Men who were romantically involved were no less likely than single guys to say they found their female friend attractive or to say they’d like to go on a date with her. Women who were romantically involved were also equally as likely as single gals to be attracted to their male friends, but they drew the line at dating, with fewer women in relationships saying they’d date their guy friend.
It doesn’t have obvious reproductive advantages. Men report more sexual interest in their female friends than their female friends do in them. Men are also more likely than women to overestimate how romantically interested their friends are in them. In most cases, sexual attraction within a friendship is seen as more of a burden than a benefit, the study finds.
Study researcher April Bleske-Rechek, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. “But the data I’ve been collecting suggests that attractions can get in the way.”
Researchers sent out questionnaires to 107 young adults, aged between 18 to 23 and 322 adults between the ages of 27 and 55 years to expand their findings outside the college student realm,. In these questionnaires, participants were asked about their cross-sex friendships and were given the opportunity to list their own reasons why those friendships were both beneficial and burdensome.
Although older adults reported fewer opposite-sex friends than the younger group did, everyone was very positive about these friendships, ranking them as overwhelmingly beneficial. When people listed attraction on the “costs and benefits” list, it almost always fell under a “cost.” Almost half of the young adults in the study spontaneously mentioned attraction as a problem in their friendships, the researchers reported April 25 in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
