Is it wrong for a girl to go out with male friends while being in a relationship?

[Selinde]

Hello MMO-Champ community, I was wondering what do you think about an issue that keeps coming up to me. Basically, is it wrong for a girl who is in a relationship to go out 1 on 1 with her male friends? The answer may or may not be obvious to you, but the people around me are frowing upon me for this and saying that my behaviour is ambiguous, that I don't know "how society works" and if "something happens" (i.e rape) it's partially my fault. I was wondering, is it really like that? Am I missing something obvious here?

Personally I think that victims of rape can't ever be blamed for it and I, having experienced sexual assault a year ago from one of my friends (not rape), know how you feel when someone says "Well, he deserves to be beaten but you deserve a slap for going out with him in the first place while already having a boyfriend". It was not a romantic date, we've met through WoW and have been online friends for 1 or 2 years prior to him moving to my city to attend a specific university, plus he used to get along with my boyfriend very well.

In spite of this I still continue to go out with my male friends 1 on 1. I know that cross-sex friendships are often based on sexual attraction and I know that given the chance a lot of my friends would have sex with me. I'd need to be completely naive to ignore this fact. But as things stands right now we are just friends and those are not romantic dates.
My boyfriend accepts it while not completely approving of it, but my relatives and one or two friends are questioning my actions and letting me know they think I'm a whore without saying so outright, and it's getting on my nerves. So I was wondering, what do you think?

[Hyve]

Urm ... No, it isn't at all.

If you don't trust your girlfriend enough to go out with her mates, then just leave her as either you're a control freak, or she has done something to destroy your trust in her, and trust is essential to a relationship.

Either way, you're bad for her, or she is bad for you.

[Soisoisoi]

It's fine for anyone to go out with either sex of their friends, even if they're in a relationship. If you don't trust each other you might as well break up.

As for the rape, well... That's obviously the person doing the raping's fault, but honestly, it doesn't help when people put themselves in that sort of position, i.e. dressing skimpy and getting so out of their head they don't even know until they next day, with someone who is also intoxicated.

[Lucifer Morningstar]

While I find it completely normal for a girl to go out with a male friend (1on1 and without her bf), I personally would not accept it if it were my gf.

If I was in your position, I would just disregard whatever anyone else thinks and do what I think is the right thing to do. It's not a life threatening issue.

[marthsk]

It's not wrong per se. You're not your boyfriend's property. Nor is he your property either.

As for the rape thing, why would it be your fault? How are you supposed to be able to tell who's being straight with you and who has ulterior motives? That's unrealistic.

Of course, it also depends. If you go out, dressed in a provocative way, then you need to be aware of what your image projects, and decide if this is something you wish to deal with or not. You don't want to deal with the risks it entails? Then for your own safety, don't dress like that when you go out with male friends. That wouldn't make it more "your fault" per se, but you'd be covering your bases a tad bit more if you avoid dressing like that.

All in all, I don't believe you'd be to blame if a batshit crazy perv would rape you. I don't buy the "you're slightly responsible" lazy-ass rhetoric.

However, if you flirt with the guy, have sex with him, and then falsely claim it was a rape (trust me, there are people like that!), then it's an entirely different ballgame from there. But if you just go out with male friends, who cares? If your boyfriend is too insecure for that, then he has issues to resolve on his own end.

[datboi448]

If your friend is gay, no big deal. The question I have for you is why are you not spending that time with your boyfriend? I'm assuming that hes at work or something that you can't be with him. Otherwise, if he is not preoccupied with the chores of life then you should be hanging out with him in my humble opinion. As a last resort maybe just be straight up with your friend and let him know that you don't want a relationship beyond friendship.

[Noomz]

Hello MMO-Champ community, I was wondering what do you think about an issue that keeps coming up to me. Basically, is it wrong for a girl who is in a relationship to go out 1 on 1 with her male friends? The answer may or may not be obvious to you, but the people around me are frowing upon me for this and saying that my behaviour is ambiguous, that I don't know "how society works" and if "something happens" (i.e rape) it's partially my fault. I was wondering, is it really like that? Am I missing something obvious here?

Personally I think that victims of rape can't ever be blamed for it and I, having experienced sexual assault a year ago from one of my friends (not rape), know how you feel when someone says "Well, he deserves to be beaten but you deserve a slap for going out with him in the first place while already having a boyfriend". It was not a romantic date, we've met through WoW and have been online friends for 1 or 2 years prior to him moving to my city to attend a specific university, plus he used to get along with my boyfriend very well.

