Here's the evidence. Men and women cannot be just friends.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=men-and-women-cant-be-just-friends&page=2

To start with, it is not a very serious scientific experiment...simply because the sample taken is too small to produced a general rule. 249 adults in 7,000,000,000 (approximate amount of humans in the planet as for right now) can not constitute a serious study.

Secondly, while there is conclusive evidence that would indicate that men are genetically conditioned to be more prone to have sex with as many mates as he can this is just a mere impulse... and urge if you will. Now if a man can not control his primal instincts then maybe he should move to the middle of the jungle, because he has no place in modern society.
I usually have the urge to kill people that say stupid ****...but i count to 10, i take a deep breath and i carry on. In order to function in society you control your self.

Thirdly, it also depends on how you define "friendship" that can be a very ambiguous and personal term. Not all people expect the same level of confidence and trust when it comes to friendship. Some people consider guys that hang around or that go out with you friends, while others would define a friend as someone that is willing to do anything for you.

Oh for goodness sake; do you base all your assumptions on these articles? I have dozens of male friends that are like my brothers. I have male friends that are married and in relationships. This is just a study and proves nothing other than the people that were surveyed believe this.

Well, the Scientific American thought it was conclusive enough to publish it. You'll just have to forgive me if I give their opinion more weight than yours.

Obviously these men can control their impulses. They remain "friends" with the women and don't generally rape them.

These friendships were defined by the friends themselves. If I say I'm friends with another person and that person agrees, the definition we have is the one best suited to our friendship.



I base my opinions on my own thoughts and feelings as well as the best evidence I can find. But, what you're saying here doesn't surprise me because it's exactly what the research predicted women would say.

A) No idea who or which Scientific American is, by which academic organizations are they backed up, but even if they were the most respectable scientific organization, believing a postulate it is true solely because of its author constitutes a fallacy...and it goes contrary to the very foundations of science. You should make your own research... or at least if you want to at least form an educated opinion about a topic you should read at least several papers defending each of all the different approach to the subject at hand.

B) If the men in the study can control their impulses and they and their counter parts both define their relationship as a "friendship" then that defeats the study by itself. And I fail to see the point of this entire discussion.

C) If what you are doing if forming an opinion before making a research and THEN going into the internet and look for articles that back up what ever you already have in mind...then you are doing it wrong. Ideally you should approach a new subject without pre conceived opinions, examine the evidence and ALL previous theories and then form an opinion resulting of said examination.
If you can not do that, because you already have an opinion...to give validation to that opinion you should confront that opinion with all the opposite thesis and see how your opinion resist against them.

D) Going into the internet to read a few articles and call it "research" would be the equivalent of calling reading Wikipedia "educating". If you are interested in something in particular, go to college, get a major in a related subject... start a thesis, get founding to start studies to prove it... then you are making a research.

Scientific American (informally abbreviated, SciAm) is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting scientific information on a monthly basis to the general (but educated) public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein, have contributed articles in the past 167 years. It is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_American

Okay, find research on the subject that offers a different conclusion and I'll be happy to read and consider it.

LOL I am not making your job for you :P
Regardless, thanks for the chat... was one of the best ones that i had so far on this site.

I've done all the research I think is needed. I'm convinced. If you disagree, it's your job to make your case, not mine.

I will bet my pay that my male friends would say the same thing. Not every man thinks with his penis and bottom line not all men are attracted to all women; so there is certainly room for frienship. Karielteone nailed it when he said it was a small percent that was surveyed out of the billions on this planet. Please don't patronize me because of what an article says.

I'm not talking about you and your friends. I'm talking about men and women in general. Generally speaking, men and woman cannot be true friends because one is secretly sexually attracted to the other.

And again as i said before, it all depends on your definition of friendship... who is to say that just because one feels a sexual attraction for the other, that is not friendship. If the person with the attraction keeps his/hers impulse controlled and they proceed with what both define as a "friendship" then for those two, that is a true friendship. At the end this type of things are fairly subjective.

As for me proving you opinion wrong... well I have no real interest in the subject, i am just having a casual chat. I seek no academic knowledge out of this. I provided you with my understanding of the case, you can take it or disregard it...that is not my problem, nobody is paying me to teach science here. Knowledge is power and power always comes at a price, I do not give free lessons :P

I will ask a small concession though, as a person with an extensive academic formation, that please do not refer as reading articles online as "research".

This article is mostly useless because (a) the sample size was small, about 250 and (b) the article makes sweeping statements without even directly providing all the numbers.

It appears to me to be an attempt to gain page hits (or sell magazines) with bad science on an attention grabbing topic. While Scientific American is better than most periodicals, they are not above this.

I'd like to see the actual data.




It we are going to be fair and accurate about it, I think that both the article and your posts here could use more disclaimers. When you say things like "Men and women cannot be just friends.", it does sound like you are including all individual men and individual women in the statement.

For what it's worth, it takes more than one study to validate what would be considered a scientific finding. Two different sets of researchers can study the same subject and come up with different results. I encountered such a case in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

I would like to know if the reported study involved subjects from a wide range of cultures.

I believe a man and woman can be just friends, but I also believe either one or the another is attracted to the other.

I don't think so. I have a 27 year old friend in my band and he calls me Auntie. You think he is attracted to me? Nope; he leans on me and talks to me about his dating problems. I took him under my wing when he first joined the band as he was nervous about playing a solo on a gig one night. Men and women can be friends period.

I guess it depends on the maturity of men and women in general. They work together in regular jobs, cops, firefighters, military, etc and they become friends with no hidden agenda.

No that is like You are his mentor. Or mom figure.
Because of the age difference.

However, my statement still stands.

i guess i'm not very mature, because i'm only friends with women that i'm attracted to, even tho i know nothing will ever come of it... kind of like ... stupid, i know, but it is what it is

Really? I have a friend of mine that I have known for 33 years and there has never been an attraction between us as we just served together in the military. I have another friend who lives a few blocks from me that I have known for 16 years who is 15 years younger than me and we became friends from a Sci Fi club. He likes women his age so I know there is no attraction between us. I am dear friends with a guy and his wife but there is not attraction as he is married and he loves his wife dearly. I guess I am fortunate that my male friends and I have a friendship that goes beyond a sexual attraction. I will accept anyone as a friend and I don't have to be attracted to them; as we can just share a general interest. Oh well; to each his/her own.

You're only friends with women you're attracted to? Do you become friends based on that attraction? What happens when you get along well with someone you're not attracted to?

That being said, I am friends with men and women. Some of the men I find attractive, but that doesn't mean we're not friends.