
and that I promise i'll stop. But women are more
likely to have a best friend compared to men, which
again checks out. So for a long time, friendships exhibited
(10:32):
something we call gender homophilly. Women were only friends with women,
men are only friends with men. That has changed a
lot recently. I want to explore how that shift took place.
So the big factors trace back to society just becoming
gradually more liberal, women entering the workforce more after World
(10:53):
War One and World War II, the rise in co
ed schools, and just more rights for women in general
to exist in the public sphere rather than just at home.
So there was just more opportunities for exposure and for
meeting and for friendship making. But this, really, you know,
(11:14):
takes us back to this big million dollar question. For
all this progress, for all the male female friendships that
we do see, can men and women ever actually be
friends without romantic attraction getting in the way. Despite all
of the progress, does romance still always find a way in?
So I wanted to hear from you all the listeners
(11:37):
before I reveal what the psychology says so far, And
I asked you all over on Instagram, give me your perspective,
what do you think? What have you seen happen in
your own life? And the answers your responses they were
split perfectly fifty to fifty, right down the line, right
down the middle. And also no one who DMed me
(11:57):
had a neutral opinion. What I mean to say by
that is that no one was messaging me saying oh yes,
sometimes yes, sometimes no. It was either some of my
best friends a men or women or the opposite gender,
and I trust them and I love them more than
anyone else, or this always ends in disaster stay away.
(12:17):
For example, I heard from one woman who said her
closest friends are all men. She has deep trust for them.
They've known each other for almost a decade, and she
was also in their wedding parties. I got a similar
message from a guy who said he had recently mceed
one of his female best friend's weddings. How he will
eventually include his female friends as part of his groomsmen.
(12:39):
How he and this was actually a really refreshing message.
He was like, my female friends have changed my worldview
compared to some of my other mates, you know, like
I see the world and I see life differently, which
I was like, huh, this is actually quite beautiful, and
that was reflected in another message from someone who was like,
my male friends have taught me what it means to
(13:03):
be considerate and caring for someone in an unconditional way,
which how beautiful is that. I also did get a
few messages of like, men are just easier to deal
with compared to women, which, yeah, I'm sure that's the
case for some people. I don't find that to be
the case, Like, I think it's just different, but that
was a common message I also got. And then the
(13:25):
other side of the coin, the dms about male female
friendships that were destroyed by someone catching feelings by deep
betrayal in some cases, trauma and hurt, jealousy and unrequited
love all very common. A surprising insight was that a
lot of the dms from women who had male friends
(13:47):
actually said most of their male friends were gay or queer,
which kind of supports the common argument the male female
heterosexual friendships they don't work because of sexual attraction, but
when you take out that lam it can flourish. All
of that aside. We are going to take a quick
break and when we return, I want to talk about
(14:08):
what makes male female friendships so hard, why they fail,
but also how to set boundaries, how to approach the
friend zone and perhaps keep the friendship, and so much
more so stay with us. So we're going to talk
about the romance, the lust, the feelings, the Harry met
(14:30):
Sally's situation, which is a great movie. Actually showed my
boyfriend that movie the other day and that's really like
as research and we had a really interesting discussion about it.
But firstly, I want to touch on some of the
other reasons, less known, less thought of reasons why male
female friendships may be a bit harder. The big first
one is gender differences in emotional expression and communication styles.
(14:54):
Try as we might, men and women do emote differently,
and they have been socialized to show vulnerability, compassion, empathy
in different ways. For men, empathy is often seen as
a sign of weakness. For women, it's a sign of kindness,
a good soul, it's a strength. So when you combine
(15:16):
these reactions, when you put them together, sometimes there can
be this divide between what either party wants and what
the other party gives. So I will say one of
my closest friends Jack. He's a guy, and I've never
experienced this with him. In fact, I think sometimes he's
more sympathetic than some of my female friends. But I
have seen this in other instances where a male friend
(15:39):
is like, you know, they're there, like, don't cry, child like,
and I can see that he's really struggling because he's
never had to practice this skill, and so that does
make it difficult if time and time again you realize
that going to this person for emotional comfort isn't necessarily,
(16:00):
you know, going to give you what you want. There
was a DM I received from one person that matches
this assumption. She said, I don't feel as comfortable around men.
They don't show empathy, they have no idea what struggles
women often have to face. I don't relate to them,
and I don't feel validated, which might be what some
people feel, and they just tend to find more support
(16:22):
in people who get their lived experiences, and gender does
influence how we experience the world. The second difficulty comes
down to jealousy and insecurity from partners, and I think
this is the problem with assuming all bale female friendships
automatically have an underlying level of sexual attraction, it can
(16:44):
ruin the friendship in other ways, it's the assumption that
they do that ruins them. I e. You know, when
the boyfriend or the girlfriend or the partner of your
friend feels insecure or jealous of your platonic bond, or
they have a low residing level of competition, it's like
a form of platonic retroactive jealousy almost and doubt even
(17:08):
if there isn't no, there is no sexual attraction there.
