Men and women can never be just friends: Study

Law of attraction

It’s official! Men can never be just friends with women as attraction always gets in the way, a new research has found.

Researchers said that men’s friendship with the opposite sex are driven by sexual attraction, regardless of whether they are single or in a relationship.

Women are more likely to consider their friendships with men as platonic and only hope for more if their own relationship is in trouble, the Daily Mail reported. The findings mirror the plot of 1989 Hollywood movie ‘When Harry Met Sally,’ where Harry, played by Billy Crystal, tells Meg Ryan’s character of Sally: “Men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.” Researchers said the study had ‘potential negative consequences for people in long-term relationships.

In a survey, 88 pairs of young male and female friends were asked to rate their attraction to each other in a confidential questionnaire. Men, whether attached or single, were more likely to be attracted to their female friends and wanted to go on a date with them than the other way around. They also assumed their female friends were more romantically interested in them than they actually were – and women tended to be unaware of this. Single and attached women showed the same level of attraction to their male friend.

But attached women tended only to want something to come of that attraction if their relationship was in trouble.

Women were also less attracted to attached men. A second questionnaire for 140 middle-aged people, who were almost all married, found levels of attraction between male and female friends fairly equal.

Middle-aged men’s attraction to their female friends was much lower than that of the younger men, except among those who were single.

For women, levels of attraction had stayed the same. Participants of both questionnaires said they gained benefits from friendship with the opposite sex-including getting good advice and boosting their confidence.

The study is published in the Journal of  Social and Personal Relationships. Those who did harbour a secret crush were five times more likely to see it as a potential problem than a benefit.