Can Men and Women be friends?
There are those that will say, "NO" and there are those that will say, "Yes".
Personally, I think that men and women can be friends but there are a lot of rules and regulations that come along with that. I am married and don't have a problem with my husband having female friends. I don't have a problem with him talking to them on a regular basis or messaging with them on the computer. Where I draw the line is with being 'friends' or 'friending' complete strangers online. To some extent it isn't a problem, but when you 'friend' someone on a networking website and 90% of that person's pictures are what I call 'white trash Playboy' poses with close ups on thei r boobs - then we have a problem. The funny thing about that is that I am fine with Playboy and don't have a problem with porn, but its the random woman laying across her bed and posting her pictures online and friending this person and that that I have a problem with. The women who pose in Playboy or do porn are open and honest and make some money at it - those other women, just seem trashy to me.
So, why is this coming up you ask? Well, I have this girlfriend, Mandy. She is married, loves her husband very much and would never cheat on him, but she has always been a little anxious about her husband's computer usage. She has said that he is
ALWAYS on 'social networking' sites and messaging with 'friends'. For a long time she has just let it go - she feels confident that he is not having an affair, but she (like me) doesn't feel that all of the 'friends' that he is talking to are really appropriate. Recently Mandy was on the computer that she and her husband share, she went to check her email but when the site came up there was an account still logged in. It was her husband's. She was just going to shut it down but when she moved the mouse she caught a glimpse of the first email. It was from one of those baby websites - you know the ones that you go to when you are pregnant and want to know what's going on inside your belly. Mandy told me that she immediately started to cry because she remembered that she and her husband had gotten pregnant last year. Unfortunately, Mandy lost the pregnancy just a few days after taking the test. Even though it was for the best in the long run, she was devistated. Okay back to the point...when Mandy saw this she cried but was also so happy and fell in love with her husband all over again because she realized that he had gone online in those few short days and signed up to receive emails and updates so that he would be able to share in the experience with Mandy. However, as she was scrolling through the list of emails she saw emails from one of those 'social networking' sites with subjects like "______ is now your friend". Out of curiosity she clicked on the email and followed the link to the website where she was met with the white trash Playboy photos. At this point all of that new found love for her husband went out the window. She was upset and felt all of that old anxiety coming back to her. She is not sure how to bring up the subject to her husband. She doesn't want to start an argument but she wants him to understand that this makes her uncomfortable.
What to do? What to do?
