Men and women can't be friends ?

How is this a topic? Honestly, silly to talk about it. Of course they can, if they are willing that is.

 

I have history with this so for me, it's a def nah .

 

No.

Also, I take issue with the reasoning behind this statement because it assumes that everyone is heterosexual (among other reasons).

 

I saw the thread that this is a reference to and frankly your friend is a dick.

Throughout my whole life most of my closest friends have been females. Though I did wind up marring my best friend of over 20 years, I do believe that guys and girls can be just friends.

Your "friend" is exactly why I say "gay girl/woman" instead of lesbian. For some reason a female saying that she is a lesbian makes straight guys see them as a sex toy instead of a real person. I'm sorry that your friend has treated you the way he has.

 

It also assumes every heterosexual man and woman is attracted to one another.

 

I think it's rare and usually there's someone who wants to be more than friends. Especially when it's a straight man and a woman. They always secretly hope you'll sleep with them or that you'll end up dating. And if you don't they say you lead them on. This is how straight men behave in my experience. Even if they say they want to be friends at first, they'll start hitting on you eventually.

 

Personally I would say it is easier for gay men to make friends with women(a lot of women tend to be understanding and accepting from my personal experience) and harder for a lesbian to make friends with a guy unless of course that guy understood and wasn't all about impressing the opposite sex(most guys do want to do that). I should know as well because I pretended to do it for the sake of looking straight to everyone(did a bad job of that though).

The best example of men being friends with women in relation to the LGBT community is that most gay guys have had female friends who have been the best friend of said gay men(myself included). Most gay guys have had this experience(not all have though). Lesbians have a harder time, Bisexual people are actually quite safe from the friendship bug as you can talk about girls around guys and if you are a girly guy, you be friends with girls. The hardest is the Lesbian(all most men think about is sex and how sexy a woman is and they only make friends with their girlfriend). But the possibility is that some Lesbians may be butch enough to be cool to a male so therefore she becomes that man's friend. I see less of this than gay friendships with girls.

When talking about this from a heterosexual standpoint, you can officially say it is more possible for a man to be friends with a girl or a girl to be friends with a guy than it is for the homosexual community.

Now for transgender(this'll be a hard one), well I'm sure it would be hard for some to adjust to being friends with guys when most of their life has entailed them to being around the same sex as they were by birth. (for e.g a male to female transgender person will have to deal with the sudden change of talking about male stuff to talking about female stuff). Most transgender people do not have this problem as they feel more comfortable as the opposite sex from their birth sex. So therefore transgender people have less trouble than lesbians do unless of course Mr smart man decides to look up history of transgender person and reveals said history to everyone then transgender person would have no real friends.

This is just a detailed look at the question in the post and does not apply to everyone as some people may find to hard to be friends with anybody(LGBT or straight or multisexual or asexual). It does not matter the sexual orientation or gender it is actually moreso the personality of the said person that determines friendships and if you want to look at it from a sexual standpoint just look at the above three paragraphs.

 

Whenever this topic comes up, the one thing which completely counters the claim: bisexuality.

If we state its impossible to be friends with the sex we are primarily attracted to (straight men and straight/gay women, gay men and straight/gay men etc), we would be saying bisexuals could not have any friends, which of course would be a nonsense claim to make.

---------- Post added 19th Nov 2014 at 06:50 AM ----------

I hear this a lot but I don't tend to get on well with many straight women personally. Theres usually too much of a clash in interests and I find women tend to want to talk more. Perhaps this is due to being surrounded by women in work and "needing a break" though.

 

This is bullshit. Ofcourse they can.

 

Well i tend to want to be friends with either lesbains or stright women
I never felt comfortable around men as much as i feel around women

 

I think that society can be pretty heteronormative and apparently usually expects that in a scenario of a man and a woman, there has just got to be more underneath the surface even when there's not.

Any gender can be friends with any gender, regardless of any of their sexualities.

 

With few exceptions, the bolded is basically the story of my life.

 

This is ridiculous, of course they can be freinds...

This is like when heteros say
a gay guy will want every guy we meet...

I have standards..!!

 

not true I have some close friends who are female best friend is female I do have male friends also I can get on with most people .