Can Men & Women Be Friends?

Can men and women really be friends, or is there always going to be romantic attraction and temptation?

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss two different emails from two different viewers. The first email is from a forty-one year old woman from Europe who recently got hit on by her best friend’s boyfriend. There are other men who have hit on her as well who are the boyfriends of her female friends.

The second email is from a guy who doesn’t have any female friends, because he doesn’t believe it is possible for men and women to be friends only without one or both of them being tempted to hook up with the other. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the bodies of their emails.

The thing you’ve got to consider on this particular topic is that most people are average people. They’ve settled in their career, their business, their peer group, what they do for a living, and very often the people that they’re in relationship with or that they married. So, in other words, they’re settling for people that are less than what they really want, but they got impatient, they didn’t hold out, and then they married the first regular, average person that came along that treated them better than anybody else. But they’ve always kind of felt on some level that they weren’t with the quality of partner that they really felt they wanted, desired and deserved.

And so, you can imagine, whether they’re working together or if it’s a friend’s wife or girlfriend or a girlfriend of somebody they kind of know or an acquaintance, and then there’s an attraction there. They start spending time together. Maybe it’s work, maybe it’s the same social circle. And then they notice that there’s a mutual attraction. And then that other person is also in a mediocre relationship and they start thinking, “Hey, it’s just like the fantasy we saw in the movies. Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it’s meant to be.” They start having an affair, things spiral out of control, and it ends up ruining relationships.

Obviously, over the years, I’ve talked to hundreds and hundreds of people that get in these situations where they cheat on their partners, and then the people that they cheat with, they’re together. They have a good relationship for a period of time, they stop putting their best foot forward, and then they’re surprised to find out that the person that they’re with also cheated on them. And so typically, statistically, relationships that come from cheating usually end because one or both people start cheating on each other. It really boils down to your character level and exercising self-control.

I was at a party a few months back and we were eating lunch in the afternoon, and I sat down at this big table inside by myself to eat food, and in about five, seven minutes, the table was full of women. Now, I didn’t plan that. It just kind of happened that way. A lot of them were married, and we ended up talking. And then about another ten minutes later, all the men, all the boyfriends and the husbands are then around the table. It’s just kind of funny. Those kinds of things happen just naturally me being me because, especially with friends of mine that are my age, I’m usually in the best shape and I look the best.

And quite frankly, a lot of people are unhappy in their relationships. And so, it creates sometimes for me personally, awkward situations. I mean, if you’re familiar with what’s in How To Be A 3% Man, when a woman’s interested in you, she starts showing and displaying those signs where she may sit down on the couch next to you and her knee starts bumping yours. She bumps into you when you’re standing up somewhere, or touching your arm, and she’s getting extra close, she’s playing with her hair and you notice all these things. And most guys are kind of oblivious. They don’t really understand the signs or signals of attraction.

I’ve been in situations where I’m in a group of people talking, and a guy’s girlfriend or his wife is bumping into me, touching me, leaning extra close while the boyfriend or the husband is just completely oblivious that this is going on. And so, it’s uncomfortable, especially when you’ve got somebody that you’ve known for a long time or that’s a friend of yours, and his wife is, in essence, hitting on you in front of him, and he has no idea that she’s giving signals that she’s interested. And if I was just a total jerk, I could cause a lot of problems, but, you know, my life’s a drama free zone and I don’t want to get involved in that.

But you can see how people who are unhappy in relationships, especially women or guys, those things happen. And oftentimes, women are doing these things and they don’t even realize they’re doing it. It’s subconscious. It’s just, when the interactions there, you notice things. And most of the time I just absolutely keep my mouth shut and act like I’m oblivious to it and I don’t know what’s going on. I just go about my business. Because you’ve got to exercise self-control.

First Viewer’s Email:

Hi Coach Wayne,

I’m a single woman, 41 years old, living in Europe. I sometimes doubt if I’m doing the right thing. My best friends’ boyfriend hit on me a while ago, but I was never interested in him and told him no. I also told my best friend that he had hit on me. At first she was very understanding, and she said it wasn’t the first time actually. I think she was angry with me, because it took me a while before I had told her.

Well, she’s obviously going to be jealous and protective, because now she sees you, instead of her best friend, now you’re a threat to her. And so, it never really ends well, because if she’s going to stay with this guy, especially if it’s somebody you’ve been friends with for years and it’s all on the table what’s happened, she’s always going to be watching him like a hawk and seeing what he’s doing when he’s around you.

