#138: Men and women can't be friends

0:00Men and women can't be friends.

0:04I'm starting this off strong. Men and women can't be friends. And I'm going to be sharing today some statistics studies. And then I'm also just going to share personal experience. If you guys happen to relate, then drop a comment. The first thing I want to dive into is April Blesky-Rechek. She's a psychology professor. and she did a study on this where she actually interviewed 88 other sex friend groups independently of each other on their friendship and it was so fascinating to see the differences in the response from the men and the women but i'm going to read you something that she wrote the study from blesky recheck which found that opposite sex friends report attraction at meaningfully different rates.

0:51Men consistently report more attraction to their female friends than vice versa, and both tend to overestimate how much the other one is into them. So the we're just friends thing is often genuinely true on one side and quietly not quite true on the other. That doesn't mean it can't work. It means a few things have to be real. Both people have to actually want a friendship more than they want the possibility. If one person is secretly waiting for the other to come around, it's not a friendship, it's a woman getting attention from a man that is distracted. That dynamic poisons the connection over time because one person is performing as a platonic friend or hoping for something else.

1:35Honesty about the attraction beats pretending it doesn't exist. Counterintuitively, friendships where both people have at some point acknowledged, yeah, there's a current here and we're choosing not to act on it, tend to be more stable than the ones where everyone pretends to be sexless robots. Naming it drains it. See, when I read this piece, it gave me a bit more insight because the ones that succeed at male-female friendships are the ones that recognize it and have radical honesty that there's attraction there and they're actively choosing not to. Because then there's not this hope or this perhaps one day I'm going to have a chance.

2:23But studies show, I believe that was 88 couples, 88 friends that were friend groups, sorry, that like a male and a female. But the studies show that significantly more men find the women more attractive. and so it's one-sided. I've seen this happen time and time again for me in my life and for the people around me. It never seems to work. Now, whenever I see it happen, I can't help but wonder what the man's doing. And the reason I say what the man's doing is because the woman's getting the better end of the stick here. They're getting the attention and the man is hoping. The man is distracted.

3:09The man is spending all this time with this woman that he's sexually attracted to, but just being friends. You see, this is the key piece here. Sexually attracted. You can have friends that you're not attracted to. I can have girlfriends that I'm not sexually attracted to. I don't really. I'm not that interested in that, but I could do it. And then the other thing is, if it's some form of work environment or there's some form of friend that I care deeply about involved, then I can be friends with that person. If my best friend has a staff member, that's a woman, or my best friend has a close family friend that's a woman, like, or my partner has a friend, you know, like, all of those ones I think you can be friends with, but hanging out with them one-on-one, regularly,

4:18come on now, like, let's just be real with ourselves. I've never seen it work out. I've never been able to hang out with a woman that I'm sexually attracted to. And frankly, as a man, just not want to eventually, when I start to like her and when I start to really get along, want to do more than just be friends. And I use this analogy all the time. And a lot of people that know me know how direct I am. You know, a lot of women that maybe meet me will know how forward I am with how I feel. And I'll just say it straight. I don't hide it. Even just guy friends, everything. Like I'm pretty brutally honest with my thoughts.

5:05And I think this is why I've even, you know, built a platform is because I've really tried to shorten the gap between the way I feel and what my heart is saying and then what leaves my mouth. Because oftentimes we say we feel one thing here and then we apply all these filters before it comes out of our mouth and I just don't like that the more I can shorten those filters the more real I can be the more honest I can be and it's always with love it's never like a malicious intent it's never evil it's never trying to hurt someone all it's doing is I care about you so much that I'm going to tell you how I feel.

5:44I'm going to have the courage to tell you how I feel. And also, I just respect my time and my life so much that I don't have time to be distracted like that. Let me ask you this, man that's listening to this right now, that has an attractive female friend. If it was 3am and you were sleeping, and this female friend that you have that's just your friend ran into your bedroom, jumped on you naked and wanted to sleep with you, would you do it?

6:22My guess would be that most of you would. So if they made the move on you, you would take it. What does that show about the friendship? because if my best friend that's a guy did the same with me, I'm not sleeping with him. No matter what his intent is, no matter what it is, I'm not doing it. And that's how the friend works because I can get as intimate as I like, but I know there's no sexual attraction, there's no chemistry that makes me want to rip the guy's clothes off. And so if you're sexually attracted to someone and you're just friends, frankly, I just see that as a distraction. as it says here, men consistently report more attraction to their female friends than vice versa.

