It’s a debate as old as time: can single men and women truly be just friends?
Now, scientists have revealed a tell–tale sign your male pal actually wants to date you – and it all comes down to the bill.
Experts have discovered that men who are romantically or sexually interested in their female friends are more likely to regularly pay for things when hanging out.
And rather than singling out a girl they like the most, they’re more likely to simply pay for all their girl mates, the study found.
It showed that overall, some men generally treated cross–sex friendships more like potential dating opportunities and tended to be generous across all of those friendships.
The same pattern, however, did not appear for women paying for male friends.
‘Men’s mating interest predicted their financial investment in cross–sex friends,’ the researchers wrote in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.
‘Some men but not others may conceptualize female friends as potential mates and systematically engage in financial provisioning toward them, whereas other men do not.’
Men reported paying more in cross–sex friendships, while women reported paying less, the study revealed
In the film One Day (left), characters Dexter and Emma try to just be friends but finally end up together. Meanwhile Ross from the hit series Friends has been in love with Rachel since he was a teenager (right)
For the study the researchers, from the University of Texas at Austin, asked 581 undergraduate students to complete an online survey about their female friends.
They were presented with 11 questions designed to assess their romantic and sexual interest in their friends, and asked about how they split the bill when spending time with them.
‘Many romantic relationships begin as friendships,’ the researchers said.
‘Despite the prevalence of mating outcomes in cross–sex friendships, little is known about the courtship behaviours in cross–sex friendships that translate into these outcomes.’
Their analysis revealed that a man’s romantic interest predicted his financial investment in the friendship.
Women noticed this pattern too. If a male friend regularly paid more, women were more likely to think he fancied them.
However, while some men consistently paid for their female friends, others did not.
‘These findings suggest that cross–sex friendships are associated with mating motivations more for some people than others,’ the researchers added.
Men who were more romantically or sexually interested in their female friends tended to pay more overall. However, the same pattern did not appear for women
The movie ‘When Harry Met Sally’ suggests that friendship and romantic attraction can gradually blur together over time
The scientists found that a man’s relationship status did not appear to affect their findings.
They found the link between a man being interested in a female friend and paying more when hanging out was still there regardless of whether he was single or in a committed relationship.
They also said it’s possible that some women in the study may have strategically insisted on splitting the bill as a ‘soft rejection tactic’.
‘Because both sexes tend to interpret male financial provisioning as a flirtation tactic, accepting such provisioning from a male friend may be misinterpreted as reciprocation of romantic or sexual interest,’ they explained.
‘Just as accepting provisioning may be interpreted as signaling attraction, rejecting offers may serve as a way to signal disinterest.
‘Such strategies may be particularly important in managing male expectations in friendships, especially given men’s well–documented tendency to overperceive sexual interest from female friends.’
A previous study has found that approximately 50 per cent of people report experiencing sexual attraction to a friend of the opposite sex.
And separate research found that approximately 66 per cent of romantic relationships begin as friendships.
A recent study found that being sexually aroused can cloud your dating judgement.
Experts discovered that being intensely attracted to your date can lead to ‘tunnel vision’ that makes it more difficult to recognise when they’re just not that into you.
‘Sexual arousal made participants significantly more likely to interpret ambiguous interactions optimistically,’ lead author Gurit Birnbaum, a psychology professor from Reichman University, said.
‘They saw interest where there was only uncertainty.
‘Part of the reason seems to be that arousal increased the partner’s desirability, further fuelling the tendency to see what people wanted to see.’
She warned that this phenomenon could mean people are ‘missing the signs’ that someone is not romantically interested – because they become blind to rejection cues.
