"There's no point in being friends with a girl"

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A guy asked me today if me and a new girl I get along with were dating. I truthfully answered 'no', he asked if it was 'not yet' I answered that I liked her as a friend but there was no chemistry between us (again true - I am attracted to her neither romantically nor sexually, though I do like her). He: 'There's no point in being friends with a girl.'
My view is that if I like a girl but not in a sexual or romantic way, why not try and be friends? However, it may be that most NT girls are romantically and sexually put off by a guy who is friends with other girls, or that if you're a friend at first, that puts you permanently in the friends zone (though my only relationship was a counterexample to this). In any case, he has an attractive gf so he has some idea what he is talking about I suppose. Any thoughts?

1. That his girlfriend is "attractive" has no bearing on whether or not he has a clue what he's talking about.
2. He doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

One of my best friends in college was (...is >_< ) female. We were / are friends, and nothing more, yet I consider her to be more of a friend than various guys that people would consider me to be friends with.

If you're interested in a woman, it might (stress on that word, everyone's different, every situation is different) make it harder to pursue a relationship with her if you're friends with her. It could make it easier, you yourself have previous experience with that. Again, depends on the person, there's not really a "rule" for that. If you aren't interested, then who cares if it makes it harder (or easier) to date them in the future, if you only want to be friends with them?

I don't really see why it wouldn't be worth it to have female friends.

Why on earth would anyone want to cut thier potential pool of actual friends they feel a connection with in half. If you like the girl than thats the only reason you need. Every time you smile around her just makes it all that much more worthwhile.

Jeepers, 3/4 of my friends are male and I dont know what I would do without them. That doesnt mean I want to date or sleep with them, it just means I enjoy thier company on a plutonic level.

Your friend has a lot to learn about life. Its a shame to think the number of real friends he might miss out on in the meantime.

What your friend means is that theres no point in a girl being friends with him, which is fair enough. His error is in projecting those values outwards and onto you.

I have a friend who's a girl, and my guy friend occasionally say that I should try to start a relationship with her. She's a good person, she helped with things many times, and she's fun to be around. However, I know for a fact that while she's a great friend, we'd be incompatible in a romantic situation. I explain it to my friends pretty much the same way, only I also add that the pleasure of sex isn't worth ruining a long-time friendship. On top of that, my friends know that I see escorts from time to time, so I used that to make a point: why risk hurting someone, when I can just as easily spend some money and walk away with a clear conscience.

I agree with your friend.

Eh?

If a guy doesn't like a woman enough to enjoy her company if she's not sleeping with him, he doesn't deserve anything from her. Not company, not love, not sex, not anything.

The funny thing is, I tend to get along better with female friends/acquaintances - I have no interest in cars or sports, so that cuts me off from the vast majority of guys, while girls don't talk to me about make-up or fashion. My attitude has always been, when it comes to friendship, to be gender-indifferent. I can certainly relate to Aspie1's and alei's posts. I have known heterosexual guys and girls with opposite-sex friends they had no interest in dating (though it is the exception and there are lots of people that simply don't believe in opposite-sex friendship between heterosexuals).

I may have made this guy (he's a colleague rather than a friend) appear like a jerk - I don't think he is one, he has always been helpful and friendly towards me and as far as I know towards others, too. That's why I wondered if what he meant was that if I was friends with a girl that might put other girls off dating me, rather than meaning that female friendship is inherently worthless or that sex is the only point of female company (because he doesn't seem like the kind of guy that thinks that, though of course I could just be wrong). I'm sure he's a lot more experienced than me in dating.

LePetitPrince, could you elaborate? Do you think being friends with girls puts off other girls (I'm not interested in dating the specific girl in question, so in her specific case I have no problem with being in the friends zone), or is it for other reasons?

It's difficult for me to be friends with a girl and not at least consider her as a partner. This attraction is even stronger than any physical attraction. It's just the way my heart works.

I can block these feelings, and just consider her as a friend. I'm not one to turn down a quality friendship because of this, my feelings will go away eventually. But the stronger the friendship, the more difficult it is.

I don't even know the difference between a girlfriend and a friend who is a girl. The feeling is exactly the same for me... the feeling is even the same for my friends who are guys. There's just the little extra thing of being physically attracted to girls too...

Ah with all of this though, it is very worthwhile being friends with girls. I wish I had more friends who are girls growing up...

First of all, there is nothing wrong with being friends with a girl-even if there is no romantic potential or no desire for such.
However, I really Do see the guys point. If you are a single man and not enjoying being a singleton than its Very Hard not to have platonic friendships with the opposite sex-at least for Me it is. So pbcoll, I say you just ignore what that guy said and do whatever floats your boat.

The guy sounds like a real pig. What he seems to be implying is, girls = masturbators, and have no worth aside from that. I don't think he's qualified to hold an opinion, he has no idea what he's talking about.

I've had both happen to me - girls that I would have wanted to date but much preferred being friends with than nothing, and girls that I was solely interested in as friends. With the latter, though in one case I thought, objectively, that she was quite attractive, I did not feel attracted. I do feel a difference, apart from sex, between a friend who is a girl and a gf - I suppose for me a gf is someone I want to share my life with.
It's a funny thing about English that there is no actual word for girlfriend, i.e. one that distinguishes 'female partner' from 'friend who is a girl.' French has petite amie and Spanish has novia.

I can get really anal about how things are phrased at times (ok, often, and I still manage to muck up how I say things frequently. >_<) but for him to say that there's "no point" makes it sound like he doesn't see any value in it, rather than considering it to be a hindrance on developing a relationship with some other woman. Maybe I'm just over analyzing it (Not that I do that sort of thing with any frequency ) but he certainly could have worded it differently, or better, or whatever.

As for him being helpful and friendly towards you, and others, are all the others male? More than that, one can be helpful to another person without being their friend. So even if he is helpful to any women, he may still hold the view that there's no point in actually developing a friendship with them. Do you know if he has any female friends? That could clear things up pretty easily, it wouldn't make sense for him to tell you that there's no value in having women as friends, all the while having female friends himself. Or, you could always ask him to elaborate on it some more. If he's always been helpful towards you, he would probably be willing to do so.

I have a friend who is a girl, but I don't feel the overwhelming need to have sex with her actually. I find her attractive enough, but not to the point where I want to really pursue a relationship with her though. I would actually prefer just being her friend, since I know her well enough to see that we couldn't work as a couple. Your friend is an idiot imo.

Come to think of it, Im not that interested in having any more new female friends at this point unless its gonna go somewhere. That may very well be an obstacle to becoming un-single. The sexual tension is just too strong at the moment, especially if its one-way.