Find a Love - Dating Relationships and Having Friends of the Opposite Sex

I'm a woman and even through my pre-teen years until the present, I've never had a lot of guy friends. I hung out with the ladies and just had male friends, but not best buds. My sister, on the other hand, had more best guy friends than girl friends. Everyone is different and you need to go with whatever works for you. However, there may need to be some adjustments made when you have the latter view and enter into a committed relationship to find a love that lasts.

If you're already in a relationship, you need to ascertain how your partner feels on the subject. Is he or she open to the fact that you have many friends of the opposite sex? Your partner is the key factor in this analysis because if he or she is perfectly fine with you hanging out with these friends of the opposite sex, than you have nothing too serious to concern yourself with. However, if your partner has a problem with it, then so do you. You need to discuss this and then make a compromise or move on to a new relationship. You may never change in your outlook on hanging out with such friends and that's fine if it works for you. Your partner may never change in his or her outlook on the company you keep. Neither of you has a viewpoint that is wrong, you just need to find partners that gel well with your own viewpoints on this, and other, issues.

Let's discuss some of the issues. If your partner does not agree with you having friends of the opposite sex, it may be because he or she is insecure in your relationship. Your partner may hold the fear that you will leave the dating relationship for one of your friends. It may be an unwarranted fear, but it's a fear in your partner's mind. Because your partner has this fear, you need to acknowledge that fear and do your part to assuage the fear and make it disappear. The only way to make that fear vanish may be for you to cease the amount of time you hang out with these friends. If you cannot compromise in that issue, you owe it to your partner to end the relationship and move on. Your partner should be your number one priority, not your friends and not even yourself. So you may need to give yourself a reality check and analyze how much you care for your partner and then compromise.

Your partner may not understand that you are not trying to cheat on him or her and the time you spend hanging out with your friends of the opposite sex is innocent and done in a platonic manner only. If that is the case, maybe you can try to help your partner understand that. This can work in your relationship as long as your time spent with your partner far exceeds the time spent with any of your friends; that is, after all, what being in a dating relationship is all about. We need to get our priorities straight.