Falsely Extrapolating Motivations Behind Relationships With The Opposite Gender

There are false philosophical ideas that stop some from accepting that men and women can be close platonic friends, like gender stereotypes or the idea that sexuality is an omnipresent, overpowering force of human existence that inevitably enslaves every person.  There are also random personal assumptions that some people make about the subject without even having ever reflected on the issue of opposite gender friendships very thoroughly.  Moreover, there are some people who simply have difficulties in desiring, forming, or continuing platonic relationships with the other gender and then pretend like reason and reality are behind them when they pretend that this is true of everyone else.  This kind of person is useful for little more than serving as an example of how irrational making assumptions is.

It is possible that some people who oppose opposite gender friendships or perceive them with irrationally motivated caution are aware that they, as individuals, have trouble seeing anyone of the opposite gender (except perhaps family members or the very young or elderly) as anything more than sources of sexual or romantic gratification--and they assume that anyone who says or acts as if they do not have the same tendencies must be lying, naive, or stupid.  The truth is that the person who thinks men and women cannot or should not be friends is the self-deceitful, naive, and stupid one.  It takes only a few moments of rational thought to realize that there is absolutely nothing logically impossible or even probabilistically unlikely about opposite gender friendships.

If a person thinks that anyone else must have a trait that is not logically necessary to be human in the first place, they have made an assumption.  They have either assumed that other people must personally mirror them or that they do not.  Both are asinine mistakes that non-rationalists can deceive themselves and others with.  In either case, there is nothing but fallacious lies that someone who thinks opposite gender friendships are unlikely or impossible could ever appeal to.  If they do not have trouble thinking of the opposite gender as more than a romantic or sexual pastime, why would they assume other people do?  If they do have such troubles, why would they assume other people share their weakness?

There is no way that these extrapolations or assumptions are anything more than the false pretense of knowledge about other people or outright false notions about how men and women can relate to each other.  The logical possibility of opposite gender friendships--regardless of marital or dating status or even the potential presence of sexual attraction--could be easily understood by anyone who was not already a slave to assumptions.  It is a further testament to the stupidity of some people that they will think others must share their same motivations, desires, and perceptions or misperceptions, both with regards to opposite gender friendships or anything else.  No truth about the possibility of such friendships itself, as opposed to truths about people's responses to the issue, is grounded in how any individual thinks or behaves.