Hello all, I hope everyone is having a great day today. Today I will write about an issue that keeps coming up on this sub as well as many others, an issue that causes many issues in life - male-female friendships.

I firmly believe that it's unnatural for men and women to be "just friends", that overcoming this nature is nearly impossible. I think that much heartache can be spared by understanding these truths

Friendship is a form of intimacy. Sexual bonding is a very different form of intimacy, the polar opposite to friendship.

Sexual intimacy is the union of opposites. Men and women are worlds apart. Men and women - generally speaking - think, speak and behave completely differently. What may be interesting or exciting to one gender is weird or boring to the other gender. Naturally, we need a way to bring these opposites together for the continuation of our species.

When an eligible man and woman come into the presence of one another, they instinctively act differently. Even if they're just two people sitting next to each other on the train, two people who don't say a word to one another, their body language will change in the presence of a suitor from the opposite sex. This is even more true if they do interact. An inter-gender interaction will be very different from a same gender interaction even when no sexual innuendo is present.

When a man and a woman go out on a date: they'll each dress up, scent up and be on their best behavior. In order to bring these two opposites together, each one must display the very best version of themselves.

Friendship OTOH, is the exact opposite. A group of guy friends hanging out may use colourful language, dirty jokes, burp, fart, punch each other for the heck of it and get into wrestling matches. A group of girl friends may squish 15 girls on a couch meant for 3, squeal and screech, talk for hours on end, bawl their eyes out over I'm not sure what, break into giggling fits and plenty of gossip. In friendship, you're safe to display your very worst.

Both of these forms of intimacy are very necessary.

Men don't talk nearly as much as women do. Even when we talk, it's different, especially when it comes to emotions. Women like to talk things out, men like to fix things. Women like to feel the feelings, men like to resolve them. We each view the other as weird. This youtube video demonstrates this point beautifully.

With friends we're free to display the worst version of ourselves, but with our sexual partners it is likely to kill attraction. A guy who displays his insecurities or a girl who bawls her eyes out will have a harder time being attractive to their mates. (Of course there are many examples).

When you're married, you get the whole package. The morning breath, the mood swings, the insecurities etc. However, we all know that minimising exposure to this side of ourselves is always a good idea. Sure, we need not feel self conscious about our morning breath, but we also need to brush our teeth at the earliest possible time to minimise our spouses exposure to our morning breath. In sexual intimacy we need to display as much of our best selves and as little of our worst selves as possible.

A beta man is unattractive to a woman. To her, the guy is almost like a woman himself with all his feminine behavior.... Therefore, in her mind, he can be "just a friend" like all of her other friends from whom she'll seek emotional validation and other girly friend stuff. However, to the guy, he feels that he has a greater chance of getting into her pants or into a relationship with her if he'll be her friend first. He assumes that if he's there for her during all her emotional mood swings, seeing her during her absolute worst and being there for her through these times that she'll find him attractive. Oh the let down when he realizes that this will never happen.....

We all know that this guy is unattractive. We call him a beta orbitor. What isn't talked about enough is the dynamic behind this. She thinks he's just a friend because he's acting feminine like her girl friends while he thinks he's building sexual attraction by being soft and feminine because that's what he finds attractive! It's a recipe for disaster and plenty of heartache. The flip-side of this dynamic is that male-female friendship is nearly impossible.

Here's another youtube video demonstrating how men realize that we can't be just friends while women think that "just friends" is possible.

Before I conclude, I need to clarify a point. The difference between friends and friendly. Everything I said in this post is about being friends. It goes without saying that men and women can and should be friendly to one another and to treat each other with respect and dignity. Being friendly isn't the same as being friends. I'm sure most of you know this differentiation, but I'm putting it out there because there's always someone who would pick on something like this.

Cheers!