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Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
—Oscar Wilde, writer1
Organizations and spouses aren’t all to blame when it comes to the impact of romance on cross-sex friendships. It’s true that policies on workplace romance make cross-sex friendships at work more difficult, but even without these policies, romantic and sexual attraction can plague friendships between men and women. In the film When Harry Met Sally, Harry Burns and Sally Albright share the drive to New York City after graduating from college in Chicago. During the drive, Harry tells Sally that no man would ever be friends with a woman without wanting to sleep with her.
Harry: You realize of course that we could never be friends.
Sally: Why not?
Harry: What I’m saying is—and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form—is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
Sally: That’s not true. I have a number of men friends, and there is no sex involved.
Harry: No, you don’t.
Sally: Yes, I do.
Harry: No, you don’t.
Sally: Yes, I do.
Harry: You only think you do.
Sally: You say I’m having sex with these men without my knowledge?
Harry: No, what I’m saying is they all want to have sex with you.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally: So, you’re saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?
Harry: No. You pretty much want to nail them, too.
Sally: What if they don’t want to have sex with you?
Harry: Doesn’t matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed, and that is the end of the story.
Sally: Well, I guess we’re not going to be friends then.
Harry: I guess not.
Sally: That’s too bad. You were the only person I knew in New York.2
Was Harry correct—can men and women be friends without sex getting in the way? In order to answer this very question, researchers talked to eighty-eight pairs of cross-sex friends.3 The pairs of friends were separated, guaranteed anonymity and confidentiality, and then questioned about their romantic interest in their friend. As suggested by the fictional Harry Burns, men were much more attracted to their female friends than vice versa. Indeed, men desired to date their friend regardless of their own relationship status (women who were currently in a relationship were less likely to desire romance with their friend). The men were also more likely to overestimate how attractive they were to their female friends.
So Harry’s question persists: Can women and men be friends without sex getting in the way? Studies reveal they can—between 35 percent and 72 percent of cross-sex friendships are truly platonic.4 However, these numbers may underestimate the problem of sexual attraction in cross-sex friendships. By interviewing or surveying individuals who are already in cross-sex friendships, these numbers only included individuals who were able to overcome sexual attraction and become friends.
It’s important to understand this statistical anomaly better, so stick with me here. Say that Harry Burns was correct, and that men and women could never be friends if one friend was sexually attracted to the other. Then surveys of cross-sex friends that ask, “Are you sexually attracted to your cross-sex friend?” would find that zero percent of cross-sex friends were attracted to one another. Why? If sexual attraction keeps friendships from forming then all cross-sex friendships that exist must not have any sexual attraction. This zero percent would certainly not indicate that sexual attraction was not a problem for cross-sex friends. Indeed, just the opposite would be true. It would indicate sexual attraction is an insurmountable barrier for cross-sex friends. Unfortunately, we have no statistics on the number of cross-sex friendships that never formed because sexual attraction got in the way.
In reality, some friends can maintain a cross-sex friendship despite physical attraction. However, when one friend is interested in more than a friendship, then the friendship is typically doomed. The friend who is not interested often backs off from the friendship. Laurie, a technology consultant, described how she ended a workplace friendship when romantic interest surfaced:
I just stopped being friends with him. Usually I just would either try to bring up the fact that I have a boyfriend in casual conversation so the other person gets the message that I’m not interested, or really try to be less friendly than I might normally be. Or I just stop being friends with them at all.5
Laurie struggled to make sure her own friendliness toward male coworkers was not misinterpreted as romantic or sexual interest. Misinterpretation of friendliness is a common issue between men and women and can result in uncomfortable situations for the friends.
That’s Not What I Meant—The Role of Misinterpretation
When someone is attracted to you, sometimes they search for signals that you feel the same way. Often they find these signals even where they don’t exist. I used to swim laps at a local pool to stay in shape. I arrived at the pool one day to find a dozen roses waiting for me at the pool office. The roses were from an anonymous admirer and were addressed to the woman in the yellow and black swimsuit who arrived each day at 9:00 a.m. That was clearly me. In the note accompanying the roses, my admirer revealed that he knew I was interested in him because of the way I tugged on my ear each time I emerged from the pool. He apparently interpreted this ear tugging as a sign of interest in what he had to say. In reality, I tugged on my ear when I emerged from the pool to get the water out of my ears—not to send a signal of romantic interest.
