Bisexual people: Is it okay for me to have friends?

Not everybody is a potential sexual partner. Having friends of any gender is fine. If you start getting any non-platonic feelings, take a step back. If your friend starts getting (or demonstrating) non-platonic feelings, take a step back.

Nope, I have lots of friends who have best friends of both genders outside of their partners. If anything, it’s good to have these relationships since you’re not putting everything (and all of your needs) just on your partner. It’s good to be able to spread our relationships and needs around a bit. If anything, if you’re boyfriend was insecure about it, then that’d be an insecurity on his side. It’s healthy to have friendships. It’s not like you two are flirting or getting any romantic or sexual energy from each other (it isn’t always from sex). I give two thumbs up for friends!

1. It is ok to have best friends of either genders.
2. What your boyfriend is describing is very common. Cheating is very common.

I have beautiful and nice female coworkers, my wife have beautiful and nice male clients. We both spend a lot of time with those people. The possibility of getting in love is high. That is we talk about some facts:

1. People do fall in love. Even people in happy relationships fall in love with other people. This is common. (Early stages of falling in love happened to me and to my wife before)
2. Relationships have its ups and downs.
3. The more time you spend with someone (friends, coworkers, neighbors,…) the more likely is to develop feelings for that person. Those feelings might be temporary. Those feeling can only happen in one of the friends.

So it is not hard to see how having a low point in a relationship might lead to growing romantic feelings to our close friends.

My parents were best friends. While neither were in a relationship at the time, my father developed feelings for my mom. Just recently my mom got aware that my father has been hiding his feeling for a year before he made a move. He did not want to destroy the relationship they had. He waited until he was sure the feeling became mutual.

This story describes nothing wrong. Just a way how people grow together and how beautiful relationships are often born.

Because of this reality me and my wife developed few rules:

1. We do not discuss unsolved relationship issues with anyone but ourselves.
2. We spend a lot of time working on our relationship.
3. If we start developing feelings for someone we talk about it. This stops the enchantment and some feelings are already gone. We decide on a strategy for those feelings to not grow further. Usually temporary mental distancing from that person is enough. And certainly we do not share those feelings with a person in question.

Openness, transparency and also having a strategy helps us maintain relationship with no jealousy and total trust.

Is there a reason your BF is not your best friend now?

Do you meet each other’s expectations?

What is your best friend offering you that your boyfriend is not. You may want to start there when thinking about where this relationship is going.

Insecurities cause bad interpretations.

Nothing wrong. Why would it be? sounds like your boyfriend is joking, but I would advise to keep a tab on that. Someone trying to undermine your already existing friendships is usually a big red flag.

Of course its not bad. You can be friends with whoever you want. Even if he was into you, would it matter as long as you dont cheat on your bf? He doesnt own you.

If you were single, and you said to best friend “Hey im totally into you and want to get together” would he say “no no no, I think of you like a sister”?

Pretty safe to say the answer is no.

That being the case, is what you have really a friendship, or something else?

Not bad at all. You know there’s nothing more going on.

It’s always great to have good friends, regardless of details like gender. The more love in the world, the better. If you and your best friend have known each other since age 12, it sounds like he’s had plenty of time to tell you if he has romantic feelings for you. If he hasn’t, it sounds to me like he’s happy with the kind of relationship you have now.

Honestly, make sure you show your boyfriend your lemmy posts lusting after him if you haven’t; he’ll be on top of the world and feel very secure!

He’s not wrong though, your friend might have unrealistic ideas about how things could go in the future…you’re the best person to judge that! If you think there’s something there then you’d better talk about it sooner than later! I do think that’s a special thing worth thinking about in this situation that makes it a little different from a different friendship.

Waiting for turn: could be true, could be false. Neither would surprise me.

There is no universally correct answer if it’s wrong or not. By the sound of it it’s fine in your case.

I’m pansexual with friends of all genders. I would be delighted if they were all attracted to me, too.

At the same time I’d be pretty pissed off if anyone tried to reduce my close friendships to someone “just waiting their turn” like I’m a damn ride at a faire.

No.

Guys, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think y’all are really trying to sleep with all your friends, right? You do have friends who are like sisters not people you can see as partners?

I don’t have a best friend who isn’t my husband but am friends with straight men who aren’t my husband. My old boss comes over sometimes, we hang out, we are absolutely not into each other in ‘that way’. The brother of my ex, same. Just good friends.

Also, if you’ve already established that your boyfriend doesn’t care, why are you asking? If it’s his belief that all guys are absolutely indiscriminate and would always try with any of their friends, maybe ask him if that’s how he feels about all his friends who are women?

People have different boundaries and beliefs than you do.

That’s fine.

Not everyone is the same or should be. If you are happy doing you than do you. Don’t worry about what other people are doing. They are not you.