How often do you catch romantic feelings VS sexual feelings for friends and acquaintances?

17 comments

1. Sexual feelings–all the time. I think my friends are pretty hot! I’ll never act on those feelings…but I can definitely appreciate a beautiful person.

   Romantic feelings–almost never. I don’t want to have a relationship with my buddy’s wife, even though she’s really gorgeous. I can’t see myself tolerating anybody else’s bullshit 24/7 except my wife’s 😉

2. Usually If I view a woman as a friend I’ve already caught feelings for them and gotten over it.

3. Depends on whether the feelings are airborne or not.

4. Never.

   “Catching greetings for friends” is nice guy talk for, “can’t get a date so tries to fuck girls who just want to be friends”.

5. If she’s hot and my type .

6. Catching sexual feelings occasionally is somewhat inevitable as a man but having romantic feelings for a friend is kind of a paradox. Once you have true romantic feelings for a person the line between “friend” and “romantic interest” gets very blurry. The sexual feelings are no big deal. We are wired to think that way and any reasonable person should be able to control those feelings. The only time it really becomes a problem is with men who have trouble distinguishing the combination of friendship and occasional sexual attraction from real romantic feelings.

7. I don’t

8. Sexual interest in an acquaintance happens exactly as often as an acquaintance is sexually appealing.

   Romantic interest is significantly more rare.

9. I think both guys get both at the same time.

10. Now that I’m my 30’s? None at all

    Because my friends are my friends, and I view them in a platonic way

    Additionally, I am now less desperate and more confident in myself, which allows me to have dating options to the point that I also have space to have women in my life I don’t want to bang and just view as friends

    I never really realized how toxic that behavior was in my early 20’s, to always think that every single women who says more than two sentences to me wants to bang me. Or to always think in the back of my head that I’d want to bang each one of my female friends. Like it’s not only extremely immature it’s such an obvious sign of my lack of dating prospects

11. The sooner that we accept that we are attracted to our friends for one reason or another, the sooner we can accept that sometimes you develop feelings for them.

    There is no surprise that I’d like to be around people that I find funny, attracted to, or comfortable around. Can you develop feelings? Sure but I know them pretty well and could tell that either I’m not what they are looking for or they aren’t what I’m really looking for.

12. Never. They’re my friends, not a gaggle of walking fleshlights.

    Never felt any romantic feelings either

13. They are friends, sooo never.

14. Not often.

15. I’ve got a few very hot friends and sometimes the eyes do what the eyes do best, but that’s where the buck stops for the most part. I’ve had crushes on a few of them, but no joy and we squashed that bug.

16. I fall in love too easily and almost always eventually with women friends when we spend a lot of time together (The Propinquity Effect), but I don’t act on those feelings and don’t tell them.

    I believe they’re romantic feelings because I focus on how much I enjoy interacting with them and I’m a Platonist who doesn’t tie together love & sex. To me sex is just something people sometimes share whether they’re in a sexual relationship or not.

    I don’t have sexual relationships because I found I get too terrified to have sex. I literally got sick to my stomach when my last gf & I were about to have sex, so sex with anyone beside myself is out of the question for me.

17. Never. 5’7″, ugly af, and have Aspergers. Why bother? Women have made it clear to me I have no value as a romantic partner. So until one walks up to me and makes a move, which has never happened (I’m 29), I’m done. Accepting my fate of dying alone, unloved (romantically), unwanted, and unhappy