‘Men and women can’t be just pals’
Many may disagree, but sexual attraction will always get in the way of the relationship between male and female friends despite what some may think, says a new study. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire also found that in a test group of 400 adults, if there were feelings of attraction expressed from only one member of the friendship, it was most often from the man.
The study’s lead author, April Bleske-Rechek, believes that because platonic inter-sex relationships are a relatively new concept in the history of human evolution, men are still controlled by their mating instincts. The participants in the study, which was split into two parts, ranged in age between 18 and 52. The first experiment split 88 pairs of friends up into different rooms and without asking anyone to identify themselves proposed a series of questions, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported.
This exercise aimed to glean information about the individuals’ attraction to their companions, desire to go on a romantic date and perception of whether their friends were interested in them romantically.
The results showed that men more frequently admitted attraction to their female friends while also overestimating their friend’s romantic feelings towards them. Women on the other hand were less likely to fancy their friends or assume that the males had those kinds of feelings for them. Dr Bleske-Rechek said: “Historically, men faced the risk of being shut out, genetically, if they didn’t take advantage of various reproductive opportunities. So the argument is that men have evolved to be far more sexually opportunistic.”
The following experiment looked at how friends valued their platonic relationships even if they suspected that there was a certain degree of attraction involv-ed. The two test groups were “emerging” adults of 18 years of age to 23 and “young and middle-aged adults” aged between 27 and 52. The findings have been published in the Journal of Social and Pers-onal Relationships.
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