Can men and women just be friends?

A girl having a guy best friend or a guy having a girl best friend...

When we're in a relationship with someone, we don't necessarily feel all that comfortable with them being in friendships with the opposite sex because we're worried that there might be something more there what if there is attraction there.

I want to delve into this a little more because I feel like there is a somewhat childish assumption that our partner will never be attracted to anyone else and shouldn't be attracted to anyone else as in trying to believe this we also attempt to suppress the most basic of instinct in our partner which is their instinct to become attracted to attractive qualities in other people. The thing is I believe we hang around people that we find attractive, may be physically attractive, sometimes we may be attracted to the brain, in their intelligence, other times it's the way they handle themselves.

I don't think that it's realistic to assume that we will never be attracted to qualities in anyone else other than our partner but what I do believe is that it has no bearing on our loyalty. Our loyalty is something that we exercise when we're in a relationship and has nothing to do with the friendships that we have. In other words, you can go out and choose friends who subconsciously even though you won't admit it there may be some level of attraction with you might be attracted to something in that person. Now that doesn't mean you're gonna do anything about it, it just means that that's why you chose them in the first place as a friend, it's that you were attracted to something about them doesn't mean that you want them over your partner. If your partner has a friendship with someone else, it doesn't mean that they want that person over you.

The idea of debating friendships between men and women in terms of: Is there any attraction? or isn't there any attraction? I think it's kind of naive and childish way to look at it. Of course there's some attraction in many friendships that are just friendships. Of course there is. We would be crazy and naive to assume otherwise. The question isn't can men and women be friends. The question is are they willing to just be friends.

Your partner's loyalty isn't defined by how many people they're not attracted to. Your partner's loyalty is defined by the amount people they can be attracted to and still be loyal to you, still be in the relationship, still be faithful. That to me is what loyalty is truly about. There is no win, there's no award in someone never being attracted to other people. That just means that you're the only person in the world they're attracted to and by default they're with you. If they could be attracted to many people still choose you that's genuine loyalty because now they're sticking around by choice not because they haven't found anything better.

When someone ask me can men and women just be friends? I said you can drink 10 shots of whiskey and at the end of those 10 shots neither one of you attempt to sleep with the other person, YES, you can just be friends. That's not to say that there isn't any attraction between these two people. That's to say that even once they're lost their inhibition, even once they're in a state of weakness where they could be vulnerable to doing something, if even then they make the decision that: "NO, this is gonna be platonic, there isn't going to be more between us". Then you know that you have someone who really is just in a friendship. Whether it's you, whether it's your partner, whether it's anyone else. I stand by that test, drink responsibly, my friends.