7:11The women that I speak to in my life that have male friends say that they can have male friends a lot of the time. Some of them don't as well, but a lot of them say that they can have male friends. And sure, but the men in my life, I've never experienced at work. And every single time I seem to see someone say that they can, I give them the benefit of the doubt. And I go, cool. Well, we don't relate on this, but I trust that that's how you feel. And that's how you live your life. You can have female friends. Great. And then it never works out. They start dating, they sleep with each other, whatever it is.

7:54Now, there is exceptions to the rule, and as there is with everything. But I'm speaking to the broader population. I'm speaking to most people. And this is the one thing about, you know, content like this is someone might take it and they'll give one tiny little minuscule example that doesn't apply to the masses and hone in and be like, no, that is not true, man. Like, this is what happens. it's like maybe for that there's exceptions to the rule people that are fat typically are lazy people that are fat typically eat too much now there might be exceptions to the rule where someone has a condition but most of the time as michael smoke says the condition that you have is your elbow bends too much and you fill your mouth with too much food now is that offensive or is that just being real?

8:53Because for me, I've been overweight a bit in my life, not ever been fat, but like I didn't have a six pack, for example. Now I keep it all year round. But when I was not in the shape that I wanted, when I was in the shape that didn't light me up and excite me, and it didn't like make me feel confident in my skin, I knew that it was up to me. There was something wrong there that I was doing. And so I changed it. And I think being radically honest is important for every party involved. Because if you're beating around the bush, and as it said here, right, it said,

9:37that dynamic poisons the connection over time because one person is performing as a platonic friend while hoping for something else. it poisons the connection because you start to build up this thing inside of you because you're having this hope that one day just one day maybe there's a chance and the key here is if you're sexually attracted because the thing for me right is when i look at a relationship a romantic relationship aren't they your right-hand person the person you want to do life with, the person you want to kind of call when you have a win, the person you want to speak to when you're maybe struggling a little bit, the shoulder to lean on.

10:24Isn't that a best friend plus intimacy? So if you can develop a best friendship with an opposite sex that you are physically attracted to each other, then how are you just being friends? Why are you just being friends? Shouldn't you progress? Isn't that the only logical next step? If you're both single, you're both sexually attracted to each other and you get along like best friends, why don't you progress?

10:58Maybe it's one-sided. Maybe what you guys feel are actually not aligned but you're tricking yourself into thinking that they're aligned. You're being distracted. You're wasting your time. And I even think it goes for both, for men and for women, because the women that have a best guy friend is stripping away their opportunity to meet more guys that are actually going to be suited for them to develop a relationship with, a romantic, build a family with and build a life with because they're hanging out with other guys instead of being able to meet someone new. So they're getting all of the benefit of the attention and the support from a guy, but they're not developing anything long-term because they're not attracted to that as their partner.

11:47And then the guy's hanging out with this girl and not freeing up any time to hang out with new women and meet new women that could potentially be the mother to his children growing up. Not to mention the guy that needs to be on a mission, that needs to build and make something of himself and push himself and push the boundaries and become excellent in whatever he's trying to do. Women, for me at least, are my biggest distraction. If I'm going around hanging out with women and I'm just being friends with them and I don't see a future with them, frankly, I'm being distracted. It's a waste of time for me.

12:22I can't wrap my head around it. And people that know me know how direct I am about this concept. And I may get older in my life and grow up and become more mature and realize that I'm wrong. I could be, but I'm speaking for my example and my experience that I have right now. I'm going to give you an example. Yesterday, I caught up with a friend. She was a woman. and we caught up as friends when I met her she was in a relationship and I was in Australia and she's in a relationship I met her because she got intro'd me through a work relationship she was actually going to work to help on this podcast actually and she was an expert in this she worked with a big podcaster before and so we met up we went for a walk we determined that like the work partnership wasn't going to work and I was sexually attracted to her I thought she was absolutely gorgeous frankly now we started spending like an hour on the walk x y and z fine whatever but then it's like okay we leave we got along really well and I'm sexually attracted to her so then I'm here thinking I'm going okay we're not working together anymore and then where like at this point not going to be dating because she's in a relationship frankly but then what came after that is okay we're leaving do we see each other again well this was fun like we had a good time and she can really have male friends so like sure do we meet again well we ended up meeting again because we ran into the coffee shop we met up again And then we met up with, at a dinner, with two of our other friends who are guys as well.

