It’s the age-old question: can men and women just be friends? While opinions differ depending on who you ask, science has the real answer once and for all—and the answer isn’t really all that surprising.
- The research comes out of the University of Wisconsin. Psychology professor April Bleske-Rechek wanted to see how often women become attracted to their male friends and vice versa, so she called upon 200 volunteers, both male and female, to answer a survey based on a scale of 10 points. The findings will elicit a “no, duh!” from most women.
- Men are way more into their female friends than we are to them. The study shows that most women just aren’t that into their guy friends in a romantic way. We’re happy to count them as platonic friends and are way less likely to want to take things to the next level. Who’s shocked? No one?
- Almost half of guys would rather be in a sexual relationship with their female friends. The survey found that 42% of men are sexually attracted to their female friends while only 29% of women could say the same. Only 17% of men said they’d count the women as friends too (rather than just women they were trying to get with), which is vaguely depressing.
- Of course, it’s not all bad news. Thankfully, 58% of male respondents seemed to be happy keeping things platonic with the women friends in their lives, which is a bit of a relief. After all, is there anything more awkward than having your friendliness with a guy friend misinterpreted as sexual attraction? Dudes, we’re just being nice.
- Some great romantic relationships develop from friendships. If you want a strong romantic relationship, forming a strong friendship as a basis is always a good idea. Sometimes mutual attraction develops between friends and that’s fair enough, but sometimes it’d be nice if we could all just be happy with where we’re at now and let things happen organically if at all.
