Can men and women who are not married to each other be friends?


cdowis
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This is such an alien world to me.  There are entire countries over there on the east side of the Pacific that they must not have studied.

 

"Men and Women Cannot Be Friends" says your world view is sexualized to the point that decent people cannot have relationships that doesn't become sexualized.

 

This is not the norm in Asia and I have not seen this as a norm in my neck of the woods in America.  It may be true in American Colleges.  When I was going through my masters, lots of kids in the college bed-hop.  Pretty sad commentary of that college's life.  I also see this in the TV Show Arrow - where the lead character has gone to bed with all of the female characters except his sister.

He didn't sleep with his "wife" (Demon's daughter).  Or Diggle's wife.  (see, he kept his distance) :P .  And I don't recall him sleeping with Laurel.  And...

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I know myself well enough that a close friendship or any friendship with a girl other than my wife is just not going to be something I experience in this life. I admit it and perhaps it's perceived as a weakness by others, but it's not something I really feel bad about. I'm ok with that and honestly avoiding friendships with women is not something I do only for my marriage but for myself as well. 

 

I might be wrong but doing a quick search of all our scriptures I can't find any commandment that says we must have friends or seek friendships.

 

A matter of fact the only directive regarding friendship I can find is this one in James -

 

4:4

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

 

Somehow, I like to think I fulfilled my calling to love and serve the people of Okayama Japan. Since I don't have one friendship to show for it, perhaps some will feel I wasted those two years..lol.

 

I think this life can be just as enriching and wonderful while maintaining a protective barrier with members of the opposite sex outside my family. 

Edited by Windseeker
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Guest LiterateParakeet

I can't imagine why a couple of you insist that Anatess doesn't understand the point of this conversation. I think she understands it just fine. I agree with her points.

You can be friends with the opposite sex and not be attracted to them. You really can. If you have a friend that you feel an attraction for then you know what you need to do. That doesn't mean you can never have friends of the opposite sex, or gay friends of the same sex.

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handbook 2: 13.6.24

 

A man and a woman should not travel alone together for Church activities, meetings, or assignments unless they are married to each other or are both single.

 

I think this says it all.  It goes back to being commanded in all things.

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This is such an alien world to me.  There are entire countries over there on the east side of the Pacific that they must not have studied.

 

I'd love to live in that world and culture, have that upbringing, have my brain wired that way.

 

But I don't, don't didn't, and don't.

 

Glad you do - it's just not for me.

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Work friends are not friends.

 

Would you go to the movies with your male friends? Shopping for sexy lingerie? Talk about intimacy issues with your husband with them? go Bra shopping? have a night out? (like a girls night out) Be alone in a car or hotel room on vacation?

 

The answer is likely no to all of the above

 

Venting to an acquaintance over the phone does not a friend make, not if you wouldn't do any of the other stuff with him. 

 

I don't do any of those things with my female friends.  Does that mean I don't have any female friends?  I would disagree.

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I was getting a very familiar vibe reading through this thread again.  I figured it out.  It feels exactly like the grace vs. works type arguments that we get into with Protestants.

 

I think we're really close on some things, but we're emphasizing one side or the other.  We have different perspectives on relatively the same picture.  And we see the exceptions to our own point of view.  And we just don't want to accept the other side.

 

Yes, men and women can be just friends.  Many such relationships can be dangerous.  But which is more common?  Most of the posts seem to think it is quite tilted to one side or the other.  I'm not exactly sure what "balanced" would mean anyway.

 

I don't speak for everyone on my side of the argument.  But I believe I'm speaking to the point on this side.  We've grown up in this culture.  We've been inundated with sexual imagery since the day we were born.  And you really can't avoid it.  It's on magazine covers at the supermarket checkout line.  It's on billboards.  And it certainly comes out of Hollywood.  

 

To use a metaphor:

 

Sugar is everywhere.  Alcohol is everywhere.  People get diabetes.  Some diabetes can be handled by simply altering diet.  But it is a fairly strict diet.  Others are more severe where you have to take daily insulin.  Many others, thankfully, don't have diabetes.  You don't need to worry about it until the day you develop diabetes yourself.  Hopefully, that is never.  But it wouldn't hurt to decrease your sugar intake.