14:26And so there's three of us guys and her on the table. Then we meet up again. Now, we're going on a walk on the beach. And I literally am just brutal to her. And I'm like, look, I'll be honest. I don't think we can be just friends. Can't be. I'll be like I'm attracted to you and if this is just friends I think it's a distraction I think it's wasting time and I just don't think you go playing around with love I don't think you go playing around with temptation and I'm on a mission I'm trying to achieve great things and frankly I just think that is a distraction and she didn't understand it because she could have male friends easily.

15:13She's like, yeah, I, I, um, I've, I've grown up with so many male friends. Um, you know, there's another element to it that she didn't really have a father growing up. So like that probably played a role where, I mean, and I don't, I'm not educated on this, but she probably didn't have the attention from the man in her life, her father. So then she would have seeked for attention from other men. And so having lots of male friends is probably something that she feels and finds a lot of comfort in and gets along with. So she had a lot of male friends and she couldn't wrap her head around it. And I was like, look, you can have a lot of male friends.

15:51That's fine. But a lot of those male friends, if you jumped on them naked at 3am in the morning and wanted to sleep with them, they would do it. And she's like, no, no, they wouldn't. I'm like, you don't think they would? and when I was with the guys, I asked them in front of her and one of them literally was like, yeah, I probably would. And like it started, that guy started by asking her on a date and wanting to catch up on a, go on a date first. So the initiation of the friendship was attraction. And so I just look at that and I just go, well, I'm not sure if that works. And anyway, I caught up with her again yesterday.

16:38She happened to be in LA, first time in America. We caught up, we went for a walk, we had a sauna. And we're getting along really well and all this stuff. And like, we're not on the same page and we're not going to date or anything, right? I was genuinely trying to just like, see this out as friends. And I just look at her again and we bring up the same concept and I'm like, I can't be a friend. Like we can't hang out regularly. I literally just tell her. I was like, I was like, we can't hang out regularly. Like if I'm getting along with you like this and I'm sexually attracted to you, like, I don't do this.

17:21These aren't the games I play. I don't to do this. And so I was like, I can hang out with you every now and then. Like I, we can, we can hang out, but, but I'm not hanging out with you regularly. Like I'm not going to see you regularly at all. And that's just a forward thing. And I've said this so many times before, even the, the last, like proper, like the last relationship that I was in that I've spoken about a bunch on this show, the way when I met her, she was in a relationship. And obviously I I kept my distance the whole time, but there was like a connection there, like no other. And it was so strong.

17:59And the first moment I had a chance, we were with a whole group and everyone had like gone to the toilet and it was just me and her. And the first thing I said to her, the first moment I got just me and her together, I said, I don't think we can be just friends. I was like, this is like, this is wild. The connection here. And then I just, and I just went, but I'll be honest, like, you're not acting like you have a boyfriend. She's like, to be honest, I don't even know how to act. And I'm like, exactly. Like there's a connection so strong. And, um, and, and I remember when, when I left, I said, look, I'm going traveling for the next six weeks.

18:36When I get back, if you don't have a boyfriend, call me. And that's how that started. It's like, I'm not being just your friend. I don't think it works. I like you. If you don't of a boyfriend, call me. And she called me and X, Y, and Z, and then it all progressed from there. But like, I just see this pan out time and time again. You see, my old videographer, I had a videographer, he lived with me. He actually, I brought him all around the US the first time I went for six weeks. Now, we had these common conversations around how men and women can't be friends and we we disagree with it because he has a lot of women friends and he's a bit more like feminine and flamboyant and uh he's not gay though i think gay people can because the sexual attraction is not there but he's a bit more feminine and flamboyant and he likes to have female friends fine um but i was just like dude we can just agree to disagree on this like i don't relate to that and then we progress our friendship and we keep doing work together and we keep living together and we keep traveling and doing all this stuff, I get into a relationship.

