Do you have platonic opposite sex friendships?



If you do, does your spouse know about them? Is your spouse friendly with them too? Is there a qualitative difference between your same-sex and opposite sex friends? For example, are there things that you'd discuss with a same sex friend that you wouldn't discuss with an opposite sex friend, or does it depend on the individual?

What if you had an opposite sex friend but you didn't like their spouse, their spouse doesn't like you, your spouse doesn't like them, or any variation thereof. Does this affect the friendship at all? Would you break off a friendship for this reason (spouse not comfortable with the idea or not getting along with them)?

That's alotta questions.

Actually, if the answer to the first question is 'no', then it's not so many questions.

First paragraph: No.

Second paragraph: Not relevant.

I don't have platonic opposite gender friendships. If I relate to the opposite gender other than my spouse, I keep it at a business-like level.

Okay, I edited the OP.

How are you defining friendship? Someone you would ask advice of? Someone you switch car pools with, ie you would go out of your way to help? Someone you would invite for a shabbos meal or a simchah even if you don't particularly care for the spouse?

Hmmmm. Well, I have my definition, but I'm open to the definitions of other members.

If you include people for whom I'd do favors or from whom I've received favors, people I've asked advice from, and people I've had goal-oriented discussions with, then yes, I do have platonic opposite sex friendships. But none that my spouse doesn't know about or doesn't approve of.

So you're defining friendship as a secret friendship?

What is your definition of friendship, because it's impossible to answer the OP without knowing what you're talking about.

I'll offer the variation on the religious contempt definition: If it's what I do with opposite genders, it's appropriate, if it's what others do, it's not.

No, it wasn't part of the definition of friendship. It was in answer to the other part of the OP, which was about the relationship between your spouse and your POSFs.

Okay, my definition of friendship is a) someone I have mutual regard for, b ) someone for whom I've done/received favors and c) someone with whom I've shared non-goal-oriented conversations and activities. Now, I realize that someone can be a good friend to me, look out for my welfare, provide good advice etc. (and vice versa), so under that definition I do have POSFs, but it's at ( c ) where I draw the line between PSSFs and POSFs.

Also, you're assuming (again) that my purpose in this thread is to make judgments about what other people do. I'm not making any assumptions; I'm genuinely curious about where the line of appropriateness is drawn. I'm particularly interested in knowing what people would do if they had a POSF but didn't like the spouse or the spouse didnt' like them.

Depends how you define "goals". What if I'm standing in the school lobby waiting for the kids to finish and the other car pool moms are there, and we're talking. I can ask about recipes if it's le-to'elet and I want to know suggestions for cooking for shabbat, but I can't ask where they were yesterday? Or is inquiring after someone's welfare goal oriented? What would be non-goal oriented in your book? Talking about tv? But anything you want to talk about is necessarily goal oriented?

Yes, I agree that the definition is sufficiently broad that it could cover just about anything that I felt I needed to discuss and that person was the only/first/most convenient person I could discuss it with. But that's why the opening question was followed by a series of questions, to try to pin down what differences exist (if any) between PSSF and POSF.

Honestly, in real life I don't have OSFs. I don't have many SSFs either. I'm not very sociable. We don't have Shabbos guests too often either. If my husband brings a friend over I'm friendly and polite and helpful to the extent required but I don't really develop a friendship with them. There are some people online with whom I've had PM exchanges that weren't strictly l'toeles, so I guess I violate my own rules on occasion.

Having casual conversations with someone doesn't make them a friend. It's when the conversations are more serious minded or you correspond regularly and often that the other person might be considered a friend.

Edit: Also, doing favors for/receiving favors from doesn't make another person your friend.

We each have one pre-existing OS friendship that was grandfathered in. Each is grudgingly allowed by the other. I think his is loony and he doesn't have much to say to mine.
I would be asking a lot of him to give up his 20-year-plus relationship with her.

I'll concede your first point but the second? How not?

I think it is often a corequisite of friendship but surely not a prerequisite.

I guess it depends on the type of favor.

I think I understand what you mean. If you are co-carpool parents who do small favors for each other, I think we'll agree that that doesn't necessarily mean you're friends. If you are two people who have known each other forever and babysit each others kids for a week at a time or spent alternate shabbosim at each other's homes so you each work half as hard, it is extremely likely you are friends. However, those big favors aren't what make you friends - they happen because you are friends.

This is where hilchos coworker should be discussed.

What a refreshing post.

Why do you find it refreshing?

sarcasm?