Misinterpretations aren’t usually this extreme, but men are more likely than women to misperceive friendliness as sexual interest. Men, in general, tend to think about sex more than women, and so they’re more likely to see sexual interest when it’s not there. (Men typically think about sex nineteen times a day, while sex crosses women’s minds about ten times a day.)6
Sometimes organizations set up their employees for misinterpretation. When Safeway began enforcing its “superior service” initiative, employees were required to be friendly to shoppers. Seems like a reasonable request. Employees were told to “anticipate customers’ needs, be courteous, escort them to items they cannot find, make selling suggestions, thank them by name if they pay by check or credit card, and offer to carry out their groceries.”7 The policy was enforced by the use of undercover shoppers, and employees were warned that those who didn’t conform to the policy could be subject to remedial training, disciplinary letters, and termination. What happened? Thirteen workers filed grievances indicating that they were propositioned by shoppers who misinterpreted their friendly behavior for flirtation. Twelve of these thirteen employees were women. In particular, the women wanted to have the option to avoid eye contact and to refuse to walk a man to his car at night. These women realized that men were more likely to misinterpret friendliness as sexual interest.
I talked to a supermarket cashier, Brenda, who told me similar policies were in place at her store, and the use of undercover shoppers to police these policies continued until just last year. During that time, she was not only required to smile, thank customers by name, and offer to carry groceries out to the car, but her store went even further. Within the last five years, she told me, she was encouraged to ask how a customer’s day or weekend was going, and question him or her about his or her plans for the weekend. Brenda described how male customers frequently misinterpreted these friendly gestures:
They ask you to be friendly, and I think men sometimes just take that the wrong way. I try to treat all my customers the same, but I think men’s perceptions are just different than women’s sometimes. I’m more uncomfortable dealing with men in the grocery store than women. I never said anything, ’cause I thought I’d lose my job. But it just got a little too personal for me. I’d say, “So, did you have a good weekend?” and they’d say, “Well it would have been better if you were there.” Why do I have to ask them what their weekend was like, and what they were doing? That’s none of my business. I’ve even had a gentleman wait for me in the parking lot. After I thanked him by name and all that in the store, when I got off, he was outside, in his car, waiting for me.
The waiting customer asked for Brenda’s phone number and wanted to know if she would go out with him some time. Fearing that he might be a sexual predator or that he would say something negative about her to store management, she politely provided an incorrect phone number.
These female supermarket employees had to decide between being reprimanded at work or misinterpreted by male customers. Male employees didn’t have this problem, and female employees didn’t have this problem with female customers. It was the male customers who were most likely to misinterpret female friendliness.
If some men misinterpret service-with-a-smile as flirtation, one can imagine what happens when women try to befriend a man at work. Not surprisingly, the likelihood of misinterpretation is pretty high. About 67 percent of us have had our friendliness misinterpreted on at least one occasion, although significantly more women than men reported experiencing this type of misperception.8 Research confirms what the supermarket employees learned: that a smile or eye contact is misinterpreted as sexual interest by men much more frequently than by women.9
When it comes to cross-sex friendships, unfortunately, in the majority of cases, the friendships can’t survive after one friend misinterprets friendliness as sexual interest. Of those who reported a misinterpretation of their friendliness, only 32 percent reported that they were able to remain friends.10
In the workplace, misinterpretation can be particularly tricky. In a piece she wrote for the New Republic, Marin Cogan described how journalists must express interest in their sources, and this professional interest can be misinterpreted for romantic interest. According to Cogan, “The problem, in part, is that the rituals of cultivating sources—initiating contact, inviting them out for coffee or a drink, showing intense interest in their every word—can often mimic the rituals of courtship. . . . A source may invite you to meet at the bar around the corner from your apartment. If you agree, he might offer to pay for the drinks and walk you home.”11 It gets uncomfortable when her professional interest in them is misinterpreted. So uncomfortable is this situation that some female reporters may choose not to call back a source who presumed romantic interest. Male journalists do not face these issues interviewing in the predominantly male political sphere. However, when misinterpretation results for the female reporter, she must decide whether to forgo the source, and possibly set back her career, or endure unwanted flirtations and signals of romantic interest.
