Why do men catch feelings for their female friends than vice versa?

Order_number_66 · 2024-03-19T15:04:01+00:00

Simply because men have less options.

cardboard_monkey · 2024-03-19T14:39:17+00:00

I’ve experienced a ton of women catching feelings for previously platonic friends, coworkers etc. The difference is that theyre less likely to rip off the bandaid and try to force a relationship than men on average. I have a friend that has been secretly obsessed with her coworker for over 5 years now, but I don’t think she’ll ever mention it to him.

sweetestpineapple · 2024-03-19T15:00:51+00:00

Men have a wider range of people they can potentially become attracted to. An average or plain looking woman that hypes a guy up and supports him can easily become that guy’s crush, especially if he’s not used to female attention. Men also tend to be worse at reading people and might think they’re seeing hints that aren’t there, which could make them believe there’s a possibility there.

BlueMountainDace · 2024-03-19T15:14:52+00:00

At least in youth, I think it is because most young men (and this was me) have very few friends who are girls but want to be in a loving relationship.

And whenever a girl becomes a friend, we (I) see it as something more than just how girls are friends. And we catch feelings.

The more we interact though with more women, we should be able to figure out the difference between a woman who is being friendly and one who is being flirty.

Konoha_Shinobee · 2024-03-19T14:49:26+00:00

It's not hard to understand.

You like your friends and you spend a lot of time with them, the only thing stopping those relationships from being romantic is physical attraction. Men are physically attracted to most women they come across, so they'd gladly date their female friends, women don't find most men very attractive, so chances are they don't find their friends attractive. If she did find one attractive she'd be dating him, they would never become friends.

thisaccountaintrea1 · 2024-03-19T18:00:05+00:00

I’ve mentioned this before, but I think the key to sustainable, long-term male-female platonic friendship is ensuring that both sides are having their needs for physical and emotional intimacy met outside of the friendship.

Both of these needs are easier for women to fulfill than they are for men: The physical part because a girl who just wants to get laid will have no shortage of willing guys, and the emotional part because women are societally encouraged to share their emotions with their friends.

As such, unrequited love is more likely to come from the man’s side than the woman’s.

Spicy_take · 2024-03-19T16:58:15+00:00

Because the only significant difference to men between friends and relationship partners is sexual attraction.

Women seem to place men in boxes in their mind. It’s hard to get from one box to another box once you’ve been designated.

Men have a ladder with different thresholds. You can easily ascend or descend the ladder depending on how you act, how you improve, or let yourself go. For most single men (and even some in relationships), the only thing that keeps sex with an attractive friend off the table is a conscious effort and choice. But our default is generally set to “yes”. This issue is only extending longer in life because men are staying single longer. It’s tough to be in the mind set of “searching” from the ages of 18-25 or 30, then retrain your brain to not keep looking.

ArmariumEspada · 2024-03-19T15:09:02+00:00

Here’s a post I recently saw that deals with this very issue: https://np.reddit.com/r/ask/s/FINnSBhe00

Basically, male friendships don’t usually involve emotional support, so when a man befriends a woman and she lends him emotional support or comfort, he mistakes it for her being romantically attracted to him.

classicslayer · 2024-03-19T20:07:17+00:00

Because men find the majority of women fuckable

januaryphilosopher · 2024-03-19T15:15:07+00:00

I don't think they do. You're just more likely to hear about it. I don't know many straight/bi women who have had male friends yet never crushed on a friend.

Fantastic-Age-5598 · 2024-03-19T16:36:47+00:00

The reason why you're friendzoned is because you're not her type. And, the reason why some men don't mind being friednzoned is because they think it's a way or first step to becoming more than just friends.

I let em know, I see you as a brother or father. That usually gives them the hint that you're not interested in a romantic type of relationship with them, and you can't see that and think it's gross

However, in some cases, there's men who have female friends too, who see them as sisters, and nothing more. So it goes both ways.

Cactus2711 · 2024-03-19T17:14:43+00:00

Because men’s initial attraction to women is so overwhelmingly based on her looks. Once we’re physically attracted to a woman we want her and can’t backtrack to just being friends

With women they can initially find a guy attractive but later find out he’s not the complete package. So she’ll friend-zone because he might still be useful for time, attention & validation

Stop_Maximum · 2024-03-19T14:45:42+00:00

I don’t think I totally agree with the statement, men might approach the ide more while some women don’t. Also, we need to consider how some women will friend zone a guy even if they might have interest in them, and that could be for different reasons but mainly because the friendship might break. That doesn’t mean they won’t catch feelings, it means they don’t necessarily act on it or act disinterest.

