 Buckle in for this video fellas because it is a doozy. This is a topic that's not often discussed but it really should be. Today we're going to be having an honest conversation about female friendships. Now there have been two camps that have metamorphosized out of the ashes that I've identified. The first one is that female friendships are no big deal right? For men it's okay especially as a single guy you know you can be friends with men just like you can be friends with women you can text them you can hang out with them one-on-one there's really no difference maybe there's a little bit of a difference once you get married they might acknowledge that but at least for the single guy no big deal nothing nothing different and then there's another school of thought that would say you really should be careful about female friendships as even a single guy and you can't really even be friends with girls that's not a thing that you should be doing that you can do that's wise to do and in general you should have a lot of boundaries in terms of how you interact with women that you're not in a relationship with and so where do I line up on this topic well for a long time I would have said that men cannot be friends with women especially single guys or not necessarily especially single guys but talking about single guys um you can't be friends with women it just it shouldn't happen you can't do it it's not smart it's not wise and for a little bit there I was almost being convinced the other way around I was almost thinking hey maybe it is possible maybe it is okay but as I've seen time and time again not only in you know my life but the life of other people I've known as well um it is a breeding ground for just miscommunication and also just it doesn't it doesn't breed the kind of good relationships that you actually want and so let me highlight a little bit of some of the boundaries that I think are really important for guys to establish in their relationships with women and in terms of like their maybe their quaintance relationships because I think friend is a high standard or friend is somebody that you would text when you're going through something hard uh or somebody that you when you when you're in you're in a time of need and and you text somebody who's that going to be is that going to be this girl that you're friends with I don't think it should be as a single guy because that's something that's reserved for your brothers your your you know your guy friends your family um or your girlfriend or your wife right and if you're giving that kind of vulnerable information over to them or you know committing your hopes and dreams and sharing them uh with them it's putting them in an awkward position where it almost feels like to them that they could you know be something more right and so one of the big things that I think is important to recognize the reason that I think we can't really be friends with girls at least in the intimate way that we are friends with guys in a sense and maybe that's weird for you to think about but it's true um is because you know where you're at you know okay hey like I don't see this person in this way um you know there's no intention ality there but they they have their own brain they have their own you know the perspective on where this is at and so you don't know where they're at in that and so you just don't want to lead them on or bring any kind of miscommunication there so here are just some of the things that I think are really important for single guys to do and we're going to talk about married guys in a second here and there's a great tick talk that I saw the other day that we should watch together that highlights kind of the the immaturity of some married guys and I you know he can do it better than I can but let's talk about single guys for a second so these are some of the rules that I held pretty strictly as a single guy and maybe you can be benefited from this as well in terms of your interactions with women um don't go out one on one with women this is I know this is kind of controversial I know a lot of Christian guys they don't abide by this um but here's the distinction here's what I'm not talking about I'm not saying you can't go out on dates with girls that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying is if you have no intention to date this girl and if you're not going out on a date you think it's just a friend hangout um then you shouldn't be going one on one that's just my opinion because it's confusing it is it just like the the the optics of it are just confusing and for them even if you clarify with them hey this is not a date by the way I just think that one-on-one context for an extended period time you're having a long deep maybe intimate conversation with them it's not a healthy way and healthy dynamic with this woman men are strong and when a woman is in the presence of a strong godly man they're going to feel comfortable they're going to feel like they can volunteer information and be vulnerable and they look for that safety and that affirmation and that love and as a nice Christian man as a strong Christian man you feel like hey I can give this back to this person um and maybe you think about it in like a friend context you're you're thinking okay I'm giving this person my love my compassion my understanding and but when you're in that intimate context of just you know a long one-on-one conversation conversations are intimate um you're setting yourself up for failure there that's why I just don't do it um and I know a lot of people feel differently about this maybe it's going to take you experiencing your own kind of set of oh realizing maybe that wasn't the best thing to do to stop doing that um but that's just hey from an older brother you know I know I'm not super old but from an older brother to you that's my my advice um also just be careful on opening up about your hopes and dreams I think uh some of us guys that are more communicative and vulnerable open about what we're about and who we are and um we just kind of open up to anybody and so if there's an opportunity to kind of spill our guts out we will uh but I just think that's not necessarily the most healthy thing uh it's it's almost um providing an environment where there's fake intimacy there like it's just kind of forced intimacy we're throwing you know okay hey this is all my stuff and then they kind of throw all their stuff back at us and and maybe that's just kind of a friend thing but now there's that deeper level and if it's just a guy and a girl I just found that it gets tricky it just does because we're different and especially if you're both single then there's those there could be expectations there or something could be developing I'm not saying that you need to be totally paranoid necessarily about like every you know female friendship or acquaintance that you have um but I'm just saying