Back in newsletter #25 I talked about platonic friendships between men and women and why I personally have a policy to never have 1:1 personal friendships with women. A lot of Christians advocate these friendships, but I’ve rarely seen them lead to anything but disaster.
If you aren’t convinced, look at what just happened to Dallas megachurch pastor Matt Chandler. He’s been placed on leave for text messages (actually, Instagram DM messages) sent between him and a woman who was not his wife. According to the church, the two were not having an affair, the messages were neither sexual nor romantic, both of their spouses knew about the messages, and Chandler himself is the one who told the church elders about them. But he was still suspended and may well end up sacked.
This should give you a sense of the risk of having any sort of opposite sex friendship.
Ironically, one of the big advocates for opposite gender friendships is Jen Wilkin of Chandler’s Village Church, who actually argues that not only can we have these relationships, but we must have them.
There’s dangers for both parties, but in a #MeToo world, the danger is especially high for men. Even if you objectively do nothing wrong, simply being accused is to be convicted today, even if it’s for something totally subjective like making a woman feel uncomfortable.
We don’t have the full story on what happened with Chandler. Maybe he did say something he shouldn’t have. Or maybe more stuff will come out. I’m sure the advocates of opposite sex friendships will say something like, “Just don’t do bad things, and you won’t have and problems.”
Well, a) that’s not necessarily true and b) any approach that depends on the perfection of human behavior for its success is one that is, at its core, not Christian.
You don’t have to be a religious man to realize that you are playing with fire when you put yourself in these situations. We can’t and shouldn’t try avoid all risk in life. Sometimes we need to take on very high risks. But given the lack of any real possible upside, this is a crazy one to take on. As I wrote:
Some of these may be remote possibilities. But if one of these “black swan” events happens to you, it could be life-destroying. Given the instability of male-friendships as a “just friends” situation, a negative outcome of some sort appears to be the most likely scenario. Very bad outcomes are not uncommon.
There’s one interesting detail in this case, namely that this was based on social media direct messages. My phone number isn’t that hard to track down, but most people don’t have it and so can’t just text me. But anyone can “slide into my DMs” as they say. Because of the nature of my work, I leave mine open to anyone so I can be sent information. But if you don’t need strangers to be able to contact you that way, locking down your DMs to only people you follow might be a good idea.
It’s your life and you get to make the decisions about how to live it. It’s a free country and I fully respect people’s rights to make their own choices. But this Chandler situation validates completely my approach and what I sad about the dangers of opposite sex friendships back in newsletter #25. I even cite Matt Chandler in it!
My initial feeling would be that apart from the dangers in a "gotcha" culture, one would think that there is something wrong in a world where men and women can't just be friends.
My perspective is to be sure colored by the fact I am a single man, not young, and now don't expect to be married and not seeking a mate (or, obviously, a hookup or casual sex partner). But I like feminine company and conversation, maybe more than male company. Again, no doubt true because I am unmarried.
Were I married, I'd have some pretty serious question if my wife were good friends with another man. I would have to know him and have the feel of the situation. I am in the opposite position as I work in a husband/wife-owned business as their only employee and am friends with both owners, but the woman is in her mid-seventies and thus past the age where romantic interest might be a factor.
But yeah, it can be problematic. I have one female friend in whom I had some romantic interest, which wasn't going to work out anyway and she is in a pretty committed (as far as I can tell) relationship with a guy which involves her flying from Seattle to NY where he is for 10 days every month. And I am totally fine that we are not romantically involved, wouldn't work anyway, 17 year age difference (I'm older) and I am not especially what she wants, but we do music together and there is a connection there. I
As a woman in a very male-heavy field (and with a husband-colleague too), I have come to similar realizations about the general perception of male-female relationships - after 12 years of schooling in this field, where my male peers were also my friends, I'm now in a very different phase in work where that is not the case in the same way - not only because of various age differences, but being married to one of their colleagues, and the obvious physical differences with periodic pregnancy. Of course if my male colleagues want to hang out, and can only invite one of us because of watching our kids, they are going to ask my husband - it would be weird not to.
That being said, I would say I'm somewhere between a good colleague and friend to all of my male colleagues (and they are almost all male, and we are a tight-knit group). I think this has some benefits regarding the predominantly-female trait of vulnerability. From my outsider perspective, it seems to me that society encourages a very stoic view of masculinity, where feelings and struggles aren't shared outside of married relationships (and even then, it is difficult!). But, I find that a few colleagues will periodically open up to me in a more personal way - about the intersection of work and life/health challenges, or - for my one unmarried colleague - his struggles with loneliness and failed relationships (which he has said is cathartic). Maybe these aren't really friendships - maybe it's more like a service. It's not something I seek out or encourage, and it is definitely a bit of a cross given that I know I won't ever be a "hey, let's go out for dinner", 1:1 friend, not to mention I'm pretty stoic myself. But I've seen it as a lonely privilege to provide my service in our group in this way by virtue of my femininity.