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I received another question from an anonymous reader late last night. This time around, it’s from the fairer sex regarding platonic relationships. Again, I’m no relationship expert, but I’m happy to give you my two cents. Full message from Anonymous is in quotations below.
Hi Johnny D,
Anonymous Chicago girl here who just binge read your series like it was bottomless mimosas on the first “warm” weekend at the end of winter. I laughed a lot, and realized it was partially because I think I could rival you in 24 years of dating fumbles.
So why am I writing you? I have a question. I have taken it upon myself to try and prove every guy, and the ladder theory, wrong by deciding that girls and guys can in fact be friends-even after months of texts, sloppy nights, and plenty of runs to the kitchen for glasses of water. Some people just aren’t meant to date, but are fun to keep around (some like to call this “complicated”).
I love arguing about this with all my friends, including the guys who fit the above description, stay in my life, but still deny we are friends. So what do you think? What are the boundaries of girl/guy friendships? And if you don’t think they are possible, why do these guys stick around?
Keep writing, and I’ll keep reading. Who knows, maybe I’ll be the next girl staring at you raising the roof on a end of work week bender.
Lucky for all of us, it is almost the end of cuffing season.
After a few weeks or months of casually hooking up with someone, you usually come to a crossroads where you need to decide if you want to make a run at exclusivity. It’s either that or just cut off the limb and let the stump heal, so to speak. Things get complicated when one person wants to date and the other does not. And if by “fun to keep around,” you mean stringing them along, then I would advise against doing that.
I think the boundaries of any girl/guy relationship get a little muddled once sex between the two parties has happened. By no means am I saying that two people who used to hook up can’t be friends, I’m just saying it varies case by case. I have plenty of platonic girlfriends, a few of them who I used to see naked on occasion. So yes, I can testify that it is certainly possible for two people to remain “just friends” after hooking up. But, and this is a big but, every scenario is going to be unique.
For example, I had one girlfriend who was hooking up with a guy a few months before I met her, and he hung around the same crowd that my girlfriend did, so avoiding him was not possible after I began dating her. My girlfriend was fine with this, but I’d be lying if I told you that it didn’t bother me. And I let her know about it. It was never an issue with her that this guy would hang out with us, but even though I knew there was nothing going on, I couldn’t help but get jealous. Literally anything this guy would say to me would make my blood start to boil. Chalk it up to me being an insecure 20-year-old. Or, look at it the other way, and say that me being uneasy about the two of them being friends was warranted. It wasn’t warranted, and 4 years later I’m a little wiser than I was at 20 and a little bit less of a hothead in regards to stuff like that.
The boundaries of a girl/guy friendship are limitless. Go bro out at the bar and drink bud lights with that guy you used to have sex with. You’ll probably have a good laugh about it. I don’t know the details of your current situation, but you have to be careful if or when that friend of yours who you bumped uglies with gets a girlfriend. There’s more than likely going to be some animosity or initial jealousy from the new girl that he’s bringing to your bottomless mimosa brunch. That’s human nature. People get territorial. The best thing I can suggest is that you tell your friend to be up front with his new beau about what happened between the two of you. At 24, or however old your friend group is, that girl should be cool with it. And if she’s not, chances are the relationship won’t last long so don’t sweat it.
And to answer your last question, even though I know that platonic relationships can exist between two people who used to see each other romantically, there are a ton of people who would argue the opposite. The Ross Gellars of the world. These people will say that guys stick around to be “friends” because they still want to fuck you. And that could very well be. But if you lay down ground rules about what your friendship is and isn’t going to be, you can avoid that altogether. If he sticks around after that? You know he’s genuine in his attempts at wanting to be friends. Thanks for reading. I hope this helps. .
Feel free to send anything my way through Twitter, my Tumblr, or by e-mailing me.
Image via YouTube
Respond
jduda@grandex.co
Didn’t “platonic relationship” used to mean “being friends without hooking up?”
I would say there’s a big difference between having a platonic relationship with someone and getting bored of having sex with them. If someone once found you attractive, chances are that they still do, you’re just not a priority to them anymore. They would rather put their parts together with someone else.
Staying friends with someone you’ve hooked up with is fine in theory, but there’s almost always a little something there. It’s like a built in rebound if you both end up single around the same time, and I get why new significant others get jealous.
My thought is possible but difficult, so it has to be worth the effort to be just friends from both sides.
I think you can be “friends” in the sense that you aren’t enemies. A person you used to hook up with can’t be someone you talk to regularly if you’re in a relationship.
Agreed. Living through this now, the lady has a friend in social circle who fits this bill. It’s fine to catch up and see on occasion, but anything further would be an issue.
Is platonic when you’re only going down on each other when you’re drunk?