Can Men and Women Be Friends?

It’s a question as old as time –– or at least as old as 1989’s ‘When Harry Met Sally.’ Can men and women be friends? In an early scene of the film, Harry argues that men and women cannot be friends because “the sex part will always get in the way.” While Sally argues that this isn’t true, the film’s creators generally seem to agree with Harry as the two become friends before ultimately having sex and falling in love.

While that film is over 30 years old, the debate about whether men and women can be friends remains alive and well. Many online creators raise this topic on TikTok and other online platforms, but in a time where gender and sexual norms are changing, is this question still relevant?

Men and Women are Just Different, Right?

There has been scientific research to help answer the question of whether men and women can be friends, pointing out differences between the ways that men think of friendship compared to women. According to the findings of this research, women are more capable of having truly platonic feelings toward men than men are toward women. This is said to be rooted in a tendency of men to overestimate the potential for romance while women underestimate it. Men view friendliness as flirtation whereas women are more likely to perceive it as just that: friendliness.

While this research may reveal something about our society, the findings raise more questions than they answer. The findings don’t confirm that men and women are incapable of being friends but rather that men and women experience a difference in perception. Why this is the case is less clear.

Traditionally speaking, AMAB people are socialized to be sexually assertive, taught to view sexual assertiveness (if not aggression) as displays of their masculinity and dominance; AFAB people on the other hand are socialized to be “sexual gatekeepers,” who are meant to be demure and protect their sexual purity. This is sometimes framed as the “natural order” of things: men are hypersexual cavemen who struggle to resist their sexual urges while women are chaste mothers-to-be who must deflect and hold off men’s desires to find the right mate for childrearing. This duality of men vs women, locked in a reproductive tug of war, is not only a very transactional view of relationships but a very conservative one as well. But isn’t the question of whether men and women can be friends, itself, a conservative one?

The question typically looks at ‘opposite-sex friendships’ which excludes the growing number of people who do not fall within this gender binary. When we make room for our trans and non-binary pals, the entire question is revealed to be reductive, if not didactic. Even more so when you take into account queerness and other sexualities, including pansexuality and asexuality.

The question "Can men and women be friends?” makes many assumptions, namely straightness, cis-ness, as well as monogamism. It treats these concepts as the norm, ignoring other gender identities, sexualities, and ways of relating.

Make Agreements, Not Assumptions

One of the key problems with the argument of “can men and women be friends” is that it assumes both straightness and allosexuality. It views relationships as a binary between asexual/platonic to sexual/romantic. In this binary, friendship is typically defined as something that is without sex or physical attraction, while a romantic relationship not only includes sex but typically sexual exclusivity. It is this binary that elevates the question of men and women being friends to being worthy of inquiry because the middle ground between these two poles is framed as something messy and short-lived. This is where the tension of whether men and women can be friends seems to originate. From this perspective, the possibility of attraction becomes a threat to the relationship’s stability when there isn’t agreement but does that have to be the case?

Yes, unrequited or one-sided desires can add complexity to a relationship dynamic when there is a misalignment of wants and needs. These differences can be difficult and sometimes painful to navigate, but human dynamics can be much more flexible and fluid than this either/or, friends/lovers framing allows.

As relationship anarchists understand, human dynamics are flexible and fluid. Regardless of our gender or sexuality, RA teaches that relationships can be centered around the specific agreements of those involved rather than what is assumed based on a specific label or status. It doesn’t matter if you identify as a man or a woman; whether you’re cis or trans; if you enjoy sexual contact or not. What matters are the practices that you and your pals agree feel good together.

We should not assume that difference means a relationship is completely unsustainable. Differences can be navigated and often are – even in cis, het, monogamous relationships. It’s rare to find someone whom you will experience no difference with, and confluent relationships have the potential to be just as unhealthy. We must be careful not to value confluence and agreement over negotiated, authentic differences.

What we want from a relationship can also change! We are allowed to desire and agree to one relationship dynamic and decide we’d like to renegotiate the relationship later on. As an example, many people find themselves more sexually attracted at the start of a relationship, when things are novel and there is much to discover, but over time their desire for sex becomes less important than other forms of intimate connection. Other times, a relationship may start as entirely platonic and non-physical, centered around shared interests, but a sexual attraction begins to develop as those people get to know one another better. Our wants and needs change throughout our lives. We change and our relationships can change along with us. This is not only normal but entirely human!

In short, yes, men and women can be friends but when we take into account the gradients of human experience – including queerness, gender non-conformity, asexuality, as well as the fluidity of the human experience – the question is rendered much less important.