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I like the idea of avoiding the appearance of impropriety, even if there is no impropriety present. 

I don't see any need to skate on thin ice, and go out to dinner with someone else's wife, without the husband present also.

That's just temptation.  For me and for her.  And I don't want to present temptation to her, either.

dc

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Why would I try to force someone ? Teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves.

I don't think you would try to force someone. I just think what was said needed to be said lest some passerby take it as justification for an incorrect principle.

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And about friendship.

 

It's silly to say you can't have friends other than your spouse.

 

To me, if you can't be friends, then you can't LOVE.

 

That is breaking the covenant to Christ to Love Others As You Love Yourself.  The covenant is not Love Your Spouse As You Love Yourself.  It is Love Your Neighbors - your husband is only one of those neighbors.

 

Now, if you can only love those who you want to have sex with, then there's nothing different between you and a homosexual demanding that Gay Marriage has to be allowed because they should be allowed to Love.... that's a statement saying that a person can only Love the person they want to have sex with.  That's of the devil and not of Christ.

 

 

Anatess

First, due to your cultural background, and the super extended family relations you have, the whole equation may be different for you, than for us.

Second, we can be friends.  I can be friends with all the married women in my ward, stake, the whole church.  We all have love for them.  However, we do not extend that love to personal interaction, such as going out to dinner with them without their husband.

That is not something that is "required" of it.

In fact, to the contrary, it is something detrimental.

It sets doubt, or can set doubt into the mind of the husband.  It sets temptation before us, and the married woman.  So it just isn't necessary.

I cannot be friends with homosexuals.  No more than I could be friends with psycho killers, armed robbers, drug dealers, etc.  I don't approve of what they do and I thus avoid them, categorically. 

If I become aware that someone is an adulterer, I will withdraw from any association I have with them.

I don't want to be influenced by them, but more importantly, I don't want to appear to give sanction to what they do.

dc

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This is another sad thing to think about on Christmas.

 

 

Anatess

First, due to your cultural background, and the super extended family relations you have, the whole equation may be different for you, than for us.

 

Why is it cultural?  Human relationships are not cultural.  Practices are cultural but not relationships - or should not be. 

 

 

Second, we can be friends.  I can be friends with all the married women in my ward, stake, the whole church.  We all have love for them. 

 

I was going by the statement on page 1 that male and female outside of marriage cannot be friends.  Admittedly, I didn't read many of the posts on succeeding pages.  This topic saddens me so I skimmed.

 

 

 

 

Anatess

First, due to your cultural background, and the super extended family relations you have, the whole equation may be different for you, than for us.

Second, we can be friends.  I can be friends with all the married women in my ward, stake, the whole church.  We all have love for them.  However, we do not extend that love to personal interaction, such as going out to dinner with them without their husband.

That is not something that is "required" of it.

In fact, to the contrary, it is something detrimental.

It sets doubt, or can set doubt into the mind of the husband.  It sets temptation before us, and the married woman.  So it just isn't necessary.

I cannot be friends with homosexuals.  No more than I could be friends with psycho killers, armed robbers, drug dealers, etc.  I don't approve of what they do and I thus avoid them, categorically. 

If I become aware that someone is an adulterer, I will withdraw from any association I have with them.

I don't want to be influenced by them, but more importantly, I don't want to appear to give sanction to what they do.

dc

 

 

 

However, we do not extend that love to personal interaction, such as going out to dinner with them without their husband.

That is not something that is "required" of it.

In fact, to the contrary, it is something detrimental.

It sets doubt, or can set doubt into the mind of the husband.  It sets temptation before us, and the married woman.  So it just isn't necessary.

I cannot be friends with homosexuals.  No more than I could be friends with psycho killers, armed robbers, drug dealers, etc.  I don't approve of what they do and I thus avoid them, categorically. 

If I become aware that someone is an adulterer, I will withdraw from any association I have with them.