So, in some cases, it might be better, just because when I’ve had wives or girlfriends or friends hit on me or bump into me, I just don’t say anything. It’s just not worth it, because it creates an awkward situation. So, I just act totally oblivious to it like I have no idea that it’s going on. In that particular case, I think it might have been best to just tell him no, to say “I’m not interested,” and just not say anything and act oblivious to it.

Anyway, they had a big fight over it, but in the end, he just bought her some flowers and everything was okay, and now she is pretending it never happened.

Yeah, she’s obviously delusional and just ignores it and looks the other way, because why? It’s not fun breaking up. It’s not fun to be single again and look for somebody else. But at the end of the day, this guy that she’s with has no integrity and he’s probably going to be continually cheating on her, just because he doesn’t value loyalty, he doesn’t value monogamy. He doesn’t care.

And there are lots of people in the world that just simply don’t care. I talk to them all the time when I do phone sessions with men and women who are the other person or somebody else’s sidepiece. Me personally, I don’t want to deal with that shit. Now, when I was younger and I didn’t know any better and I thought a chick was hot, whether she was married or in a relationship, in my mind, I was like, you see the same thing in the movies. People are in relationships with other people, and then they have chemistry together and it’s just beautiful love story. And they eventually leave their unhappy relationships and they live happily ever after.

But in the real world, you are dealing with people that have low to no integrity. And statistically speaking, the numbers are that relationships that come from cheating always or most of the time end because somebody cheated. And then they’re surprised that it happened. But hey, you see enough movies where it’s like, “Oh, it’s meant to be, it’s a spiritual soul connection. She’s my soulmate. We’re supposed to be together.”

She also clam-slammed me, because a friend of her boyfriend asked for my phone number and she didn’t want me to go out with him. 

Yeah. So you see, there’s always downside risk in everything. And so, in this case you told her, you were just being honest and trying to help your friend out, but quite frankly, your girlfriend’s fucking weak. And because of that, she resents it. And so now, just like you said, you got clam-slammed by her, and there was a guy who was interested in you, but she didn’t pass along the number because she’s obviously still bitter and feels threatened.

So, you’ve got to ask yourself, was it really worth it? Is it worth ruining a friendship or causing your supposed best friend to look at you differently when technically, you did the right thing. At the end of the day, doing the right thing has created problems and drama in your friendship now. Because the reality is, she’s probably not going to leave this other guy. She’ll just keep making excuses for it, but that’s on her.

I feel they should look at their own relationship and leave me alone. Sometime later, it happened again with another (male) friend of mine. His girlfriend is pregnant, and apparently they’re not having sex because of that. He cheated on her with a girl that is 20 years younger, he told me about it and also hit on me.

So, he’s dealing with a pussy embargo with his pregnant girlfriend. So, if she’s not taking care of business, eventually he’s going to go get it somewhere else. If they’re not having sex with you, they’re going to probably have sex with somebody else, that’s just reality.

I could have had sex with him, but I didn’t. I’m a healthy woman, I like sex, but I don’t like lies and dishonesty. Nevertheless, it makes me doubt myself. Sometimes I think, well I might as well have my fun since integrity doesn’t seem to be worth anything.

Well, it sounds like you’ve got several people around you that are in your social circle who have no integrity, and that’s part of the problem. It’s like, you’ve got people you care about, but maybe their partner that they’re with doesn’t have any integrity. Like I said, it’s awkward, it makes you feel uncomfortable, I don’t really like it when it happens. I’m not surprised, because the way I look at it is, of course. I’m a great catch and I’m obviously in better shape and take better care of myself than the people they’re with, even though they may have been friends I’ve known for several years.

But still, I’ve found personally, the best way is to just be totally oblivious to it and act like you don’t know what’s going on. I remember when I was in real estate, because I had a lot of women working for me, there were several times where women that were working for me came in, closed the door, wanted to talk to me and tell me that they were in love with me and wanted to have a relationship with me. They thought what a great guy I was. And sometimes they were married. Sometimes they had boyfriends and I knew their boyfriends. It happens. You know, it’s great for your ego, but obviously you don’t want to create any drama, especially when you work together.