In spite of this I still continue to go out with my male friends 1 on 1. I know that cross-sex friendships are often based on sexual attraction and I know that given the chance a lot of my friends would have sex with me. I'd need to be completely naive to ignore this fact. But as things stands right now we are just friends and those are not romantic dates.
My boyfriend accepts it while not completely approving of it, but my relatives and one or two friends are questioning my actions and letting me know they think I'm a whore without saying so outright, and it's getting on my nerves. So I was wondering, what do you think?

As long as the guy she's dating doesn't feel neglected or unfavored.

[Coffer]

Depends on how possessive and controlling you are and how much you trust said girl. There's no objectively true answer.

[Frozenbeef]

The majority of my friends are female and they have boyfriends 0o

[Deleted]

Why would it be wrong? I'd leave anyone who tried to control who I can go out with.

[marthsk]

Depends on how possessive and controlling you are and how much you trust said girl. There's no objectively true answer.

You do realize that OP is the girl in this situation, right?

[Deleted]

Men and women can be friends? Wow that's news to me.

[Doktor Faustus]

Threads like this make me question where people are 'educating' themselves.

Before the dawn of social media and websites like Wikipedia (especially in the 'West'), mankind seemed to have much more common sense.

[marthsk]

Threads like this make me question where people are 'educating' themselves.

Before the dawn of social media and websites like Wikipedia (especially in the 'West'), mankind seemed to have much more common sense.

I beg to differ; it was the same. There was just no way to expose it.

[Arainie]

As long as your boyfriend is okay with it I don't see any problems at all with it, and yes I'm a guy. In fact, as long as you do it with modestry and not every single day not even your boyfriend has anything to say about it, if he won't let you have friends of the opposite sex there's an issue with him and not with you.

[zoefschildpad]

If your friend is gay, no big deal. The question I have for you is why are you not spending that time with your boyfriend? I'm assuming that hes at work or something that you can't be with him. Otherwise, if he is not preoccupied with the chores of life then you should be hanging out with him in my humble opinion. As a last resort maybe just be straight up with your friend and let him know that you don't want a relationship beyond friendship.

Why would being in a relationship with someone have to mean spending every possible minute with that person? That would seriously drive me nuts...

[Kisho]

You choose who you spend your time with. People can choose to be friends with whomever they wish. People may judge, but they are wrong. Society's rules are entirely stupid, judgemental, and outdated anyway.

Furthermore, as you say, rape victims are NEVER to blame for getting raped. Never. Not even in the slightest. There's no 'she shouldn't have worn that', or 'she shouldn't have spent time with that person', or ANYTHING that puts ANY blame on the victim. I have no idea why your friends and family are bringing rape up anyway. If they're expecting you to get raped, either you're hanging out with the entirely wrong people (which would explain their concerns), or they have some really screwed up and frankly paranoid delusions that they should probably get some therapy for.

The only thing to add is that if you expect to be able to hang out with male friends alone, then you should expect your boyfriend to do the same with his female friends. But it sounds like you'd be ok with this anyway, so it's all good.

I have a female friend who I hang out with a lot, and would fully expect to be able to continue doing so if either one of us started dating (and indeed we have hung out, just the two of us, while one or both of us were in separate relationships). Nobody has raised an issue with it. The only comment along those lines that I've heard is people asking if we're dating. We're not, we never will, and it's fine; we're friends. So for obvious reasons, the OP's scenario is perfectly fine with me.

[Deleted]

Women and men can't be friends, there will be always sexual tension, when you realise that you will know the answer.

[Coffer]

You do realize that OP is the girl in this situation, right?

I'm talking about any similar situation, not just the OP's. Hers is no different.

[Jackmoves]

I still meet up my girl friend for coffee or lunch etc on a regular basis. We both got SOs. I don't really see anything particularly wrong in that. We've known eachother for many years, been flat mates... so there are very few secrets there. You heard shit you don't wanna hear when you share a flat(drunken sex for example lol), thank god for whoever invented the headphones.

But it depends on the nature of the friendship, I'd say me and my girl friend are more like siblings then potential lovers, there is no physical attraction, she looks good, I can admit that, but I've never really wanted to pork her lol

When we were younger I thought she had a thing for me because she has always been quite critical of girls I've dated or liked but she has been cool with my girlfriend from day one pretty much(4 years now).

About the rape thing, I don't get what you mean here, are you worried that your friend will rape you? Do you get that vibe from him? If so why would you hang out with him?