19:54And there's a girl at my house who's my girlfriend. He meets her coming to visit and he meets her X, Y, and Z. And he didn't live with me at the time, but every time he came back to the Gold Coast, I said, yeah, you can stay. They catch up while I'm in town. We go on walks, like all three of us go get food x y and z get along he's a very like different kind of guy to me um a bit more soft and and like flamboyant and i'm a little bit more direct and a bit more forward and anyway they're getting along we break up me and this girl now he comes over to stay then he goes and like hangs out with her one-on-one and then they come back and he tells me and i'm like yeah i think it's a little bit weird but i mean i know you say you can have friends like girlfriends so like go to whatever you whatever you want x y and z keeps hanging out with her and i'm just about i'm just like dude i'll be a bit i'll be honest like there's eight billion people in the world you just don't hang out with your best friend's ex it's just not what happens you just you just have a little bit of control like naturally she's going to give you more attention because you're my my friend and he's like oh i thought you were okay with it x y and z i was like yeah i guess this is something that we've always spoken about we can agree to disagree i don't think you can have girlfriends that are attractive as her like i don't think you can just hang out with a girl that's sexy like that as a friend and he's like yeah look like it's really friends like we've been developed a really good friendship i'm talking weeks later i get a message from him hey man i just want to let you know like this thing with x y and z is getting a little bit more than friends it's it's there's actually something deeper there and she's coming over to the city where he was living and i just go point proven it doesn't work and i just haven't seen it pan out there's one thing about being okay with having friends like in a group or having all these boundaries in a friendship that's male and female but you can't disregard the fact that they are boundaries there has to be boundaries like even here right where it said like the ones the friendships that have at both of the people at some point have acknowledged yeah that there's a current there and we're choosing not to act on it.

22:29There's something here and we're choosing not to act on it. That shows that there is boundaries. I don't have boundaries with my best friend, Sam. We just do everything that we want to, but there's no intimacy there because there's none of that there. And so when you're a straight person and then you have same-sex friends, you don't need to have any boundaries. And I use this analogy all the time because I think it's so perfect to represent this, right? If you're on a diet, don't put chockeys in the fridge. Don't put the chocolates, don't put the cake in the fridge. If you're on a diet and you're trying to lose 10 kilos before summer, you're probably going to watch what you eat if you actually had the goal of losing the 10 kilos before summer.

23:20You're probably going to not buy the sweet stuff and put it in your fridge, right? If you know that on your diet, you can't eat chocolate, why would you put chocolate in the fridge? So if you know that you can't get intimate with this woman, but you're sexually attracted to them, just like you can't eat the chocolate, but you love the taste of chocolate, but you're putting the chocolate in the fridge, what are you doing? If the goal is to lose 10 kilos and to stick to the diet, you just don't put the chockeys in the fridge. Now, the next thing is, is okay, but the difference here is, is if the chocolates are in the fridge, you can actually get them.

24:06But if they're locked and the girl's not going to give them to you, then it doesn't matter because you know that you can't get it. So you just surrender to the fact. It's like, okay, that's like putting a glass box around the chocolate and the cake in the fridge. But still, every time you open it, even though you can't eat it, you see it and you get that desire to want it. So every time you're thinking about the chocolate and the cake that's in the fridge that you can't touch, but maybe someday it's going to get unlocked, but you can't touch it right now, you're still thinking about it, which means you're not thinking about how good the steak and eggs is going to taste.

24:48Because all you want is the chocolate. Frankly, you're being distracted. Because I do think, as a man, we owe it to ourselves to be disciplined enough to level up in our life, to push ourselves, to go through challenge, to try and be world-class at something. And to do that, it takes dedication. And the women that we have in our life, we're supposed to have them there to elevate each other. But frankly, I just think it's one-sided if you're having platonic friendships with attractive women. And you can have unattractive female friends, that's fine. But when you're attracted to them and you sexually want to do more than just be friends and you're refraining from doing so, you're being distracted.