But I never do. What is your opinion? I think I should find other friends, since you become the people you spend most of your time with and I don’t want to go behind someone’s back.

Yeah, you probably should really examine your peer group and the people that you spend your time with. But what are you going to do if it’s somebody you’ve known for many years, maybe if it’s a girlfriend you grew up with? Do you just end the friendship forever because she’s too weak to dump her lying, cheating boyfriend?

I mean, eventually, maybe the guy will leave her for somebody else and then she’ll be single again. And then you can be like, “Hey, I told you so,” and that will help the relationship. But the reality is, if this guy’s hitting on you, he’s probably hitting on other women. So, like I said, always know your downside risk. And in this particular case, it’s just too much downside risk to share these things, because now it’s created drama and problems between the two of you.

Am I doing something to attract these kinds of people into my life? I’d like to change that. I don’t understand what I am doing to cause this. I just enjoy being with people and hanging out. Your advice would be much appreciated.

Greetings,

Jessica

It’s going to happen. It happens to me all the time. And like I said, in your case I would say no and I wouldn’t say anything, because it didn’t work out too well when you were honest. And for me personally, why would I want things to be awkward and weird, especially if it’s somebody I’ve known for a long time and I’m like, “Hey, your wife’s hitting on me, bro.” What do you think is going to happen? I’m going to probably end up spending less time with my friend, so I just pretend like it’s not happening.

Second Viewer’s Email:

Hello Coach Corey, 

I think you will like this topic. (I have sent you this email already one hour ago, but forgot to include a question I have now added at the end of the email.) What do you think about men who say they are friends with women and women who say they are friends with men? 

Like I said, it depends on the character of the individual. Me personally, I recognize that Hollywood cranks out these propaganda pieces and this garbage that just has no morality. And they present this thing, “Hey, if you’re ever in a relationship and you’re not happy, somebody will come along that may also be in a happy relationship, and then the two of you will recognize how it’s meant to be and you’ll live happily ever after.”

“And you’ll have this wonderful love story and it’ll be fireworks going off. And there will be rainbows and unicorns and it’ll be amazing. And people will be jealous of how great and happy your love story is.” And that’s just all a fucking fantasy. The reality is you’ve got to have character and integrity, because it just doesn’t go well. And plus, you invite more of it. There is such a thing as karma. You reap what you sow in life. And so, if you go around just screwing other people’s spouses or girlfriends, it’s going to come back and bite you in the ass.

So, it’s just best to have integrity, and like I said, handle it the way I do. Just act like you don’t even realize it’s happening. Even when I pretend it’s not happening, women become even more aggressive and and start touching me and rubbing up against me even harder, and I do nothing. I think in some cases, women are doing that to try to see what my level of integrity is, to see if I would act upon that. But I just act oblivious to it. I found that’s just the best way to do it. Like James Bond.

I have a girl that I have history with. We had to break it off, because I left my home country a few years ago, but last year she moved to the country I live in and we saw each other on two different occasions. She is coming to see me again for a week, as she lives a few hours away from me. 

I did almost everything right, and she is asking me if I want her to be my girlfriend, to which I replied jokingly with, “I will take this offer into consideration,” and “let’s go slow and see what happens,” as I am not entirely sure if I want a relationship at the moment as she still lives a few hours away from me.

Well, that was the right response, so good on you for reacting that way.

She also told me that she got rid of all the boys she was talking to and keeping in friendzone with the exception of one guy who she says he has a relationship of a few years and talks about his girlfriend to her and she talks about me to him. Only weird thing I see here is she mentioned a sexual thing he told her that he likes to do with his girlfriend. Now, why would a guy friend talk about sexual shit with his girl “friend?”

Probably because he’s a bad pickup artist and he’s hinting and trying to see if she bites on it. And like I said, the way I handle it is to just be completely oblivious to it, even though everybody knows I’m an expert at this stuff. But like I said, I just I act stupid, like I don’t know what’s going on. Why throw a grenade in your own house, you know, in your own family, your own social circle. It’s just not going to end well.

I don’t have any girl “friends” because I know there is no such thing as friendship between the two sexes. Or at least, that’s how I look at it. Us, men just wanna smash.

It’s true. But it’s also true that we can exercise self-control. If we have lots of choices and lots of options and we know what we’re capable of and we’re high character individuals, well, we’re not going to bite on those things when people who are in relationships start hitting on us. Because it’s worth the wait to hold out for a good person, even if it takes several years.

