always the 'friend' ?

[Phoenix Down]

I wouldn't consider someone who wasn't a "trusted friend" to be a "trusted love interest."

Ladder theory? I am most curious, explain O_O.

http://laddertheory.com/

 

[Shai Gar]

Heh, yeah, and when you have a fight everything is usually fine and back to normal the next day if not the day after. With other women... Uhg. They decide that you are now mortal enemies, they try to rally everyone to their side with lies of your evil and get you ousted from your mutual groups. The anger and hate usually lasts years, if not forever.
One time all I did was refuse to do scrambled eggs twice in a row in cooking class and suddenly my best friend was my worst enemy. She was a nutter though, cut herself for attention starting the year before.

Yup, women are nuts.

 

[894tt3h9]

I don't have this problem. Usually it's me who puts men in the "just friends" category.

 

[Lumi Spitsbergen]

I wouldn't consider someone who wasn't a "trusted friend" to be a "trusted love interest."


http://laddertheory.com/

XD HILARIOUS

And true, to a certain extent.
Guys and girls can maintain "just friendship" with each other under the right circumstances.
However, I think that it's important for women to have friends of their own gender as well, overall the longstanding of those relationships tend to last longer. There will (usually) be no wife or girlfriend in the future who gets weirded out by the relationship (sometimes the guy's girlfriend can become another good friend, just not usually right away). There is also (usually) no weird sexual attraction thing to navigate around.

Don't get me wrong. Most of my friends are guys, of my close friends the gender split it pretty much even. Of my closest friends I have two best friends, one of which is a guy, and one is a girl.
The guy and I maintain our friendship through a mutual unspoken agreement that we will never have sex. Ever. Unless one should fall madly in love with the other (unlikely - we know each other too well. If it was going to happen, it would have happened). We were friends all throughout the end of middle school, through high school, and even after we went away to vastly different locals after high school. We still hang out and get ice cream when in town - the good stuff. Part of staying best friends is not getting drunk alone together - that just stirs up weird shit.

But he gets me, and I get him. We bug each other way too much in some ways to ever be together, but the friendship is solid.
HOWEVER - he has fallen in love with a lovely girl where he is in uni. He still considers me to be one of his two best friends, but he is in love with this girl. This involves the very delicate dance of me not getting too involved in that relationship other than as a supportive "go you!" role. I actually care whether or not this girl likes me. It looks like my friend might want to pop the question soon, and I'd still want to stay friends for life, but under the circumstances this is ultimately up to her. Because ruining your best friend's love of a lifetime just because you decided to get pissy if she's unsure of you (heck, I'd be a bit on edge too) is pretty much the biggest way you could screw up in that area possible.
My things between my best female freind and I might be more complicated in conversation and on a day to day basis, but long-term it's simple: she'll be my bridesmaid and I'll be hers.

Most girls with only guy friends will either marry one of them, or wind up lonely.

 

[Razare]

That ladder theory seems to apply to every situation that myself or a friend of mine has gone through. It must be the real deal and now I can see where I went wrong in my last relationship.

Just an example... About 5 years ago, I met a new girl at work that reminded me of an ex. She was hot, but her personality was so similar, I didn't like her. Now, everyone liked her because she was attractive and nice, so she could tell that I didn't and it drove her nuts. She bugged me why, and I eventually told her outright that I didn't like her because she reminded me of someone. She guessed it was an ex. This took her off of my ladder and instantly made the perception in her mind that I was higher than her on the ladder system. Also, the fact that I had compared her to my ex, made the unspoken perception that I am on the relationship ladder, not the friends one. Now, I had done all of this without realizing it at the time, but over the next couple months, I did notice she kept trying to get on my good side. Even if I was naive as to what was going on, I did realize she would probably date me, but alas, I had spoke the truth and didn't like her because of her personality. So the most brilliant dating move I had ever pulled, didn't really matter...

So that's a great thing to do if you ever need to get a smoking hot woman after you. I doubt it'd work on average looking women, but hot girls are just dying for a guy who isn't interested. Haha, it's funny someone actually wrote this all down, though.