to approach it with wisdom it it does take an extra level of thinking things through I don't think that's wrong um and so you know here's the thing I don't think it's that you can't be friends with girls I think you need to change your definition of what a friend is right so in the context of hey you're all hanging out and you're in group settings and you talk with them every once in a while and you know you're you're having fun and it's like okay hey are you friends with that person sure you're friends with them yeah okay so you can be friends with girls sure but not the type of friend where you're going out one-on-one not the type of friend where you're inviting them over to your apartment for dinner not the type of friend where you're texting them every day or even every week not the type of friend where you're spilling or your guts out to them and your hopes and your dreams and your wants and your desires and your fears and and all that kind of thing like not that type of friend so if we can get that clear then we can all be on the same page yeah you can be friends with girls but not that type of friend now one of the things that I want to encourage you guys towards as well is physical boundaries you don't think about this as often when it comes to female friends but just as something that you know in case you've never been told this um be careful about how much physical contact you have with girls that you are not like just you know they're your sisters in Christ right um if you're always going and being physical with people and touching them and like it's playful and it's fun um I would just recommend you not do that okay like it just it gets real messy real quick in the Bible it says it's it's actually good for a man not to touch a woman and I think it's just because physical touch means so much and it's powerful and so I would just be really I'm not saying you can't you know if you're a hugger you can't give hugs out I'm like I'm not saying that necessarily but what I'm saying is any kind of flirtatious touching and things like that it's just not not the wisest thing I'm not saying this to like cause you guys to question everything necessarily but what I am saying is I want to protect you guys I want to help protect you so you don't have to encounter the pain of doing something that you you thought was okay but then turned out it wasn't right so I'm just trying to protect you guys I'm trying to lead you down a path that's going to be more beneficial for you and the people that are around you honestly so now let's talk about married guys and friendships with women I think this is a little bit more easy for us to wrap our heads around why this would be a negative thing but this fellow in this tiktok lays it out really really well I have a very strict rule when it comes to having female friends and that is if you are not my wife's friend then you are not my friend many of you might see that is an extreme rule to have be that as it may there are reasons for that number one dedicating time to another female that is not my wife just does not make any sense to me number two if this woman is not my wife's friend it means that we have a relationship that to some degree my wife is not aware about tell me if that sounds appropriate for a married man number three I might know my intentions but I will never know her and that's a conversation that I would love to avoid and number four let's assume that everything is innocent nobody catches any feelings and my wife is okay with it people still talk one thing you will not catch me out here doing is putting my wife in embarrassing situations and I will be damned if my character is called into question and the truth is that a peaceful home is a blessing that not many people come by I have it why would I jeopardize that now if you are a mutual friend then you are welcome in my home and we will treat you like family however if my wife does not know you neither do I my brothers we are grown men and it's about time that we start acting like it man this guy is awesome I love this dude I'd love to I love if this dude had a YouTube channel honestly I'd watch his channel but he's just serious about caring for his wife about looking out for her needs about not putting her in awkward situations too and not hiding anything from her too I just think of men and women there's such a the fact that we're so different and that God created us to be attracted to one another it provides such beauty in the marriage context but it also means that we need to be careful when we are you know engaging in any kind of relationship with the opposite sex especially in marriage you think about it as he's like you know I'm not going to be friends with any women that aren't my wife's friend right and it's like nice yeah you know he's probably fun with you know his wife's friends when they're around and like you'll talk with them and engage with them and it's okay to joke around like that's fine whatever um but outside of that context or maybe there's a couple friends that they have you know do double dates with that's great wonderful but if he has friends that are women that he's going out with or he's hanging out with or he's texting like that just immediately feels icky why would we even do that why would we even go down that road it makes no sense whatsoever and so um yeah I don't know this is pretty cut and cut and dry to me I guess this is just all to say that we should be more careful about this stuff guys we should be more thoughtful and perhaps uh maybe you've never thought about this you just kind of been operating on the assumption that you know men and women are the exact same and you can have the exact same dynamic with your guy friends as you can have your girlfriends but it's just not true and it's a lie of secular culture that try to paint both genders as exactly the same but we're not um and that's okay and that's and that's a good thing but ultimately what we should be approaching is being above reproach and what that means is is that when somebody looks at her life they're not seeing anything questionable or if they if they see something they're able to approach us and we're able to explain it in a very thorough thoughtful way that that doesn't cause our character to come into question right hey thanks for watching this video if you enjoyed it I want to ask you something this video was originally put out on my other youtube channel men on mission so if you're interested in content around manhood about what it means to be a man and how we can follow christ as godly men I'd encourage you to subscribe to that channel because we hit on different topics and we hit on this channel and I think you'll be really interested in what we have going on over there so subscribe on there and thanks for watching this video as always thanks to the patrons on patreon that make all of this possible and until next time god bless