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| Is he cheating? |
| Saturday, 02 July 2011 12:13 |
| digg What to do when all his pals are gals By Sharifa Kalokola THE CITIZEN He has all the right moves, he is smart, considerate, bighearted, attractive, and he communicates. Put simply, he is everything that a woman wants in a man, except for one thing - his best friend is a girl. A very pretty girl, in fact, she could pass for a model. Even though they are just friends, do you need to worry about their relationship? Maybe not but many women feel threatened when they are dating a man with female friends. Take for instance, Radhia Jafar, a 28-year-old assistant accountant at a logistics firm. Radhia has just broken up a man she had been with for a year. She believes that a man with lots of female friends is a player unless he is completely honest about his associations with them. "I am not the controlling type. I wouldn't insist that a man stops seeing his female friends, but only if he justifies their friendship," she says. In the relationship that just ended, her boyfriend never introduced his female friends. Radhia soon became irritated by the endless phone calls and text messages from unidentified women who pestered her ex incessantly. "I felt insecure whenever he chatted with his girls. He was such a pain," she says. But she put up with all his excuses until one day she spotted him at the cinema in line for a movie – with a gorgeous female on his arm. "I'm a grown woman so I didn't lose my cool and create a scene. I just brushed it off." But she confronted the culprit later. "At first he denied it but after a whole he admitted that the woman was ‘just' a co-worker." Radhia finally decided to end the romance when further investigation revealed that he was having sex with the co-worker. "When it comes to man you can call me selfish if you want, I do not share men," she says. "It's not healthy. I don't want to catch any sexually transmitted infections. And besides, I would be insecure and depressed. Why would I hurt myself, while there are so many good men out there?" she asks. Irresistible attraction Friendship between a man and woman can be tricky especially in a patriarchal society like ours. It has been the accepted thing that men and women, who are friends, are also lovers. But in the modern world, both in the workplace and socially, men and women are mingling more and more, without necessarily having strings attached. In a study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, more than 150 professional men and women were asked what they liked and disliked about their cross-sex friendships. What women most disliked was the sexual tension that creeps into platonic relationships. Men, on the other hand, more frequently replied that sexual attraction was a prime reason for initiating a friendship, and that it could even deepen a friendship. Whatever the reasons, 62 per cent of all subjects interviewed reported that sexual tension was present in their cross-sex friendships.This is why relationship psychologist Dismass Lyassa discourages committed couples from having cross-sex friendships outside the core relationship. "As Tanzanians we have our own distinct set of ethics - we do not get close to people of different gender unless we are romantically involved. Close interactions raise suspicion about the nature of the relationship. It is better for a man to keep a distance from his female friends because in reality, few will understand their interaction," she says. Lyassa agrees that cross-sex relationships can quickly become sexual. We are just friends But for some women like Paulina Lymo, who runs a grocery, there is nothing wrong with a man having female friends. She has never been suspicious about her husband's girl friends. Granted, they have only been married for four months. "My husband has friends across both gender lines, and it has never occurred to me that he would cheat. I know all his female friends because I live by a simple principle which is that I must know who they are and they must respect my marriage," says the 26-year-old. But this doesn't mean that she doesn't get jealous or intimidated. Just recently, her husband mentioned the name of a woman who was not on the list. "I know Diana, Fadya and many others, but this new one Jacky, the one he's been talking about lately, makes me worry. I've been trying to push him to tell me who she is but all he will say is that they are just friends." Paulina does not let her jealousy even though her husband's "pals" are mostly female. "He's a gentle chap who likes to hear about people's feelings, a soft and humorous man," she says. There were women in his past According to sociologist Gloria Macha, a man's history will determine whom he befriends. "Some men keep their friends for a lifetime and some of those friends might be women. Any woman who wants to keep her relationship must respect a man's lifelong friendships," she says. Gloria insists that it is possible for a man and a woman to be best friends without benefits. "If you really must investigate the nature of your partner's involvement with his female friends, make a joke about asking so that you sound relaxed. He will be freer with you if you don't sound like you're interrogating him. And you will probably find out that the two of them have been just friends for a long time." Recently married, Naima Abbas is doubtful. The 24-year-old stay-at-home wife is suspicious of her husband's best friend because she is a woman. Naima and her husband dated for six months before they got married and for that entire period, the best friend was a threat. "They would call each other intimate nick names that made me feel out of place. I got even more worried when I found out that she was single. And it really hurt me one night, when he slept over at her house after a soccer game (Mhhhh! ).When I asked him, he said that they had been childhood friends. I've been forced to accept the friendship but there is one condition: he cannot sleep at her house," she says. It's not all about sex According to relationship expert Jaykesh Rathod, sex is not always on a man's list of priorities. "A man can be friends with a girl without having a physical attraction. And even for those who might be physically attracted, there is the capacity to value certain character and personality traits over sexual adventure. Men and women can be friends and not lovers." But Rathod admits that for women, it is natural to get jealous when their men are close to female friends. "Many women get nervous, distressed and extremely anxious when their men are around women. But most times there is no need to worry because some men are capable of being just friends with women," he says. "Regardless, a woman should be honest about how she is feeling, and also seek to understand the root of a man's friendship with another woman. Communication is the key to success in a relationship." |
