[yojo]

I (straight male) have several close friends that are women, some going back two decades. I’ve been happily married for 12 years, they’ve all been in stable relationships, and our partners get along.

It is possible that some men or women cannot be just friends with the opposite sex, but I have at least one counterfactual for the universal claim.

[kibwen]

Same here. An important aspect of attraction for me is character, and I would harshly judge the character of anyone who, knowing that I was in a relationship, tried to lure me out of it; it would demolish any attraction that I felt for that person. In addition, I feel no dissatisfaction in my relationship that would tempt me to leave it, and in any case if it made sense to leave it then I would do so regardless of outside temptation.

Maybe some people need to impose this sort of restriction on themselves, in the same way that a recovering drug addict shouldn't keep drugs in the house if they have any hope of not relapsing. People should do what's healthy for them. And for such a person, perhaps it's alien to consider that others don't suffer such a temptation.

[openknot]

>And for such a person, perhaps it's alien to consider that others don't suffer such a temptation.

The idea that temptation out of a relationship can be celebrated is reinforced by Hollywood movies. There's a lot of celebrated cheating in both classic and modern popular films like Casablanca, The Lady Vanishes, The Notebook, and Sleepless in Seattle.

Your view is admirable and I hope to share it, but popular movies are a strong force for people taking the opposite view as it normalizes the behavior of leaving a committed relationship for other people.

[llampx]

> It is possible that some men or women cannot be just friends with the opposite sex, but I have at least one counterfactual for the universal claim.

From my experience and observation, I would say that it is possible for _some_ men and women to be friends, but it is not the rule rather the exception.