Can Men Really Just Be Friends With Women?

00:00 Can men really just be friends with women? Yes, I love this topic. Welcome to the Johnny Jensen show, where modern dads discover how to create the true riches, relationships and results they deserve. Get your high value man blueprint and join our community at highvalue manproject.com. Let's go. Men, hello, welcome to the Johnny Jensen show. I am the founder and head coach of the High Value Man Project and it is great to have you here on this episode of the podcast. Can men really just be friends with women? Yes, I love this topic.

00:45 If you are, it just depends on your age, but seeing as we're all pretty much midlife men, you will be familiar with the movie When Harry Met Sally and that immortal conversation in the car ride. In fact, it goes all the way through the movie about whether men can indeed just be friends with women. And we will get into that. Relationships is one of the core elements of the High Value Man project. If you, in fact, you will find it as the R in the fire code for relationships, not surprisingly. And our relationships, yes, our wife or our significant other, our children, obviously, then our friends and family, and then our mentors and network.

01:27 So our relationship with women falls into most likely your wife or partner and clearly, as far as this conversation goes, in terms of friendships. Now, men, if you are experiencing a life that isn't quite how you want it to be, you know, you've got success. You're probably a business owning dad or a career-minded man. That's why you'll be listening to this podcast, watching this live video. But if you're experiencing some level of frustration in your life, like some things are working, but this area is stuck, then that's the midlife malaise that happens to so many of us.

02:04 And it is down to you to take control of the situation. It is down to you to step up and be the man for yourself, first and foremost, and then leading in those other relationships in your business, in fact, everywhere in life, because who you show up as determines the results that you get. It determines the experience of life that you have. And waiting for everybody else, let alone blaming everybody else, is not going to work. So it is on you to step up. And here inside the High Value Man Project, we address these matters in a way that empowers, encourages, and has you look at yourself in a whole new way, in a high value way.

02:44 Too many men walking around with the miseries and we are here to stop that right now for yourself, for your children, for your partner. Like we get, what, 80 odd years going around this rock? 80 summers, 80 Christmases. Don't you owe it to yourself to have the best life possible. So, and this actually falls well into that, right? Can you have a friendship, just a friendship with women? I have had many really important friendships in my life, powerful friendships, close friendships. Some of the best people I know on this earth are women.

03:24 And if I was going to presume that I couldn't have been friends with those people, then the experience of my life would be nothing like what it is. And if we're talking about our children, you know, and them growing up, having a true understanding of the dynamics of men and women, great if you've got a sister, you know, pretty much all of us are going to have a mum, right? But if you've got a sister or you're close to a cousin, then yeah, you might have that female connection. But having that strong network of friends, men and women, we'll talk in an upcoming episode about male-male relationships, the importance of male friendships. But this is about the importance of female friendships. There's a whole side of you that

04:12 from the reflection that comes back off of women to know who you are, to how you're showing up. Like what are some of your attitudes and ways of being like for women? And if you're not spending enough time around women, let alone building those relationships, but at the basic level, spending enough time around women and then building those relationships and friendships, then how could you possibly hope to get that feedback loop going? How could you possibly hope to have a degree of self-awareness about, let alone confidence of being around women, but it's self-awareness of how you're showing up. So on those basic levels, having female friends is vital. But for me as well,

04:54 just the fun, the sheer fun. of being able to laugh and joke and engage with women on that level. Because if the only person you engage with on that level is your wife, then it's like one-dimensional. The likelihood of you getting it right is literally one in a million because there's only one. So, you know, you owe it to yourself. You know, if you're going to perfect this thing called life, then you literally owe it to yourself.

05:34 So then some people would say, and I was actually part of a church, and I dare say this exists in other churches, but it was frowned upon. The idea that a married man could be friends with a single woman was heavily frowned upon. And, you know, that would fall into the Harry Matt Sally realms of, yeah, but you always want a banger. And I just don't see that as being true. You know, like, do you, it's just ridiculous. And if you can't control yourself, if you can't control those urges, you know, then what kind of a man are you?

06:17 We're talking about here high value living. Like you, you can't control yourself. You can't stop yourself having these sexual urges where you want to shag every woman you come into contact with. It's just not true. And, you know, I was out for lunch with my dad this week and one of his oldest friends in the world was there. And she was indeed a friend of my mum's as well back in the day. And they were talking about a trip they'd made to America. And my dad's about 82 now. She's about 75.

06:57 So whether this is the norm now or is maybe more of the norm back then, you know, everyone having a go with each other. I mean, back in uni days, we was the ratio to men and women at my uni was pretty skewed against men. And so, you know, you're going to end up dating people that your mates have dated probably before. Let alone wife swapping or anything else like that might go on. But my dad and his mate, they're like, no, we never have. It's never even got close to happening. And so people are surprised by that. Oh, but didn't you go out with him? Didn't you go out with him? Didn't you do like, well, yeah, I did, but not with him.

07:39 He's my mate. You know, whether I go for my friends Vic, from my friends Joe, from my friend Tricia, you know, these are women who've been in my life since I was a kid, you know, since literally Vic and Trish. I've known Trish since I was about nine years old. I've known Vic since I was about 12 years old. I've known Joe since we went to university. And whilst we don't see those people as much as I'd like to right now, there was a significant moment in my life where those friendships were close.

