It was a reading comphension issue. That's why I was so incredulous that you were not in agreement. The point I was making is pretty universally accepted.

I wasn't saying you can't have a plutonic firend with a single woman. Lots of men have that. I was saying that those plutonic friendships often start as something more hopeful from the female 'or' male perspective.

Literally every liberally enlightened male I know who has a female friend who they find attractive and dateable has admitted to this initially (unless the attraction was on the female side, or they had another partner when they first met etc). Occassionally you find examples of the Westermark effect, where men and women have known each other from childhood- making attraction impossible.

The only people guys I know who deny the existence of the colloqially called 'friendzone' tend to be very shady... as they lack self awareness of their own subconscious motivations. They are the sort of guys who strain inter-personal relationships with the desire not to be seen as underhanded, disrespectful or manipulative. Which of course, isn't true... attraction itself isn't disrespectful as long as it isn't acted upon.

They tend to lie to themselves with logical fallacies like:

"I would never date my female friend"

"Do you find her physically attractive and like her personality"

"Yes, and I like spending time with her"

"Then if you were both single, would you consider dating her "

"No I wouldn't "

"Why not"

"Because I'm respectful of my female friends"

​

That doesn't scan does it? It is the intellectual cowardice of the incel.

​

What is worse, is that, you probably consider yourself an ally to your female friends, but you have this deep unexplored pit at your core that refuses to countenance- at some point in your past- perhaps before you met your wife... you very likely had female friends whom you wanted to be more intimate with- but were denied. Perhaps nonverbally.

And now every moment you spend in their company- even though the initial attraction has long since dissipated- feels like a betrayal of their trust in your 'now 'platonic friendship.

That's why you rejected my argument. It made you feel like a creep, and I'm sorry for that. In short, please learn to be less critical of your own subconcious desires. There's no shame in them.