I don't want to be influenced by them, but more importantly, I don't want to appear to give sanction to what they do.

dc

 

Then that's really sad that you can't have dinner with somebody else unless they're the same gender as you without your spouse going psycho over it.  I am glad my American husband does not share that view.  When I was working out of town, I stayed with a single male friend.  My husband was the one that arranged it.  I stayed in his condo 3 nights out of 7 of every week.  Dinner, of course, was a given.  I cooked for the dude as payment for letting me stay.  Another one of my male co-workers went to school with me and for 2 years we were like peas in a pod helping each other out complete projects and study for exams, etc. etc.  Dinner together was often.  He got married in the tail end of those 2 years while I went to visit my mother.  My husband decided to attend the wedding on his own and had a blast.

 

My husband was a model when we got married.  He would go out of town on gigs with a bunch of female models and hangers on who all want to be his girlfiend (exaggeration... but a lot of them wouldn't mind sleeping with him.  After he got married, he seem to gain more clingers).  They would have crazy parties - like they always do in the modeling scene.  Could you imagine if I was one of those who would doubt their husbands?

 

My brother is the same - he's a neurologist in the Philippines.  My brother's wife is a beauty queen.  Never stopped competing even after she got married.  She would go to beauty pageants out of town and posts lots of pictures of her cheek to cheek with different guys who are with the pageant that she's having dinner with at the time.  My brother stays home to man her clinic - she's a pediatrician - in addition to his own clinic.  Actually, all my brothers and sisters are the same.  My parents too.  So, I don't really understand the "no dinner with the opposite gender" sentiment.

 

I can be friends with homosexuals, psychos, and robbers.  Doesn't mean I'm gonna let them rob me or change my views on homosexuality.  My husband's best friends knows if he ever gets married to his boyfriend not to bother sending us an invitation.  We're not attending it.  He, of course, knows we teach celibacy.  Which is interesting that he's trying it out now that his last relationship did not pan out.  But, when he and my husband goes on his Gator games, homosexuality has no bearing on it.  I mean - what does it matter if the guy is gay when they're yelling and screaming at some football? 

 

One of my husband's best friends from his modeling days grew up to be a cokehead addict.  He would sometimes call us to bail him out of a bind - asking us for money.  Of course we don't give him money.  And when we do go get him out of whatever bind he's on, we go without wallets, watches, or anything that can be sold easily.  And my husband packs.  You couldn't trust the guy not to try to do something stupid.  We go pick him up and take him to his mother so she can knock some sense into him again, sometimes by leaving him at the doorstep to some rehab place... this seems to be a cycle with those 2.  It can get frustrating - my husband's line, "there he goes again"... has become a family joke.  But, there's hope on the horizon... he found God (of the Born Again persuasion) last year and so far has been able to make a success out of his business.  So maybe my husband won't have to "there he goes again" anymore.

 

I guess we just see things differently.  We don't see things as - we might get influenced by them - but rather as - we could be an influence to them.

 

Friendship is an interesting thing.  It's just like Love.  I choose my friends by what I am willing and able to give rather than what I can receive.  I don't really care if my friend thinks I'm not their friend anymore because I wasn't able to visit them when I was in their town (happened to me a few years ago).  I still think of them as my friend.

 

And that's why when someone at Church Gospel Doctrine Class asks, "There's no need to make a million dollars" (happened sometime ago), I tend to disagree.  I want quadzillion dollars... because, just like a friend of mine got her house foreclosed and had to drag her 5 children away from all their friends to move back to Utah and live with her parents... it would have been so awesome if I can buy her house for her and she can just pay me rent... or pay me with her many many #10 cans of rice and pancake mix.  I can always use rice and pancake mix.  I have so many friends that I wish I have all kinds of resources to help them out of their binds - including the cokeheads.  As it is, I sent 120 chopsticks for Christmas this year because it was the only thing I can afford to give them.

 

Okay, I'm rambling on and on and I'm sure it is incoherent.  I'm just having a brain dump moment.

 

I need to just lay off lds.net for a while.

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However, we do not extend that love to personal interaction, such as going out to dinner with them without their husband.

 

So, I was just getting curious that maybe I am missing something about my husband.  So, I gave him some context of the discussion and then read this exact line to him and asked him what he thought of the discussion.

 

As usual, he gave a succinct and straight to the point answer (which is another one of our extreme opposites - I'm wordy, he's least-number-of-words-possible):  "Dumbest thing I ever heard."  That's a direct quote.  No words added, no words subtracted.  No further explanations forthcoming.

