Clearing Up the "Men and Women Can't Be Friends" Concept

Dear Readers,

The following was left as a comment on one of my columns where I mentioned (yet again) my belief that, other than Husbands and Wives, Men and Women "Can't Be Friends".

I know this is a concept that drives some of you, particularly Young and Young Single Adult Women, into furious frustration . . .

But I'm not wrong.

At least not on this one.

For the Original Letter, Clik Here.

The Comment, then my response, follows.

Dear Bro Jo,

Sorry to say this Bro Jo, but how do you get off telling all your readers that guys and girls cannot be friends? This is completely untrue and is very unhelpful advice. I personally have many friends of the opposite sex and I am most certainly not dating them. And all of my friends are the same. What on earth is your motivation here? Would you have girls only be friends with girls and boys with boys, only spending time with the opposite gender when romatically involved? Because that is utterly absurd!

- Anonymous


Dear Anonymous,

It’s too bad you’ve written your comment anonymously, because we clearly need to chat.

First and foremost, let me say that my “motivation” is to help people, particularly LDS Teens and YSAs, by giving them my opinions on relationships and how people behave. I’m not always right, but I don’t lie. I do my best to stay true to the teachings of the LDS Church and her Prophets with out being too “Churchy”. I rarely quote Scriptures, Church Leaders and Conference Talks in this column because there’s a wealth of that already available. I tell it to you straight, as I see it, and hold nothing back, although I do try to inject a little humor because I believe that laughter is very healing. You may not like what I say, or how I say it, but I have to stay true to who I am.

I understand why you’re confused. In this Day and Age we toss around the word “Friend” and use it as a blanket statement to cover many different kinds of relationships. But that’s not how I’m using the word in this context.

I tell my readers that Guys and Girls can’t “just be friends” because, well . . . It IS True, whether you want to hear it or not, whether you agree or not. If you would take the time to READ what I’m saying instead of being so quick to get defensive, you might learn something and, frankly, this is a lesson you seem to NEED to Learn.

Let me walk you backwards through the concept.

As I define it, and as I have defined it here so often, a Friend is someone you can have lunch One-on-One with, that you can Buddy-up and Go to a Movie, that you can hang out with, that you can tell personal things to.

Can a man who is married have that kind of friendship with a woman who is not his wife? Should he?

How would my wife feel if I was going to dinner with some other woman, especially if she was very beautiful? If this other woman and I “hung out” and talked all the time?

Even if nothing physical ever happened between the other woman and I, even if I claimed to “just be friends”, at the Very Least I would be hurting my wife’s feelings. My wife would have to be thinking “what is he getting from this other relationship that he’s not getting from me? Anything a husband does that makes his wife feel that way is unkind, at the very least.

And that principle works both ways.

So then people say “Yes, but that’s only true for married people!”

Not so.

Even if neither person is in an alternate relationship, quality time spent between a man and a woman invariably must end in one of two ways. Either they will end up together, or the friendship will dissolve (or at least be put on hold) when one of them ends up in a relationship with someone else.

Surely you’ve seen this: Guy meets Girl; Guy is excited about Girl; Guy spends much less time with his friends. If Guy and Girl break up then Guy tries to get his friends back, at least until he meets another Girl.

And, again, it works both ways.

There’s one more thing that you, and ALL GIRLS need to understand. No Man would spend Massive Quantities of Time with a Woman he wasn’t attracted to. Now maybe that’s because we’re wired to . . . well, wired as Men; and maybe it’s because we’re shallow; or maybe it’s because of some other reason, but you need to know that even if we tell you we have no interest in you, that’s probably just a lie to get you to drop your guard and spend more time with us.

Let me be clear: You have NO GUY “FRIENDS”. What you have are several guys in your life who are either interested in someday having a relationship with you or using you until a Better Girl comes along. You’re their safety net, and may continue to be nothing more than that so long as you continue to allow them to label you in that way.


Is that why my opinion bothers you so much?

Is your head spinning trying to analyze your “friendships”?

Are you refusing to admit that you’ve misjudged Men and how they think of Women, in particularly You?


Now, I will capitulate that Boys and Girls can be friends, at least until either of them grows enough hormones to be Sexually Attracted to the Opposite Sex.

So maybe that’s your case. Maybe you and your friends have not yet reached puberty.

But I doubt it.

I should tell you that post-pubescent girls who get indignant about my opinion on this ALL suffer from the same malady: they’re not ready to accept their own attractiveness. They have this (in my opinion) misguided belief that if a Man finds them Exciting that he won’t also value their other fine qualities; now THAT’S Absurd (although sometimes true).

You can be friendly with whomever you want, I don’t really care. But you’d be wise to listen when I tell you that any guy that purports to be a Close Friend and spends Tons of Time with You is Interested in You on Some Level, even if he doesn’t know it or won’t admit it.

Beyond that you can be:

Co-workers
Acquaintances
Schoolmates
Fellow Parishioners

and you can even be Friendly.

But that’s not the same.

I have may Facebook “Friends”, most of whom are probably women, and we occasionally “chat”, but tonight I’m going on a Date with my Wife. We’ll go to Dinner, Hold Hands, she’ll take me by the arm, and we’ll talk a lot. And she’s the only woman in my life that will be treated that way.

She’s my Best Friend.

And I hope that some day a Good Man will become your Husband for Time and All Eternity. When that happens he will be your Best Friend, and you’ll be his, and no other friendship will even come close.

- Bro Jo