Some people do worry about emotional cheating and they do
see platonic friends of the opposite gender as a threat
in that way, like why do you need to have
female friends now that you have me? Why do you
need male friends when you have me? As if you know,
gender is the only thing that defines the bond. I
(17:31):
received a message from someone who said that she had
been friends with her guy friends for over a decade. However,
when they started getting into relationships, they stopped talking to her,
and now they have no relationship at all. And I
think the assumption there is that their girlfriends probably maybe
weren't comfortable with them having such a close female friend.
(17:52):
One woman said, and this actually shocked me when I
got this, she said, my male best friend's ex used
to accuse me of and running her car so that
I would get in trouble with him. Like when I
read that message, I was like, oh my god. Like
the image of that, like this woman showing up and
like somehow, you know, finding a way to dent her
(18:14):
car to blame this friend of her of her partner,
is just ridiculous. And I honestly think that does indicate
already a general insecurity or lack of trust that goes
far beyond a male female friendship. But for some people,
they just can't understand again why you need friends of
the opposite gender when you have a partner. I am
(18:37):
going to say this, and I don't like to make
hot takes like this, but I don't think that's particularly
socially intelligent to have that assumption. But I also respect
that if you've been burned by past experiences, maybe this
does feel like a natural protective reaction, Like I don't
want to be hurt again. This is past, you know,
a past situation that has hurt me. So I'm going
(19:00):
to have boundaries and rules for myself, which if it
works for you, it works for you. I do just
think that it's nuanced and its case by case. It
is something I used to be very aware of in
my male friendships, because you know, I didn't want to
come off as threatening. I didn't want to come off
as like someone anyone had to be worried about. But
as I've gotten older, you know, I've expected more maturity
(19:21):
from people, like I've known this person for eight years.
Of course, if either of us had any kind of feeling,
we would have figured it out by now. Like you're okay,
Like I do really think that as you get older
it gets easier as well, because you're like, well, yeah, again,
if it was going to happen, it would have happened.
So we're in the clear. But if you do believe
male female friendships always end with someone getting feelings, it
(19:42):
is a hard intuition to move past. So let's talk
about it now. Let's finally get to this point. I
want to talk about one study in particular from twenty
twelve published and Scientific America. So for this study, they
wanted to see male female friendships possible, not possible, What
is the threat of sexual attraction? So they brought in
(20:05):
eighty eight pairs of undergraduate opposite sex friends into a
science lab and they separated them, but before they did,
they made both friends promise verbally in front of each
other that they weren't going to talk about this study
with each other afterwards. Anything said in the separate rooms
would be private. Have a guess what they asked them. Well,
(20:26):
they took them into separate rooms and they said, all right,
this friend that you brought today, would you ever consider
dating this person? Have you ever felt attracted to this person?
Would you like your future partner to have qualities like
your friend? Do you want to ask them out? Do
you think they feel the same way about you that
(20:47):
your feelings are reciprocated. Here is what the results said.
Men were much more attracted to their female friends than
vice versa, so they were more likely to say, Yeah,
I think she really hot, I would date her. They
were also more likely than the women to think that
their opposite sex friend was attracted to them, even when
(21:09):
it wasn't the case. So a lot of the men
were saying, I have feelings for her, I think she's attractive,
and I think she feels the same about me, And
really that had virtually nothing to do with how these
women actually felt. Most of the men would just say it.
In general, there was no pattern, like, it wasn't like
they were picking up on cues. They just assumed romantic
(21:31):
attraction and they assumed that it was mutual. Women, though,
they were also a little bit blind and they were
blind to the mindset of their opposite sex friend. So
some of them were attracted to their male friends. Most
of them, though, weren't, and when they were, they didn't
(21:52):
assume that their attraction was mutual, so they weren't being like,
oh yeah, he were totally date me. They were a
bit more cautious. They were also more sensitive to their
male friends relationship status. They were more likely to say
that they were uninterested in pursuing their friend because they
(22:13):
were already involved with someone else. Men just didn't really
seem to care. Basically, the age old wisdom may be true,
but it's not women who struggle with being just friends.
It's the men, which is perhaps why the friend zone
often is filled with a lot of guys and not
so many women. Now, before we jump to conclusions, I
(22:38):
really want to say a lot of people do and
will look at the study and be like, well, there
you go, that's it. It proves it. It's impossible. Men
and women can't be friends. It's in the science. That's
simply not true. Not every person or every man or
every woman in this study answered the exact same way.