ArtifactFan65 · 2024-03-20T00:11:48+00:00

Because men have testosterone and lower standards

PlainTundra · 2024-03-19T14:37:56+00:00

here are more "nice guys" than "nice girls" and so on. Why is this the case?

The disparity between sexes of what they find physically attractive in the opposite sex and the abundance of options they have out there.

Legitimate_Type_1324 · 2024-03-19T14:47:43+00:00

Because men are hornier and have a lower standard to what they consider beautiful. Plus most of them are starved of love and affection.

Mix all that and you have the typical friendzone puppy love that hurts like a fucking bitch.

2024-03-19T15:59:31+00:00

Women are just less likely to make an official move or confess their feelings first.

ElPwnero · 2024-03-19T15:02:37+00:00

I actually don’t know if that’s true.

Confident-Bat7194 · 2024-03-19T17:59:59+00:00

Ive never felt any romantic attraction to a male friend and i realized men tend to be really bad at reading between the lines of friendship and romance when it comes to women im a naturally pretty open person and i take care and compliment my friends regardless of gender and it doesnt mean i like them but men take that as flirting or me having interest in them which results to them catching feelings for me and i have to take the burden of rejecting someone

Safinated · 2024-03-19T14:40:10+00:00

Because men are hornier, obviously

KayRay1994 · 2024-03-19T15:03:14+00:00

I think that’s because men aren’t used to the closeness/warmness women tend to offer, even as friends. I also think lots of men are so deprived of affirmation/validation that when they do get it, especially from a person in the opposite gender they might find attractive, even mildly, will scratch that itch in their brains. And they’re friends and they get along on top of that, so naturally the brain goes where it goes.

With that being said, I think if giving men more validation, affirmation and warmth early on becomes normalized, I think the concept of the friend zone or men falling for their friends frequently would go down dramatically.

In short, what most of these men are feeling isn’t inherently fully romantic feelings and more likely to be a trauma response - ie. “i’m so deprived of affirmation and warmth and this person of the opposite sex is giving it to me. I must latch on” - the good news is you can unlearn this, but that’s where developing self confidence, having your own needs met and understanding your emotions comes in - and maybe with this the warmth/affirmation from a female friend can just be that, warmth and affirmation from a female friend (which, for the record, when you drop the trauma reaction clinging on stuff, having that affirmation in your life is great - lots of guys complain that this is something actively missing from their lives and they can have it, you just have to learn how to untangle it from the trauma not having it has caused)

Of course, there is the factor of female friends falling for their guys friends more often than this sub makes it out to be (but still notably less often than guys fall for their female friends) - but men are far more oblivious at reading the signs and women are far less likely to speak up - and in a hilarious irony, the friend giving the affirmations/support that the guy is falling for often isn’t the friend who’s into the guy cause the friend who’s into the guy is too shy to speak up.

XXXblackrabbit · 2024-03-19T19:34:17+00:00

Because the average guy is attracted to the average woman, but not vice versa. It’s literally that simple

Tokimonatakanimekat · 2024-03-19T17:13:51+00:00

Men are the original feelings gender, bro.

KorinTowerFreeloader · 2024-03-19T18:50:25+00:00

To be friends, you need to like someone to begin with. That means you like most things about them. Therefore, the difference between a friendship and a relationship is just whether or not we find them attractive enough. Also, I think men are more likely to be friends with women they find attractive. It's a no-brainer, it's just evolution at play. We are obviously more inclined to want to meet and talk to women we find attractive. Therefore, as we get to know them, if they are not promiscuous, bitchy, etc., we are more than likely to develop feelings and start thinking about getting into a relationship with them.

From my observations, women perceive friendships differently and look for completely different qualities in male friends and guys whom they consider getting intimate with. I think the overlap of these qualities is much bigger for men than it is for women, which is why a lot of guys struggle to understand why won't women pursue their male friends more romantically. Logically, these guys would make the most sense, but women don't base their attraction on logic.

2024-03-19T21:26:05+00:00

Because guys usually have exclusively male friend groups and are so used to only interacting with other guys so when a women enters that sphere of friendship, the guys fall head-over-heels for her.

