<p><pre><code> researchers brought 88 pairs of undergraduate opposite-sex friends into…a science lab.
</code></pre>
Ok, so this research has nothing to do with men or women - just horny near-adults.
FYI, this is from 2012, The paper is under the link "New research"[1].<p>1: <a href="http://bleske-rechek.com/April%20Website%20Files/Bleske-Rechek%20et%20al.%202012%20Benefit%20or%20Burden.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://bleske-rechek.com/April%20Website%20Files/Bleske-Rech...</a>
First off, this is too vague of a generalization based on their sample size. It makes for a nice casual read but I can't take it too seriously. Though, I must note, my anecdotal experience also makes me think this is more of a norm.<p>This also agrees with observed primate behaviors. Males have an incentive to identify potential mates while female have incentive to pick one out of the many available. (Male can impregnate many females in a year, female can only bear one child at a time.)<p>Friendship and romance also have overlapping characteristics. Example: "bromance" where it's not sexual but outsiders might see characters typically associated with romance.<p>It's too big of a topic and I would probably write an essay.
Ya, I don't buy this. I know this is just my experience, but I've had plenty of "just friends" who were members of the opposite sex, and nothing bad ever happened.
Apparently the writer of the article can not comprehend the difference between attraction and action.<p>I can find someone attractive without trying to have sex with them. Men and women can be "just friends", and this is not incompatible with "men are more likely to find friends sexually attractive."<p>Whether this is due to biology, sociology, culture, or space aliens is anyone's guess.
About 1/2 of my friends are female. Over the years, I've had a few of my expressions of interest rejected. However, I've had quite a few female friends "give up because I didn't get the message they were interested". I've been abused, called stupid, asked if I was gay, etc by female friends who were interested in me. I once had to ask a mutual (female) friend what happened because I couldn't get a word out of one woman. "You can't be THAT dumb, can you?".<p>I call bs on this one. I've had too many instances of being explicitly hit on (about 1 in 3 of good female friends at a guess) to believe the "women aren't attracted to male friends".<p>However, I have plenty of female friends who I just like because they are amazing people.