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Anatess, 

 

Your situation is the exception not the rule, and a wild exception at that.

 

Also you tend to view life through your lens as a Filipino. Most posts have a "that's not how we do it in the Philippines" slant to them. Well most aren't Filipino.    

 

Pam and Palerider are American, are they not?

 

My husband is not Filipino.  Only been in the Philippines for a grand total of 2 months combined as a matter of fact.  And I've lived in the US for coming on 20 years.  My best friend - the Marine - is also American.  Yes, his wife is Japanese, but I'm 100% certain he thinks like my husband on this one before he married a Japanese.  As a matter of fact, none of my almost 20 years of American living has ever hinted at the impropriety of having dinner with someone of the opposite gender that is not your spouse.  I go to dinner with Americans too.  I've never felt any hesitation just because I happen to be married.  Dinner with people is quite a common occurrence in American life.

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Pam and Palerider are American, are they not?

 

My husband is not Filipino.  Only been in the Philippines for a grand total of 2 months combined as a matter of fact.  And I've lived in the US for coming on 20 years.  My best friend - the Marine - is also American.  Yes, his wife is Japanese, but I'm 100% certain he thinks like my husband on this one before he married a Japanese.  As a matter of fact, none of my almost 20 years of American living has ever hinted at the impropriety of having dinner with someone of the opposite gender that is not your spouse.  I go to dinner with Americans too.  I've never felt any hesitation just because I happen to be married.  Dinner with people is quite a common occurrence in American life.

 

Dinner is a common occurrence, I have dinner every night, just not with my girlfriend.

 

It is inappropriate for a married woman to have dinner alone with a male "friend" 

 

You clearly do not understand how the male mind works.

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Dinner is a common occurrence, I have dinner every night, just not with my girlfriend.

 

It is inappropriate for a married woman to have dinner alone with a male "friend" 

 

You clearly do not understand how the male mind works.

 

You know, I hear this a lot.  I have 2 sons.  Just because they're walking hormones doesn't mean that I should lock them in a closet and not trust them to be able to conduct themselves with proper decorum.

 

In any case... I just asked 3 of my female friends at Church.  Interestingly, they all said the same thing as you and dc.  I asked 2 of my friends outside of Church (one American, one Bosnian) - they have no problem with it.

 

Maybe it's a Church thing?

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Ahhh... never mind.  I just asked another American friend who is Catholic.  She says she doesn't really think it's inappropriate to have dinner with a male friend not her spouse but she personally wouldn't do it or advice it.  She says if it's a whole group of mixed gender people then ok... a group of only males, no.  Not even for work.

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So, the friend from Church that I asked posted the question on her FB.  The answers are all over the spectrum without much delineation between cultural or religious lines.

 

I guess it's simply a variance of point of views.

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Anatess, there is mention in the handbook somewhere that married people (not married to each other people) should not drive to meetings together. I think the example is a bishop traveling with the RS president to a church meeting at the stake center.  

 

There are also boundless talks on this subject from the General Authorities.  

 

So, yes, I think you'll see this attitude more in the church than out of it.  But, as a general rule, I believe it is a good one to have for married couples.  Affairs (whether physical or emotional) never begin from nothing--they start as just hanging with someone, texting, dinner, extended meetings, etc. Basically, affairs typically develop from friendships.

 

If I had a really good male friend that I have had before marriage, I can see myself having dinner with him as long as my husband knew about it and didn't mind it.  But, I don't have that relationship with anyone male.

 

I do occasionally have lunch with a cow-orker who is male. It is my personal habit to text my husband to let him know that I am having lunch with cow-orker alone. I also don't make it a habit to have lunch/dinner/meeting alone with males.  

 

What you do with your relationship with your husband is your business. Your marriage, your rules.  But, for me and my marriage, I would be highly uncomfortable if my husband had a female friend that he spent a lot of alone time with.

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But, I don't have that relationship with anyone male.

 

All my close friends that I hung out with outside of my family friends before I got married were mostly male (Bosnian soldiers).  All my close high school friends are male (sports team).  All my close college friends are male (engineers).  My work friends are mostly male (engineers)... 

 

I'm screwed.

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