A lot of these feelings can be alleviated if you have already diverse friend group of men and women, I had one in college that I still hang out with to this day. A lot of guys bring their girlfriends into a friend group so a guy will just be used to being platonic friends with women just as much as men.

mewbestpokeman · 2024-03-20T03:33:41+00:00

Because most men get little to no female attention so they look for opportunities wherever they can. OTOH every w*man has 100 desperate guys in her DMs

ThatLeval · 2024-03-19T14:56:20+00:00

Men are the initiators. Women develop feelings and a ten year plan if how they'll smile at him a bit more and then get angry at him not picking up signals and then decide that he doesn't like her and she grieves something he never knew was happening

Also, Women are more likely to be fuckzoned because Men are hornier and Women are more cautious

Netheral · 2024-03-19T16:24:34+00:00

I feel like "abundance of options" is the key factor.

You're less likely to jeopardize your friendships if you know you have a plethora of other options anyway. Meanwhile for guys, they won't generally even know if they really have other options, let alone how many since they're expected to initiate. And since the man is expected to initiate, if there is a mutual thing going on, nothing will generally come of it unless he acts first.

And then we develop a certain survivorship bias. Successful relationships formed from friends get annulled from these statistics because we consider them mutual anyway, or that they cancel out for the total. But then we are mostly lacking the female side of the equation because women generally won't initiate. So what we're left with is all these men outing themselves as having developed feelings.

Basically, the statistics are skewed from the very start.

Crimson-Pilled · 2024-03-19T15:19:08+00:00

Familiarity breeds contempt...in women. Friendship involves getting familiar, being vulnerable, and always be at each other's side. Women are attracted to mysterious, invulnerable men whose assessment of her is in question. A man who is better than her, not her friend.

2024-03-19T18:28:38+00:00

Familiarity breeds attraction for everyone. It’s never going to hurt your chances to be previously acquainted.

No-Weather-3140 · 2024-03-19T19:03:17+00:00

Because women are pursued more often than men and therefore have the illusion of more options

Upset_Material_3372 · 2024-03-19T21:31:51+00:00

Because there just simply isn’t as many men that women can find themselves attracted to compared to women that men find attractive.

odd_cloud · 2024-03-20T11:03:36+00:00

I heard about a study that measured increase in romantic feelings because of common experiences. It was much higher in men. The researchers sent a guy and a girl to a scenic place and asked them about feelings about each other when they returned.

There was an increase in romantic interest in guys, while in girls there was no effect. So, in men interest grows if a woman is simply around him. Doesn’t seem to happen to women. In their case if it is no, it is a no.

kg160z · 2024-03-20T19:11:55+00:00

The other answers are correct but I'd like to add:

You hear about it more. Guy likes girl, girl doesn't like guy= complaint is more common than the opposite- if they're friends and she likes him they just end up together.

pikecat · 2024-03-21T06:19:44+00:00

I've had female friends catch feelings for me. From my side, I had kept my female friends strictly friends; I was good at that.

However, I think that you'll find that in this case, quite often guys will go with it, if available, sometimes even if not. Or they'll just remain friends.

Actually, it seems that girls are willing to stay as friends for a long time without making an issue. Maybe the issue is actually that those nice guys can't manage that.

Objective_Ad_6265 · 2024-03-19T14:41:53+00:00

Spark / chemistry / butterflies is not only looks, he may look great but it still might not be there. I don't know what it is, it's some special click with that person that you just feel it. And it's not guaranteeed to happen even if all requiremtns on paper are met. Also you don't have will control over it. It's just spark, chemistry...

N-Zoth · 2024-03-19T14:32:29+00:00

Any data on this?

It's more likely that men are just obvious to all the "friendzoning" that they do themselves.

Anyway, the entire concept of the "friendzone" makes sense only if you are a high schooler.

999Kuro · 2024-03-19T22:18:58+00:00

Cuz girls find it useful to have guy friends (fixing stuff, mechanic help etc. it is plain logical to keep guy friends without feelings.

Generally females aren’t that reciprocal, so unless we’re looking for love or sex, it’s kind of just a responsibility having friends with a girl.

I mean my neighbor lady is cool and makes me food sometimes so she’s very reciprocal, I also rtf. The older generation has some real women in it.

