Most Admit Attraction to Opposite-Sex Friend: Study
CHICAGO (Reuters Health) - First Monica and Chandler, now Joey and Rachel, and next--most Americans? Researchers say a full 2% of us harbor feelings of physical attraction for friends of the opposite sex.
On the other hand, "regardless of physical attraction between cross-sex friends, most people report not wanting to change the relationship from friendship to romance," according to researchers led by Elizabeth Zellers of the University of Indianapolis in Indiana.
She reported the findings here Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association.
In their study, Zellers and her colleagues interviewed 87 heterosexual college undergraduates averaging 20 years of age. Each was asked to think about a close friend of the opposite sex and respond "true" or "false" to statements such as "I am physically attracted to this person," "I want to kiss this person" and "I want to have sex with this person."
Zellers stressed that physical attraction--where one simply finds a person physically alluring--is different from sexual attraction, which implies a conscious sexual urge. "By sexual attraction I mean that the person thinks 'I want to have sex with this person', more than just physical attraction, which is 'I find this person attractive,"' she explained.
A full 72% of respondents said they did find their close friend physically attractive, with men more likely to do so than women. Three quarters of men surveyed said they were attracted to a female friend, while about two thirds of women said they felt a pull toward a male friend.
The researchers also compared the responses of single individuals with those of participants already involved in a romantic relationship.
A sizeable minority of both singles and romantically involved individuals admitted to having a strong sexual attraction to a close friend--although the percentage was higher among singles. Of the 38 singles in the study group, 22 (58%) said they had a desire to kiss their opposite-sex friend, and of that 22, ten said they also had a desire for sex with that friend.
Among the 49 non-singles, 18 (38%) said they thought about kissing their friend, with 11 of those 18 thinking about sex as well, the survey found.