(22:58):
There were male participants who did see their friends completely platonically,
and as did their female friend. So one thing we
need to understand about any kind of psychological research. No
one's study is going to prove something, and it's definitely
not going to give you a result with one hundred
percent significance, and the same is to be said about
(23:19):
this study. We cannot take those findings and apply them
to everyone. Also, because there were only eighty eight people involved,
so only forty four groups of friends. I also think
that if attraction was the only issue, lesbians wouldn't be
able to be friends with straight women yet they are. Gay.
Men wouldn't be able to be friends with straight men,
(23:40):
Bisexual individuals wouldn't be able to be friends with anyone,
and that's obviously not true. Just because you may think
someone is attractive, it doesn't mean that you'll necessarily act
on it. We do have self control, so we want
to take a nuanced approach to these findings. But it
does really lead me to my point what does it
(24:01):
take for men and women to be friends? Is there
a bit of a checklist or common factors that unite
successful platonic male female friendships in some way? Well, I
want to find out and report back my findings, and
this was the kind of checklist that I came up with.
The checklist for a successful male female friendship. Number one,
(24:24):
I think neither party can be secretly attracted to the
other because this creates a pining unrequited love situation where
someone is bound to be hurt whilst you know either
they're waiting for the other person's feelings to change or
they're also waiting for the feeling to go away. Like
when you're in that situation, in that emotional limbo, you
(24:47):
are just going to be repeatedly hurt, I think, and
you're going to have expectations for the relationship that aren't
the expectations that you would have for your purely platonic friend.
The other thing about unrequited love is that it makes
it really hard to walk away, even when you know
you should, because the possibility of the what if or
(25:10):
your hypothetical feeling about the situation feels so real, like
you are waiting for things to change when it might not,
and it probably won't if you cross that line as well,
if you do have sex, or if you do say
I really feel for you, I want to date you,
it can be hard to come back from. It is
(25:30):
very difficult, and I want everyone to hear this. It
is very difficult to come back from being friends with
benefits to just friends unless it is purely transactional. But
of course it never is because you're friends. You know,
you already had a prior emotional bond, so you obviously,
(25:51):
at least in a slim sense, like them. You've kept
up a friendship with them. So you can't kid yourself
and say it's just sex, it's just physical, because you
know the feeling most likely originated from a more mental place,
one of kinship, friendship, mutual respect, liking like you were
friends for a reason, and that blossomed into sexual attraction.
(26:13):
Now it's more than just that, you know, it's two
things combined. Think about all the movies that have been
made about this, all the storylines in television shows like Friends,
like The Office, like Parks and Recreation. I could literally
name dozens. They all have a predictable ending. Either they
end up together. Which is the best case scenario, or
(26:33):
the friendship disintegrates because it can't remain in that ambiguous
whatever we are zone forever. And when you have to
either move on or commit, what if both people are
on the same page, one of you wants to move on,
one of you wants to commit, the friendship's done. So yes,
no attraction, definitely, no sex. Second, a successful male female friendship,
(26:56):
or any friendship for that matter, needs to be respect spectful,
gender aside. And honestly, that's what I really heard from
a lot of women who dmned me. It was that
their male friendships ended because of a lack of respect
and a failure to learn or understand their perspective. So
there has to be respect for each other's opinions, perspectives,
(27:19):
and individuality. And I'm gonna say it again, like any
friendship can end from a lack of respect. But since
men and women have been socialized to show respect differently,
I think it can be a learning process for some people.
And so yeah, again, gender aside. You need this and
kind of links to the next thing, which is emotional safety.
(27:40):
You have to feel emotionally supported and safe in confiding
in them. And if you're perhaps a woman who has
previously had bad experiences with male behavior. That emotional safety
can be hard, and that can make male friendships difficult
following a betrayal. With that, we also need mutual trust
as well and equality in the friendship, so both parties
(28:03):
are putting in effort, both are putting in attention time.
That can be difficult because, as we discussed before, differing
expectations between men and women when it comes to friendship
can cause this to become a source of friction. And finally,
I think for male female friendships to be successful, there
has to be an absence of jealousy, particularly around others
(28:25):
romantic relationships. So partners of these people cannot be jealous.
