Attraction In Cross-Gender Friendship

Attraction is a powerful impulse, but one misunderstood by many.  In the 21st century American culture, people at large seem to have great difficulty not sexualizing attraction and intimacy, especially between men and women who are not dating, married, or family members.  Instead of combating this illogical error, Christians have exploited this cultural misunderstanding by levying all sorts of fallacious extra-Biblical rules and man-made restrictions on interaction between the two sexes.  But attraction is not inherently sexual or romantic, and physical or romantic attraction does not necessarily bring a terminus to cross-gender friendship.

Attraction is liking something or someone and finding the object of the attraction exciting and pleasurable.  Not all attraction is physical or sexual.  All positive human relationships require some form of attraction to function, and in many relationships this attraction has nothing to do with sexuality or romance.  Even friendships between people of the same gender possess attraction--otherwise the friendships wouldn't even exist.  Not many realize this, partly because many seem to romanticize or sexualize the concept of attraction and have difficulty separating the word from the false context for it which they have either invented themselves or inherited from others.

Even if physical attraction (which is different than perceiving someone to be physically attractive) does arise, nothing about the friendship needs to necessarily change.  If a man and woman in a friendship find each other's bodies attractive, it is not logically necessary that they will be attracted to each other's bodies in a sexual sense.  Likewise, if a man and woman in a friendship enjoy each other's personalities, it is not logically necessary that they are or will become romantically or sexually attracted to each other's personalities.  But if romantic or sexual attraction does arise, the relationship can emerge unscathed and stronger than ever.

So what if a married person with opposite gender friends suddenly experiences physical attraction (remember, I do not mean by this that he/she just thinks the friend is attractive) towards any of the friends?  Overreacting to these feelings is relationally unhealthy, irrational, and assumptive.  There is nothing inherently adulterous or sinful about the presence of these things.  Also, these feelings are not common.  They are not an inescapable outcome.  They do not represent some unavoidable, inevitable hurdle that eventually demands confrontation (I have never experienced any of them thus far in my friendships with women, nor do I believe myself the only person in that category)!  Men and women in this situation need not panic about something insignificant that can fade away.  If such feelings do appear, they can dissipate quickly with ease, with no danger to the relationships between the friends and their potential significant others, if they have any, or to the relationships between the friends themselves developing.  Feelings come and leave, but friendships hinge on more than mere feelings.  Just as I hope that no one bases a marital relationship on nothing but subjective and fleeting feelings, I hope that no one flippantly and speedily changes the dynamic of other relationships, including cross-gender friendships and other relationships, in response to ever-shifting feelings.

Men and women who love each other as best friends will probably find it impossible to view each other as anything else.  Of course, such friendships would not exist without deep attraction and intimate love, but neither is an inherently sexual or romantic thing.  Once a certain threshold is crossed, they will likely have extreme difficulty even imagining the relationship changing into something else.  Reason and experience can confirm with total certainty that this is possible.  Only a fallacious mind or an inexperienced heart would ever believe that intimate non-sexual cross-gender friendship is unattainable.  I do not know why some people have such reluctance in admitting this, as they merely need to think clearly to recognize the truth of the matter.

It is unfortunate that many conservative evangelical Christians ignore simple truths like this and prefer living in fallacious isolated bubbles to engaging in genuine, fulfilling cross-gender friendships.  Society and the congregants of many conservative churches cannot legitimately criticize what they do not comprehend, for to condemn or caution against something one must understand it first.  Truly, other than logic (of course!), nothing can erase the fear and suspicion so often exchanged between the two genders via legalism better than the direct experience of intimate cross-gender friendships.  If people in the church want to truly treat members of the opposite gender as brothers and sisters in Christ, then they will not universally flee from each other out of fear, suspicion, or guilt--they will embrace each other out of respect, love, and joy.