Platonic relationships - can they be sustained?

[cressida]

surely having friend of the opposite sex, however close, is not the same as having a 'platonic relationship'.

 

In my understanding of the phrase, a platonic relationship is a one-to-one relationship of pure dazzling love transcending physicality and all that squelchy business.

 

 

 

from the Greek Plato, what an interesting man he must have been

[MkII]

Yes, but only if both parties are ugly. In a friendship between a man and a woman where one or both is attractive, it will nearly always be the case that one fancies the other and that reason is at least part of the basis for the friendship.

[garethb]

I always thought it quite natural to fancy my female friends...after all they wouldn't be my friends if they weren't intelligent, fantastic and amazing. Yet whenever I made a move they'd suddenly go off with some shaven headed Neanderthal.

 

Oh well, thats the price of being an ugly shortarse I suppose!

[cressida]

yes, but we all have different personalities and there are so many of us that we are not all affected like that, some of us just really want friendship, some have lower sex drives or none at all, sometimes like attracts like for what they have in common, which can sometimes predominate over sexual desires (in reply to MKII)

[Guest]

...Yet whenever I made a move they'd suddenly go off with some shaven headed Neanderthal....

That sounds suspiciously like the green-eyed monster to me .

 

They're your friends. As such, they probably weren't expecting you to make a move.

[garethb]

 

They're your friends. As such, they probably weren't expecting you to make a move.

 

 

Maybe not, but as my friends they naturally had a lot more in common with me, and were therefore more likely to be the sort of person I would want a relationship with. Rather than some stranger or lorry driver off the internet

[Swan_Vesta]

Yet whenever I made a move they'd suddenly go off with some shaven headed Neanderthal.

 

As a shaven headed Neanderthal I can honestly say I have not scuttled any of the aforementioned ladies

[Guest]

Maybe not, but as my friends they naturally had a lot more in common with me, and were therefore more likely to be the sort of person I would want a relationship with. ...

No, my point was that if you had an established, platonic relationship with these women, to suddenly change the basis of that might be rather disturbingly unexpected.

...Rather than some stranger or lorry driver off the internet

Well, that I find more disturbing, but each to their own, I guess.

[HappyHoosier]

I am close friends with a few men, most of whom I met through work. One is gay, the others are heterosexual.

 

We have supported each other through tough (usually romantic) problems, and had wonderful fun together. One asked me out on a "real date" after his divorce, when he was feeling lonely, and I am so glad I refused. I'd have hated to ruin our solid friendship with a quickie romance!

[rubydazzler]

surely having friend of the opposite sex, however close, is not the same as having a 'platonic relationship'.

In my understanding of the phrase, a platonic relationship is a one-to-one relationship of pure dazzling love transcending physicality and all that squelchy business.

 

I also thought that orginally it was a 'romantic' friendship between males? Without the squelchy bits, as so eloquently coined by our friend here Although these days the meaning has become altered to encompass opposite sex relationships too.

 

Some longstanding marriages also become platonic relationships in the end, so I hear.