I got an email just recently from a guy, it was a six year process to finally find somebody that he really clicked with in every way. And as far as the male orbiters, we actually have a video, I think it’ll be coming out this weekend. It’s called “Gracie’s Male Orbiters,” where we actually talk about this subject with Gracie and Chunky, who you guys may have seen this past weekend.

I’ve got a bunch of video short series that I have done with both of them on the 30 Day Challenge, obviously doing all the healthy things that I talk about in my second book, “Mastering Yourself.” And also, we’ve got a series, I think it’s 50-something videos at this point called “Inconvenient Pickup, Dating & Relationship Truths.” So, keep an eye out for “Gracie’s Male Orbiters,” which I think that’ll be published this weekend, Saturday or Sunday, so you guys have some content on the weekends.

Every single girl from my past, (when I didn’t know any better, but thankfully I have found your work), that I was “friends” with, deep down I was attracted to them, and if I would’ve known what I know today, I would have had sex with all of them.

Sometimes it’s just not worth it.

That’s why I don’t have any more girl “friends,” because I know it’s all bullshit. Why would a guy want to be just friends with a chick?

If he has enough emotional self-control, you can have attraction for somebody, but choose not to act upon it because of the downside risk or you just know that you’re not going to stay with that person. And instead of just hooking up once and then somebody getting butt hurt and having butt hurt feelings because you don’t want to be with them, it’s best to exercise self-control. But most people really aren’t capable of it. It’s only the people that have lots of choices and lots of options and have high character and high integrity who can control themselves.

Would I be rude, if she asks me again about getting exclusive, to tell her that I don’t find it appropriate for her to be “friends” with that guy and to break it off with him if she wants something serious with me?

Well, you really haven’t spent much time with her. So, at that point, I would date her for two or three months before you get around to being exclusive with her. Because you said yourself she lived several hours away, and if you were really super into this girl you would not be going, “Eh, I’m not sure.” You know, when you know.

Or would I come across as a jealous, insecure little bitch?

Well, the reality is, like I was mentioning about with the Gracie video, there are several guys in her life that she’s friends with that want to date her, want to sleep with her, but she’s not into them. But yet, she can tell that they like her and that they’re into her. But she keeps them firmly stuck in friendzone, because her mom knows the book and has taught both of her daughters most of the principles in there.

This and the fact that she lives a few hours away from me are what is keeping me away from wanting a relationship with her at the moment.

Well, your job as a man is just simply to create an opportunity for sex to happen, to hang out, have fun, and hook up.

But if she were to break it off with the guy, we could see each other every week or so, if we were to get exclusive. (The guy also lives in her town, a few minutes away from her). Am I a bitch if I want a girl who doesn’t have any guy friends like I don’t have any girl friends?

Thank you Corey! I wish you all the best!

Bob

Again, it depends on the integrity level. Is she a trustworthy person? Does she have integrity? And if the answer is no, you’re not going to trust her, then you shouldn’t be in a relationship with somebody like that anyway.

If you’re going to commit to somebody and be in an exclusive monogamous relationship, it needs to be with somebody who actually values that, not somebody that’s cheated on everybody they’ve ever been with or keeps a bunch of male orbiters around because she needs attention and validation from them. You want to have somebody that really values that. And quite frankly, they’re pretty rare. They’re hard to find, especially these days. And that’s just the harsh reality of it.

So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge or a situation you’re involved in and you’d like to get my help with it, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen and book a coaching session with yours truly. And remember, no drama allowed. Drama free zone. You can get these sweet mugs at Spring in the Coach Corey Wayne store.

“Can men and women really be platonic friends without any romantic tension that causes problems or drama? It really depends upon the integrity level and values of the people involved. People with low integrity and no morals simply won’t care and will lie and cheat and wreck their own relationships, as well as the relationships of others. Weak men will often try to be friends first in hopes that down the road they will get their chance to date and sleep with women they desire by flying under the radar. If you are a person of high character and integrity, it’s simply best not to be alone with members of the opposite sex for extended periods of time without their significant other also being present. Otherwise, you may find yourself in situations with people who will want to cheat on their partner with you. It’s simply a matter of exercising self-control, which unfortunately most people are incapable of or are unwilling to do.” ~ Coach Corey Wayne

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