best friend of opposite sex

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anyone else have a best friend of the opposite gender?

what do you feel are the benefits or disadvantages of having a friend of a different gender?

Closest thing i have to a friend is female. Can't say as there are any advantages or disadvantages.

Best friend is subjective. The only best friend Ive had was a guy but he was gay so he did not have the same disadvantages that you would normally have when you have a good friend of the opposite sex. In a way our friendship was very similar to having a friend of the same sex. Our friendship ended due to other reasons.

Otherwise, Ive had 2 good friends of the opposite sex, I wouldnt call them best friends tho. One of the guys, Im not sure if we're still friends? Our friendship dissolved for the very reason that we we're both straight and of the opposite sex. If we were the same sex or that tension of being of the opposite sex didnt exist, he probably would be one of my closest friends now. He's inexperienced being close to a girl. The other guy, we've only become close friends recently.

The biggest disadvantage if both parties are straight
1) The possibility that one or both parties might like the other is almost always very AWKWARD. It can often lead to a lot of strong emotions, heartbreak and strain on the relationship. Even if both parties like each other, its not always best for the friendship. Sometimes people try dating each other and it doesnt work out and it destroys the friendship. Or in the case of my friend, our whole friendship was awkward.
2) The other disadvantage is sometimes your friends doesn't always get what its like to be of the opposite sex. Men and women face different things in society.

The benefits
1) The comparisons and all the jealously and envy that comes along with it is not there as much. No ones comparing themselves to each other. No ones trying to be better then each other. I find with same sex friendships, their can be a sense of dominance from one party to another. And friends will compare each other to each other. Their can be jealously when it comes to mates. With a opposite sex friend, its very very unlikely your gonna be fighting for mates.
2) Opposite sex friendships can have the "best of both worlds". There's plenty of both male and female bonding aspects in the friendships which often makes things more complete for me.

i do actually.
i got 3 people i can see as true close friends, a gay male, an outgoing straight guy and a female, aside from some 'normals' and 'close aquainances'; i find i can talk to the female the best.
the advantage i feel is that she is closer to group emotions and has an easier time explaining my own feelings and emotions to me then my male friends.

It seems to me that I would be better off having friends that are girls. Cause 1. Most of my guy friends had been liers especially when I started middle school and 2. they were never trustworthy, like any secrets I had were sometimes exposed. Well most my friends that are boys now are ok but the only problem is I'm older then them. What I discovered with having friends that are girls is that I feel more safe and secure, and I feel that it's really easy to make friends with them. Well I guess there are some disadvantageous too like developing feelings and thinking "No that's not right" and not understanding every problem they might have cause I'm a different gender. Well I don't know really maybe when I go off to high school maybe 95% of my friends should just be girls.

I do think that aspies are sometimes better off by befriending the opposite sex. Since we're often the "beta" of our genders we get targeted by people of the same sex in different ways. Whereas if your a female aspie, you might already be kinda a tomboy and get along with guys better. If your kinda naive, guys will just think, "shes a girl she doesnt know any better". If your a male aspie, females might be more sympathetic towards you. Same thing, "hes a guy, guys are dumb".

Your really young so perhaps you havent quite reached the full fledged liking each other thing. Because I had no friends in middle school, I dont know how the social dynamics are. Im thinking that people are still rather shy about having feelings for the opposite sex. When you get older, we're still kinda shy but it becomes an incredibly common notion that people are always having feelings for each other. I can tell you that once you reach the point we're all those feelings are there, they can interfere very easily with friendships. You sound like the kinda guy who girls are likely gonna trust.

I do and I'm a guy. I have four good friends that are girls but we don't hang out.
Disadvantages- you can't connect with over guy things
Advantages- they give great dating advice and are helpful

I'm a guy and one of my closest friends is a girl, and I used to have a serious crush on her. We're still friends now, and even during the time I liked her I considered the friendship too important to throw away (she didn't know my feelings at the time and wouldn't know for another year or so when I told her, by which time it had almost completely subsided). So for me the advantages for this case outweighed the disadvantages and I believe it is still possible to be friends in these circumstances, though it might not work for everyone.

I currently have one good friend who is a female, and we've been keeping in touch with one another since high school. She's very sweet, joyful and has done nothing to take advantage of me.

I also had another good female friend who I knew for only 2 years. We took hip-hop dance lessons together and hung out several times. After earning her PhD, she moved to Washington DC and got married. Once she got married, she failed to contact me and return my phone calls and Facebook messages. It was disappointing. I would say that one possible disadvantage of having friends of the opposite gender is that when your friends of the opposite gender get married to someone of your gender, those married friends may never contact you again just to avoid cheating on their spouses. It could happen.

I cannot say what all the actual pros and cons of having friends of the opposite genders are because I haven't best friends with lots of people from both genders in my life.

My best friend is female and she its the best. She understands me and I can and do trust her with sole of my deepest secrets, everyone should have a friend like her.

I just lost him last week...

hmmm

she is softer to me. my three male friends are pretty soft (beta males), but i believe that women still fall in that animalistic groove of wanting to be seen as a desirable mate. this is the same groove, i assume, that make alpha males want to kill (bully) me. so even though i doubt she wants to marry me or anything, she tends to behave as though she does. in other words, we actively search for congruence like puzzle pieces, rather than butting heads like rams.

wow. i posted this topic a long while ago. yay for necromancy