08:21 They weren't intimate on a sexual level, but they were intimate on a friendship level in terms of trust, in terms of conversation, in terms of someone to turn to, a shoulder to cry on, let alone someone to get pissed with and have a bloody good laugh with. And if you are thinking, I can't be friends with women, or if you're in a relationship where she's like, you can't be friends with women, or if you're in a bloody church where they're telling you you can't be friends with women, it's for me, that's not high value at all. It's completely and utterly wrong. Why would you miss out on half

09:02 our species? When you put it like that, it's not, why would you miss out on, like, there's two sides of our species, male and female? Why would you miss out on a whole other half of it? And for you, being able to engage with women, being able to have fun with women, being able to show up as a man who has his solid marriage or relationship, significant other, and then being able to socialize and benefit from the friendships of women around you, then you are a more rounded man. You are a more rounded father. So how do we control ourselves? I mean, if you are sexually unable to control yourself, then you've got, it's not about whether you can be friends with women or not.

09:46 You've got other issues, right? Is that a problem inside of your relationship? Is it your connection and relationship? to sex? Have you got a porn problem? Like, it's not about, oh, no, I can't be friends with women. You've got to look at yourself. This is always in terms of high-value men. What we come to is, how can I look at myself? What can I be responsible for? Where is the change that I need to make? And when you are able to say to yourself, this is what this is, and this is what that is, and they're completely different. This is what my intimate relationship is, and this is what my friendship relationship is.

10:26 And if when getting drunk or if when like being out, if during a tough time you find yourself unable to not turn to that person and want to kiss them or something, then you've got work to do. Because if you're if what's at stake in your life, in terms of your children, in terms of your relationship, if what's at stake isn't big enough, then again, it's not about you being friends with the woman, it's about your attitude to what's important, it's about your why. So how do we manage this? It's not complicated.

11:05 It's as simple as if you've got female friends, you know, being clear to them about what this is. And to be fair, that doesn't even need saying sometimes. I can think of one particular friend of mine who we did kiss a couple of times and it was weird. It was like kissing. I love never kiss my sister like that, but it was, it just felt like, oh, okay, well, we're not doing that then. And okay, yeah, so maybe that with someone else when that happened. It was more like, you know, friends, some of the best relationships do come from a friendship first.

11:54 But just to make sure I keep this on track, they're two different things. When you're friends with someone, when you're not in a relationship, of course, stuff can happen because you're not committed to somebody else. But when you're in that committed relationship, then I just don't see personally from my experience in life, I don't see where those, you know, but we're talking about marriage or long-term relationships here, right? But it's not a boundary that a high-value man would naturally cross. So as we get towards the end of this episode, who are the friends you've got

12:36 of the opposite sex? What do they mean to you? When was the last time you spoke to them? When was the last time you went out with them? And actually, I suppose a subject that is important here is what to do if your partner does have an issue with that. Because if your partner has an issue with your female friendships, then what you've actually got there, unless you've let her down in the past, then you've got some work to do to repair that. But unless you, if that never happened, then you've fundamentally got a trust issue going on in your relationship. And that's what is there to be spoken about. What's missing here that you don't trust me? What was the experience you've had with someone else that leads you to think that I would do the same?

13:18 Where's the concern here? Where's the foundations of our relationship and what do we need to do about those? Are they feeling jealous? Are they feeling threatened? It's about the time you're spending with them. They're the kind of responsibilities that you can take. You see, you have to look at the situation, not just from what's like right up here, really close. You have to step back and take a bigger perspective on it because that's where you realize and see where the weaknesses are in your own self and your values or where the weaknesses is in your significant relationship. And having her feel like you've heard her concerns, having her see from you that they don't need to be there.

14:00 And it's not a one-time thing or I've told you before. No. It's about recognizing that having a healthy social life, having a circle of friends of both men and women makes you a better man. And if you being a better man is good for your partner, then she should be happy about that. But you have to give her the confidence and trust in it. So relationships is a vital part of the high value man process. It's the R in the fire code, making quality time for your friends, having people over from dinner, going out for a coffee with someone, like keeping those connections alive is a part of who you are and how you show up.

14:42 It's a part of how you lead in your family and a remote role model for your kids. And it also reminds me that there's probably a couple of people. that I should give a call or send a text to later today. Keep in touch with your friends. Don't let friendships die. Sooner or later, you're going to be wondering where they've all gone. Loneliness is a choice and the relationships with both men and in particular women are vital. I hope this has been of value to you. Come and get yourself into the high value man group. You simply go to johnnyjenson.com forward slash group and that will get you in there. It'll get you straight onto the Facebook group. And if you are ready to level up and create the life you want rather than the life you feel stuck in, then get the high value man blueprint by commenting hashtag man or dropping me a message in the DMs and we will look after you.

15:35 I'll see you next time. Ah, be sure to like and share and comment, leave a review. Help me spread the word of the work we're doing at High Value Man Project so that we can support men across the world and have the families, their children being loved and supported by the man you deserve to be. Let's go. Thanks for tuning in to the Johnny Jensen show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with fellow dads. Creating the life you deserve starts with you. Get your high value man blueprint and join our community of motivated modern dads at highvalumanproject.com. Let's go.