Article: Not Your Buddy

This is a case of two people looking at the same relationship differently, with different interests and intentions. While the roles that men and women are cast in in this article may be true more often than not, they can work either way. The guy interviewed has a point, if a person wants to see something there, they probably will. However I think a person has a responsibility to not mislead another person, or lead them on. That is a bit of a cloudy area, because different people obviously have different ideas about what actions are leading to what end.

A friend of the guy states that you'd have to give up female friends altogether in order to not lead them on. While that is perhaps overstating the situation, perhaps guys and girls shouldn't get to be good friends if there isn't the intention of the relationship developing further. What do you think? When I first heard this idea, it seemed quite distasteful to me. However I'm just now beginning to consider that it may actually be wise. I've been on both sides of this; I've been the person who has wanted more, and the person who's become a good friend without having any intentions of more. I never thought about things this way in the past. I've always thought that if it isn't stated that more is happening, and if the other person doesn't indicate they want to become more than friends, then there isn't any problem. But now I'll be more aware and more careful.

The author of the article makes a good point when she describes how she can have meaningful friendships with guys who make it clear they are only interested in being friends, and don't act like they want more when they don't. That seems to be one of the main points of the article: don't give mixed signals!