But yeah this isn’t supposed to sound like trp at all, I’m not trying to hate, I’m just stating my honest experience. Many females tend to over value their own appearance these days, and expect people should do everything for them since they decided to grace us with the pleasure of them having gotten dressed up in the morning

Makuta_Servaela · 2024-03-19T14:55:02+00:00

I think it happens at the same rate, but women are just less likely to speak up about it- out of thinking men don't like it when women make the first move, or fear that it will ruin the friendship, I don't know. But in general I think it's just that.

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wtknight · 2024-03-19T15:00:14+00:00

Women usually make it clear that they are into their “friends”, so these men don’t remain friends for long. Otherwise, women are just as likely to develop feelings for men whom they are “friendly to” as men are. It’s just that men are more likely to be staying in that friendly situation since they are trying to work the “if I’m friendly enough then she’ll have sex with me” game.

OptimistInHell · 2024-03-19T15:06:13+00:00

Female friends tend to catch feedings in my experience, or assume feelings by conflating common decency, kindness or normalcy for signs of attraction... like most in this sub that could be a sign of being a mong, imo.

Freddsreddit · 2024-03-19T15:13:10+00:00

I dont think men catch feelings more. Men see an opportunity for sex more, and thats conflated with feelings.

Feisty-Saturn · 2024-03-19T15:40:14+00:00

From what I’ve seen a lot of men go the route of being a “friend” but they are into the girl from the very beginning. Whereas girls are not befriending guys they secretly like.

obviousredflag · 2024-03-19T15:47:48+00:00

I've seen it happen around me and kinda wonder why it's a thing

Have you considered that your sample is not representative, or you knowledge about the female side is not accurate?

Maybe men start friendships more with women who are attractive to them, while women don't look for attractiveness in friends.

But first i'd like to get to the bottom of if this really is happening more to men and how we can separate this from being attracted to a woman and choosing the way of befriending her first to increase the chance of reciprocated interest.

TRTGymBro · 2024-03-19T16:26:24+00:00

Actually happens all the time. Well, maybe not to you. But many women play the "friend" game and in their minds they also give the men they are interested a whole bunch of signals, which the male friend inevitably doesn't pick up on. So women, thinking they threw their sex at the guy now fee completely rejected, so they end up ghosting him or being angry at him for seemingly no good reason.

If you ever had a female friend who just got mad at you and stopped communication, it is for this precise reason.

Whoreasaurus_Rex · 2024-03-19T17:39:35+00:00

Orgasms = oxytocin.

SlowEffective8146 · 2024-03-19T17:46:21+00:00

because the dude was probably trying to fuck since the very beginning and the girl just friendzoned

hearyoume14 · 2024-03-19T18:07:09+00:00

I tend to think that relationships are deeper than they actually are, have boundary issues, tend to be friendly and I have visual-spatial issues. The result is people will assume I’m flirting. I’ve had multiple partners tell me to back off.

Emotional intimacy is something many men find only in romantic relationships. This leads to miscommunications. There’s nothing inherently wrong with crushing on a friend. Limerence is a hell of a state and can cause issues.

MistyMaisel · 2024-03-19T20:02:41+00:00

Hmmmm....So my first ponderings are:

Yeah, most men aren't as super open about their feelings with their friends. So yeah, when they find someone they can share with, it hits different.
Most men aren't used to receiving agreeable attention to their vulnerability. Like it isn't entirely that men aren't open about feelings with their friends, it's just that they express it disagreeably and receive disagreeable attention to that. And don't get me wrong, razzing, teasing, fighting, and being told to get over it pussy is a perfectly valuable contribution to the emotional vulnerability dialogue...but, a lot of men really do want to be met with more warmth, poor baby, etc. than they let on. So when they get that from a woman, it reads very maternally and lovingly because they're just not used to that flavor of emotional vulnerability recognition.
Men seem to have more flexibility in their erotic and platonic feeling categories than women. I can't prove that, but I've witnessed it a lot. Women may take longer to decide about where you fit, but once we decide, you're there for the duration and it's super unlikely we'll change our minds.
I think male glow-ups are rarer than female ones or have this tendency to happen much later in life than female ones. I feel like most women are glowed up by thirty, most men if they have one it starts post thirty.
Men read someone sharing similarities with them as attractive more often than women do. (and don't get me wrong, most people regardless of gender do this, but men really really seem to take a girl sharing a favourite band and movie with them as a sign they're meant to be.)
Women have more friends than men. Being a friend isn't as inherently special to us. You're one of 50 as compared to one of five.
This kind of goes back to five, but as a woman, a lot of the qualities that make someone a good friend aren't the same as the qualities that make someone a good survival partner, and I'm often evaluating a man for both prior to dating him. Whereas I think men tend to rarely consider good survival partner traits that quickly. (Could be wrong, but I know a lot of dudes complaining about their woman's lack of real career a year or two into the relationship...she was like that when they met. And they never mentioned it as a problem before).