Lisa, a television sports reporter I spoke to, reported a similar issue. Instead of meeting her sources for coffee, Lisa tracked hers down in locker rooms. Reporting for a top-twenty-five television station, she covered well-known sports teams in her region. Not surprisingly, Lisa was hit on by professional athletes who misconstrued her interest in them. From subtle encouragement to meet up for dinner to more blatant invitations to hotel rooms, Lisa was forced to explain to the athletes that her relationship with them was purely a professional one. She explained:
There’s an epidemic of athletes having affairs and having girlfriends in different cities, and it’s frankly just a part of their life. So, sometimes they base their interactions on exploring whether you’re willing to go there with them. It made it challenging for me as a woman. I once heard a newspaper reporter I know talk to a player about getting together for a beer some time. I could never do that cause if I ever did that—if I even joked about meeting a player outside of the work environment for any reason—it would be inappropriate, given that I’m a woman.
The problem may be greater for female journalists and reporters, but, really, many women have a similar issue at work. Whether it’s a professional athlete or a potential mentor, there’s a reasonable chance that asking an opposite-sex coworker to join you for coffee or beer would be misinterpreted.
Another example of how men and women can view the same situation quite differently comes from the television world. In covering conservative talk-show host Bill O’Reilly’s sexual harassment case, the New York Observer interviewed television news anchors and producers. (To fill you in on the case, a female producer of O’Reilly’s Fox TV talk show, The O’Reilly Factor, charged O’Reilly with sexual harassment. She alleged that he talked to her about using a vibrator and about his sexual fantasies that involved her. They settled out of court.) The Observer wanted to determine if this type of behavior was common in television.
The difference in perceptions between the male and female television employees was stunning. Reading the different perceptions of the office vibe, I couldn’t help but think how difficult it would be to establish a platonic cross-sex friendship in this environment. A man described in the Observer as a “prominent on-air host” depicted the television news world this way:
At the producing level it’s all young women, 99 percent of whom have no chance of being on TV, and they like powerful men. Each host has around him lots of good-looking unmarried women. Women are excited by power, let’s be totally clear. The temptation to have sex with your staff is overwhelming. . . . You can’t imagine how sexually out of control it is.12
The women in this environment were also interviewed to get their perspective. The women didn’t exactly see eye to eye with the producer. They didn’t report how sexually excited they were by the powerful men at work. Instead, the women complained of unwanted touching and groping, unwanted invitations to return to hotel rooms, clunky and incessant sexual innuendo, unwelcome shoulder rubs, and shameless requests for dates. They also reported requests for three-way orgies and oral sex, all by powerful male executives and well-known male on-air personalities.13 It seems that the men were viewing their interactions with women through a sexual lens. As a result of the misinterpretation, it doesn’t seem like an environment where the women could comfortably hope to develop a rewarding mentor relationship with a senior male executive.
Several research groups have watched this misinterpretation unfold right in their labs.14 In one study, the researchers simulated a speed-dating setting. Male-female pairs were asked to talk about a neutral topic for three minutes in a room by themselves after which they were separated. Once separated, the pair completed a survey about their own sexual interest in their partner and their perceptions of their conversation partner’s sexual interest. After the survey was completed, they moved on to another “speed meeting” partner and repeated the process.15
Not surprisingly, men were more likely to think that their female conversation partners were more sexually interested than they actually were. This bias was even greater when it came to attractive women. Men were even more likely to perceive that attractive women were sexually interested in them. Women, on the other hand, actually demonstrated an under-perception bias. In general, women thought their conversation partners were less sexually interested than they actually were. The more attractive the woman, the less likely she was to think her conversation partner was sexually interested in her.16
It’s tough to develop friendships when potential friends interpret things differently from the way you do. However, misinterpretation doesn’t just come from our friends or potential friends. From a young age we avoid cross-sex friendships out of fear that someone else, a third party, will think we’re dating our friend.