Because it's honest. And not designed to be self-aggrandizing. She's laying her cards on the table and being open, recognizing that we sometimes do things...just because we do. It's nice. Makes me feel a little less like a hypocrite knowing there are others who think the same way I do.

Well, see, I didn't grow up with POSF being a common everyday part of life. So I'm curious how the rest of the world sees it. At least how it's described on h.com, there's this big social grouping of boys and girls and they're all a harmonious gender-neutral family. Then they begin to pair off into dating couples and eventually get married and ride off into the sunset, unlike those who have to sweat and struggle through the humiliating shidduch system and never learn how to relate normally to a man. So I'm curious about what happens to those relationships formed in between the harmonious-gender-neutral-family stage and the dating-couple-pairing-off stage (and also before and after). Is there ever any conflict between the POSF and the spouse? Are there differences between same sex and opposite sex friendships?

Now, for me personally I've already answered that the key difference between a same-sex and opposite sex friendship is that I'm much more open with a same sex friend, will think nothing of sharing personal matters or just frivolous conversation, while I"m much more guarded with someone of the opposite gender.

Well, that's a big topic.

Thanks for your response. I'm not sure if your definition of friend works for me--I've gone to shiva calls to people I didn't consider friends, but I knew them and didn't feel right not to go. People invited to my wedding--well, my parents did most of the inviting, and since I'm from a smallish community I invited all the single girls living locally so no one felt left out (which is pretty much standard). When I make a bar mitzvah for my son next year IY"H we're planning a very small affair so I probably won't invite a lot of the people I consider friends.

I agree that the non-goal-oriented-conversations definition is kind of bland. I couldn't express what I was getting at. More like someone that I feel very comfortable with, free to express myself in a personal way.

Anyway I appreciate your sharing your perspective on the matter. It's apparent that at least for you, there is a significant difference between a POSF and a PSSF and it's not such a gender-neutral world out there.

Don't forget I don't really have friends anyway.

I think it's extrememly rare that a platonic relationship stays platonic for both people forever. From my experience one person usually ends up "falling" for the other friend at some point. and becasue of this I think platonic relationships with the opposite sex don't work.

On a sort of related point, there are a group of couples in my shul that are all friends with each other and I've noticed that the women and men tend to touch each other, like a playful slap or half hug. I find this really weird and a bit disturbing, unless I'm making a big deal about it? But I think if one of my friend's husband's touched me I would kind of freak out.

why is it "weird", "disturbing" or a reason to "freak out"?

For a married man to touch someone else's wife isn't weird to you?
It is to me and I grew up MO and never saw my parents act like that with their friends.

Is everything your parents didn't do "weird" and "disturbing" and freaks you out?

We have already established in another thread that you live in a horrible community.

would they touch their opposite gender co-worker like that?

I don't have any male friends that are not either husbands to friends of mine (where I'm primarily friends with the wife but also friends with the husband) or friends that originated as my husband's and are still primarily his friends but also friends with me secondarily. Husband is pretty much the same as far as female friends go.

It wasn't by plan, it's just how it happened, ya know?

I don't know but I would guess they would. Isn't it different within the frum community? or shouldn't it be? or am I just being naive?

yes

1. You live within the frum community. If you mean Ultra Orthodox circles, then yes, it is different.
2. It should be.
3. You're not being naive. I've never seen a frum couple, outside of MO people, touching unrelated members of the opposite sex.

I have never said that. I might have issues with ceratin aspects of my community, but I am not vocal about them in said community. If you met me on my "turf" I would probably just look like everyone else here. that said, I still think it's not proper for married men and women to jokingly touch each other even in the MO world.

my understanding is that if they would touch the opposite gender co-workers/classmates in college/etc, then they will touch their friends' spouses and it's not weird. now, if you said they didn't touch the co-workers but touch their friends' spouses, THAT is weird.





what about unmarried?

see, if people are used to touching, they see nothing "private" about it. a peck on a cheek or a semi-hug mean nothing.

I think it's worse if it's someone else's spouse you are touching.
touching before you are married is usually because you are interested in someone and you are flirting which should be off limits when you are married.

this group of people know that at some level it is not common practice, because one of the women said to my husband "don't worry I know I can't touch you."

it shows she has seichel and is respectful of others' boundaries. if people are not strict about shomer negiah, i don't think it's worse if they jokingly touch others' spouses. their co-worker is someone's spouse, too, after all they just don't view it as something grave, that's all.

It may not be proper, but why is it "weird" or "disturbing" and why should it cause you to "freak out"?

It would cause me to freak out if a man who knows me and my hashkafic take on life, would touch me --unless he was trying to save my life, he should know better.