I mean when I look at most of my male friends, they're all great people who are really important to me. But if I had to share a home with most of them or deal with them on a 24/7 basis and be responsible for their survival, thriving, and so forth, I would probably have to drown them in a bathtub. Again, great friends, great people. And that's the attractive ones. So many dudes I've been friends with I'd rather be melted in a pot of boiling butter than even consider seeing them naked. Gross.

jay10033 · 2024-03-19T22:39:01+00:00

They haven't experienced post nut clarity yet.

ktdotnova · 2024-03-20T03:35:02+00:00

Because it's more scarce... women get hit on everywhere, can make friends so much more easily. Aka less options, and infrequent options.

AnonPinkLady · 2024-03-20T05:35:47+00:00

Idk but I typically caught feelings for platonic friends growing up too and I’m a woman so idkkk

Imaginary-Being8395 · 2024-03-20T12:31:56+00:00

I agree with the comment here that says the only difference between friendships with the oposite sex and relashionship is that in relashionships both find each other atractive.

In the case of men, they will most likely find their female friend atractive but she wont

Stunning_Tea4374 · 2024-03-20T16:02:18+00:00

I would echo a comment here and say that I don't know anyone (including myself) from my past female friends who didn't either somehow secretly fancy a male friend in their lives or was actually hookin up with friends. I also subscribe to the theory that we deal with it very differently and therefore don't immediately end friendships when feelings come up (though of course it gets more complicated as soon as things get sexual).

Related to this is my idea that some people simply... date each other who started off as friends. And you don't always realize that because you only know them as a couple and then it's "we met through our social circle" or something like that.

Sharp_Engineering379 · 2024-03-19T14:53:51+00:00

Because their egos are so enormous they believe that what he wants is more important than what she wants, and he also believes he knows what is best for her, that she can't possibly make her own decisions about love and attraction.

wolfloveyes · 2024-03-19T15:33:29+00:00

Men literally develop love by making efforts, by being selfless, by prioritising her, by being responsible for her

This makes men fall in love with the woman.

Women don't fall for their male friends because they aren't making as much as effort towards their male friends.

Women use men to derive all those benefits under "friendship".

Friendship has equal benefits flowing in both directions.

Friendship with women is rarely that.

Icy-Sprinkles-638 · 2024-03-19T17:43:19+00:00

Because women don't actually have feeling for men. "How can he be of use to me" is the opposite of a feeling.

Individual-Car1161 · 2024-03-19T17:26:04+00:00

We actually know how to love people for who they are

TheDerInDisorder · 2024-03-19T19:48:30+00:00

You ever consider that maybe the feelings are the problem? Next time you catch a feeling stuff it deeeeep down. Bury it. Nobody wants to see that ugly stuff. It's undignified, and childish. Let it simmer between the tectonic plates of your soul until it can erupt in fun, productive ways like body dysmorphia, and narcissism.

abaxeron · 2024-03-19T21:20:39+00:00

Because it's very accurate to assume that women don't catch feelings for men.

Handsome_Goose · 2024-03-20T00:49:47+00:00

Because a female friend that is also attarctive is an extremely rare thing and you want to keep her

Nastrosme · 2024-03-20T22:25:06+00:00

Because personality is overstated in terms of value. Women primarily go for looks and/or social status. The man you are, deep down inside, doesn't matter or just a bonus.

Frettioio · 2024-03-20T17:42:31+00:00

Because men havent been taught to view women in a way that is detached from a sexual viewpoint. This is why men with sisters fare better with female friends.

paputsza · 2024-03-20T21:39:46+00:00

men are emotionally fragile due to a lack of social emotional outlets. A woman who cares for them is very alluring.

krayon_kylie · 2024-03-19T14:36:06+00:00

cause women are great and men leave much to be desired

Title	Why do men catch feelings for their female friends than vice versa?
Author	-snickerss-
Upvotes	53
Comments	212
Date	March 19, 2024 2:29 PM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1bilm1j/why_do_men_catch_feelings_for_their_female/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/why-do-men-catch-feelings-for-their-female-friends.1427999 https://theredarchive.com/post/1427999

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