What Will Everyone Think?
Although friendly conversations with cross-sex coworkers can sometimes lead to misinterpretation by one of the conversation partners, other coworkers may also think there’s more than a friendship blossoming. In elementary school were you ever teased because of a friendship with an opposite-sex playmate? My ten-year-old son’s friends are almost exclusively male. That’s not unusual. Starting in the elementary school years, children avoid cross-sex friendships because they fear their friends will think they’re dating their cross-sex friend, or that they “like” or “love” their cross-sex friend. Indeed, those boys who befriend girls and those girls who befriend boys are subject to intense teasing about the nature of the friendship.17 In one study, some elementary school boys revealed that they secretly “liked” one girl in particular. However, the boys were hesitant to spend time with this girl or to talk to her, because they feared that they would be teased by their peers. Furthermore, the boys did not share their feelings about this girl with anyone, but if the secret got out, the “couple” was often made the brunt of their friends’ jokes.18
Even in the rare situations where children have a cross-sex friend (not someone they “like,” but an actual friend of the opposite sex), they tend not to reveal the friendship at school. Although they may acknowledge the friend at school, they will restrict their play to same-sex friends while in public. Only in the privacy of their own home will they feel comfortable enough to play with the cross-sex friend. The stigma associated with cross-sex friendships is too great for the children to risk demonstrating their cross-sex friendship in public.
There is one situation where children comfortably interact with cross-sex peers at school, and that is when the interaction is directed by a teacher or other adult. If the teacher instructs a group of children to work together, then the danger that peers will think they, themselves, have sought out the opposite-sex partners is relieved. Without the chance their interaction will be perceived as “liking” the other, the mixed-sex groups can work together comfortably.19
So, eventually, as we age, our friends stop teasing us about spending time with the opposite sex, and we can pursue these friendships without fear of ridicule. Or do they? At the other end of the age spectrum, research indicates the elderly seem just as concerned about their cross-sex friendships as the elementary-age children. Much as the children felt that interaction with the opposite sex indicated “liking” or “loving,” interviews with unmarried, elderly women revealed these women felt a friendship with a man was the same as a romantic, dating relationship. These older women perceived all male friends as courting them.20
The elderly women exhibited the same fear of peer ridicule as the elementary school children. Just like the children, these women went to great lengths to hide their male friendships to eliminate any suggestion that they were behaving “improperly.” One woman described her behavior when a male friend came to visit: “I don’t let him in my apartment. It wouldn’t be proper. People would talk.”21 Another woman refused to name her male friend in the interview, because she feared other people would discover her relationship. Finally, another interviewee said she would not go out in her hometown with her male friend because “people would get the wrong idea.”22
Clearly concerns about what others think about our cross-sex friendships haunt us throughout our lives. Having these social norms ingrained at such a young age, it’s no wonder men and women at work have difficulty forming friendships. However, one lesson from the children may give hope for adults. Recall the children were willing to work or play with opposite-sex children when instructed by the teacher. The direction of the teacher removed any fear that the children were seeking out the opposite-sex playmate on their own. In the workplace, if networking or mentor programs are mandatory, it may remove some of the stigma associated with interacting with the opposite sex.