25:42Hold yourself, refrain yourself from them. When I did this, my life leveled up. It leveled up dramatically. My biggest challenge and my biggest distraction is women. I struggle so much with lust of women. And this is why having a partner excites me so much because I know that I have someone there by my side. And instead of having this woman be my biggest distraction and my biggest vice, it becomes my biggest power because I can find freedom in the connection with this one woman because I know that she's there. I love her. I'm sexually attracted to her. She turns me on and I don't need to go searching elsewhere.

26:23I don't need to answer to these women's texts. I don't need to hang out with these girls platonically and get attention from women that I can't have anything else with. There's freedom in connection with a woman. But there's distraction in a subpar or a half-assed connection with a woman. Because I truly think that women are like the pinnacle of life. They're like God's greatest gift to us men. they they really are i think without women we wouldn't be who we are and i think women make men strive so much and they make us so empowered to conquer and achieve great things and build up a life because it goes beyond just us it becomes something that's so great and that it becomes a drive that goes beyond us, a family, a partner, a life for all of us, not just for us.

27:29When we have a woman in our life that we love so much, that we care about so much, that it causes us to like freeze up and be so driven and so motivated to strive and conquer, that makes us a better man. You know, in that Christian video that I made, I said, I said, I added all of these rules into my life without me even deciding on adding these rules. I just didn't want to hurt her because I loved her so much. And when I added these rules, I leveled up as a man. My life got better. And I don't think having women friends platonically levels that up. I think it takes us away from the mission. It takes us away from what we truly want.

28:17And so the key here is just to get real with yourself. Get real with the women friends that you have in your life. And just think about the intention that you have. You know, one of the things that I spoke with the girl that I was with yesterday about, she'd just gotten out of the relationship that she was in. She got out of it like a few weeks ago, right? And I said, if you were to put those two guy friends that you have on a lie detecting test and you would ask them, did you get excited when me and such and such broke up? Did you have like a level of joy that come into your life when we broke up?

28:54And you would ask them that because they had this slither of hope, this new chance that now when I hang out with this woman, she's single, she's on the market. If you put them on a lot of detecting tests, I wonder what they would say. And the answer to that would be a great indicator as to if men and women deep down can truly be friends when you're sexually attracted to each other. Because for me, I think that when I'm sexually attracted to a woman that I get along with like a best friend, the only logical next step is to take that leap, to invest into each other, to commit to each other, to build a life with each other.

29:38Not just be distracted. Not just have these people in our life to solve problems that we had in our childhood to solve different things that we feel like we're lacking and we need with them. I draw so much greatness and so much enjoyment out of the male friends in my life, the brotherhood that I have. And I also know that the amount I'm going to draw joy from the romantic partner that I'm blessed to find in my life at some point, and the woman that can be the mother to my children. And having a wife and having brothers by my side, I know that that fills my cup. And everything else is frankly a distraction.

30:32Let me know what you think about this. Drop a comment down below on your thoughts on if men and women can be friends. Share some insights, perspective. I know there's a lot of women that listen to this show. In fact, if you're watching this on YouTube, it's actually like 70 % men or 75 % men. But if you're on Spotify, I think it's about 60 % women. So drop a comment for the women down there below. Drop a comment on what you think. The studies do show that women can have male friends a lot easier. But if you were to just strip it back and ask yourself those questions like, would that man sleep with me if I made the move?

31:13my guess would be is that he probably would. And I guess my two cents for the women is, I don't think it's your problem. I think women can have male friends. And I think it's great for them. I think the woman wins. But for the men listening to this, I'm speaking to you directly. You're being distracted. Be real with yourself. Be real with your intentions, what you want with this woman, and have a hard look and just go, maybe I do want more than just a friend. And maybe if you don't feel that right now, something will slip up later. Maybe when you have a few drinks, maybe when you're spending more one-on-one time, which is just so hard for me to wrap my head around, hanging out one-on-one just as friends.

32:12man, I would just really deep down think about what part of you wants to keep hanging around and having a hard look at that and then letting that and then having the courage to act on whatever the answer is that you find is the key. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Leave us a five-star review on Spotify. If you've made it this far and you enjoyed this, it really helps the show grow and it helps us keep getting awesome people on the show. We're doing a massive production at the end of this month. in Malibu, and then we've got another one in Arizona. So stay tuned for some really cool guests that we're doing on the show, but we're going to sign out for this episode.

32:51I'll see you very soon. Bye-bye.