People within the friendship cannot be jealous of the partners,
and I think that jealousy in this case, like when
a guy gets a girlfriend and suddenly you know, his
female friend gets quite upset and distressed, that reaction is
really just a proxy again for romantic interest. So it
(28:47):
links back to that big umbrella point, you can't be
attracted to each other. Basically, I think a lot of
these points go beyond gender. If they're a good person,
they'll be a good friend and I don't think, at
least I hope those aren't hard criteria to meet, and
in all honesty, I think it's really worth finding friends
(29:07):
of the opposite gender that you can trust and care
about and vice versa. Obviously it's not a necessity for
some of us, but if you can get it right,
it is really rewarding because you do see a whole
new perspective. You may even see the world differently. I
also had one message from someone who was a woman
and she has autism, and she says, you know, being
(29:29):
around men allowed me to finally learn how people interact
because there's so much more straightforward, so I learned a
lot of social skills from them. Men may also experience
less judgment and more validation and emotional safety with their
female friends, so we are getting things from the other
person's perspective, even if it does look different to how
(29:53):
you would hang out with friends of the same gender,
i e. It's more activity based, or it's coffee and
a chat rather and playing soccer or whatever. I think
everyone does bring something new based on themselves as individuals,
and gender is a facet of who we are, so
bringing a different perspective whether you are male female, non
(30:14):
binary like that is important and allows people to see
things differently. I will admit, for many a lot of
the comments I received said it is becoming harder because
of how gender has been weaponized in politics and in
our society recently, it does feel like there is a
(30:34):
bigger social and psychological divide between men and women. So
this amazing article from Vox actually interviewed people about this
after the US election and found that there is a
lot of social momentum pushing men and women apart, you know,
from reproductive rights to which parties young men versus young
(30:57):
women choose to vote for, how social media has become
more intense and pushed men into these weird corners of
the internet that nobody quite frankly needs to be in,
Like it has made it harder to see eye to eye.
And I get it. If you're in the US and
you're a woman whose basic reproductive rights have been squashed,
(31:17):
and you have a male friend who just doesn't really
seem to get it, or really doesn't really seem to
care how serious this is, it can take a toll
you don't feel seen, and that's not good for any friendship.
But furthermore, the difference has become more and more apparent
because of you know, how society is currently being I
don't know how it's being manipulated and how it's different
(31:39):
from how it was before. It's harder to overlook, and
I think a lot of resentment can also arise. But
I also don't want to see us go back to
pre nineteen fifties or nineteen sixties, where male female friendship
was even more rare and strange. And I think that
will occur if we continue to believe that men and
(32:02):
women can't be friends, if we continue to suggest that
there was always romantic sexual attraction, and I think that
just stretches the divide further and it means that we
are less able to learn from each other. But I'd
also love to hear your opinions as well, because I
do believe men and women can be friends if there
is no sexual attraction, and I do think that there
(32:23):
are a lot of you know, situations where that isn't
the case. And I also think that it's possible to
have really respectful male female friendships that are reciprocal, that
are you know, work for both people, where there it's
emotional validation and emotional safety and listening. All those things
(32:43):
are possible. I do want to hear your opinions, though,
I would also really love to see more research on
non binary, bisexual trendsgender friendship preferences, because I think that
could just give us such an amazing insight and more
knowledge about why we do see a divide between genders
when it comes to friendships. And I think it could
also undo so many assumptions about you know, attraction, friendship preferences,
(33:09):
lifestyle like dating, jealousy, all those things. So if anyone
needs a fun research project, you can have that one.
That one is for you, Please do it, report back
your findings. I would love to hear about it. But
just to summarize again, I think male female friendships are possible,
but they don't come without difficulty. Some of the difficulties
(33:31):
are attraction. They are that men and women have been
socialized differently. They are a difference in lived experiences that
can create a divide. But if there is respect, if
there is you know, no interest in a romantic partnership,
if there is emotional safety, mutual trust, and ability to
(33:52):
listen to each other, I think it's beyond possible and
you can learn so much you can learn so much,
which so always reminds me of those like videos that
I used to watch on YouTube back in the day
of like questions women want to ask men, or the
biggest questions girls have for guys answered, And I think
that like when you have friends of all genders, either gender,
(34:17):
of just a variety of people, your worldview is more expansive.
So yeah, that's what I hope for at least. Thank
you again for listening to this episode. If you have feedback, thoughts, questions,
please drop a comment below. I would love to hear
from you. If you have made it this far, what's
the emoji I'm going to choose today? I'm going to
choose the little friend emoji, like the two people holding hands.
(34:40):
So if you've made it this far, drop that below
so I can say hi and I can see who
who are the true listeners? Who are the loyal listeners?
If you want to suggest an episode, this episode was
very hugely massively suggested, and that's why I did it,
so I do obviously came into public pressure. You can
DM me on Instagram at that Psychology podcast. Just make
(35:02):
sure that you're following along there as well to get
episodes summaries to see what's coming up next, to vote
on future episodes and give stories like the ones that
we're provided here. Make sure you're following along, give us
a five star review, and until next time, stay safe,
be kind, be gentle to yourself above all else, and
we will talk very very soon,
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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