Friends with Benefits
Cross-sex friends who want more than a platonic relationship, but not a romantic relationship, have one more option. Friends with benefits (FWB) relationships, which have garnered much media attention lately, are relationships between cross-sex friends where the friends have sex but don’t consider their relationship romantic.23 Unlike hookups or one-night-stand sexual encounters, FWB relationships are more stable friendships, where the friends see each other regularly. Although many think of “friends with benefits” as a relatively new type of cross-sex friendship, the idea has been around for a while. For example, in the 1980s the term “flovers” was coined for friendships with sex.24
FWB relationships have gained attention recently because of their presence in popular media. In one episode of the television show Seinfeld, friends Jerry and Elaine decide to have a purely physical relationship based upon a set of ground rules. However, as their FWB relationship progresses, they experience difficulties maintaining their original friendship. More recently, the plots of two films also tackled this topic. In the 2011 film Friends with Benefits, characters Jamie and Dylan believe adding sex to their relationship will not lead to complications. As with Jerry and Elaine, this pair also experienced difficulties maintaining their friendship and begin to develop deep mutual feelings for each other. Characters portrayed by Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher ran into the same problem in the 2010 film No Strings Attached.
These relationships break with the traditionally accepted notion that women link sex and love, and that women typically desire sex only when they are in love. (Men, by contrast, are generally thought to have no problem separating the two and are perceived to enjoy sex without love.) Previously, researchers have found that for men the release of sexual tension is the most common reason for initiating sex, but for women the “most important reason was to receive love, intimacy, and holding.”25 These research findings support the cliché that “men give love to get sex, while women give sex to get love.”26
However, in friends-with-benefits relationships, both participants are interested in sex without love. Indeed, most research on hookups and friends with benefits suggests that women are regularly engaging in sex without love.27 Nonetheless, there is some evidence that women are more interested in the friends aspect of the relationship (the emotional connection), and men are more interested in the benefits (or sexual) aspect of the relationship.28
Although no studies to date have assessed the prevalence of this type of relationship in the workplace, one study reported that a whopping 60 percent of college students had participated in an FWB relationship.29 This number seems rather inflated, and the actual percentage is probably much lower, as indicated by another study finding 16 percent of college students reported participating in an FWB relationship.30
So how do friends-with-benefits relationships impact the sex partition? Certainly, these relationships defy those who claim that friendship and sexuality cannot coexist. In this sense, the FWB relationship breaks down one barrier to cross-sex friendships. That is, the friends no longer must decide between sex and friendship, they can have both.
Reality, however, suggests that these relationships can be problematic. Friendship researcher Donald O’Meara describes how having sex can impact friendships: “With each increasingly intimate physical act, the dyad probably finds it more difficult to maintain a clearly defined friendship identity.”31 Just as the recent film characters have had trouble adjusting to this friendship, so do actual participants in these relationships. FWBs report their biggest concerns are that sex would harm the friendship or create unreciprocated desires for a more romantic relationship.32 Other problems result when one friend in the FWB relationship becomes involved in a romantic relationship with someone new. When this occurs, the FWB relationship will likely end.
While sex in friendship has most likely been occurring for a long time, only recently has data been collected on the high prevalence of these relationships, particularly among college students. Although no historical prevalence data is available, it seems likely that friends-with-benefits relationships are becoming more common. Most of the research on these relationships has focused on college students, so the prevalence of these relationships among older individuals is also unknown. However, if college students commonly engage in these relationships, then it’s not unlikely that they would continue to pursue FWB relationships with their cross-sex friends after graduation.
Within the workplace, it is hard to imagine a distinction between a romantic and a FWB relationship. It’s almost comical to imagine a conversation between a human resources manager and a superior-subordinate pair engaged in a friends-with-benefits relationship. One can imagine their explanation that no favoritism exists in their relationship, because although the pair is indeed engaging in sex, they are merely friends. Will friends with benefits be asked to sign consensual relationship agreements? Although it is not yet clear how these relationships will function in the workplace, certainly a workplace culture that is intolerant of workplace romance is not going to embrace FWB situations.
FWB relationships are just one more complication added to the already complex interactions between men and women. And they represent another complication that same-sex heterosexual friends need not address. If we expect men and women to work together productively, we can’t continue to ignore these issues of romantic and sexual attraction. Instead, we need to provide tools for employees to deal with these issues. Specific suggestions for addressing these issues are provided in later chapters.