How do I find a platonic friend with whom I can correspond by e-mail or PM?

Did you try facebook? I started a page, didn’t even put a current photo up, and linked to some women I knew in HS.

Within a couple of days plenty of old female friends will likely see you and attempt to chat out of curiosity.

Isn’t it RIDICULOUS how people will avoid you for the reasons you brought up?!

I’ve had plenty of guys not be my friend b/c they thought I MUST be gay to pursue a friendship with them.

Luckily though, I’m not exposed to those prudish women who will brush me of simply because they can’t COMPREHEND the fact that a man approaching a woman can be for something other than sex, either that or they’re just way too full of themselves.

My best friend EVER’s girlfriend basically told Steph, our mutual friend, that her expectation is that now that he’s in a monogamous relationship with her, she believes he should STOP making friends of the opposite gender, and only foster the ones he’s established before they started dating.

THAT BLEW MY MIND! I have no clue how he could be with someone who’s thought process toward socialization is so fucked up.

I would volunteer if I were better about answering my email. Like you, I am permanently in love with my spouse. (In this case, my husband.) But I like hearing about other people are doing and have friends of various sexes.

I like @Imadethisupwithnoforethought‘s suggestion of Facebook. Once there, you could look for a group based on something you enjoy. A hobby, a sport, an author, etc. From there, you can find like-minded people who you can add as friends. And out of that, you may find someone who understands where you’re coming from and would be willing to correspond with you. As well, Facebook has a chat feature, so you could have conversations with your friends. Be careful, lurk for a while and see if you like it before you get into making friends.

Well, this question was conveniently asked just yesterday!

I know of any number of female jellies who have had relationships of both platonic and non-platonic varieties here. I suspect that it may be the way you are going about it. Maybe you should ask the women here how they build these online relationships.

@Fly I’m glad you remembered that. I thought of it immediately too.
@Dr_Lawrence Look into this, pronto. We’re great at playing Yenta.

This Jelly wants to avoid corresponding with married men for a number of well thought-out and sensitive reasons. I respect that. Thanks @Fly and @Sunny2 just the same.

Thanks @wundayatta for your thoughtful suggestion!

It is a good question. Making friends can be hard enough without the limitations you are dealing with. My husband doesn’t care who I’m friends with, and I would like some more social interaction, but I’m more comfortable online and every guy I meet there seems to be a creep with an ulterior motive.

There are unfortunately too many such creeps who use the greater anonymity of the Internet to misbehave in ways they would never do in person. It is an indication of their poor character and their immaturity.

I too would be happy to be your pen pal @Dr_Lawrence. I am pretty slack at replying to personal emails at times though like @tedibear. If you can live with some delays, happy to communicate and I also love my husband to bits.

Just a note. I have started many a platonic correspondence with women here. The correspondences typically go on for a short while—maybe a few days to a couple of months, and then they seem to die off. I don’t think it’s the fault of either of us, really. Just that these things seem to have a certain life span for the most part.

I think the relationships that have more of a fun component usually last longer. The problem with the “fun” component is that is often perceived as flirting and that can get weird on it’s own, and that, too, can cause the relationship to get uncomfortable.

I guess what I’m saying is that maintaining a platonic online relationship takes something strong to motivate it. You need a real interest in the other person, but if you use flirtation as the source of that interest, you are playing with fire. Finding another source of strong interest depends on finding a deep mutual interest, and those aren’t always there.

So the first thing you want to find with @Supacase or @Bellatrix is some mutual interest that is compelling to you both. You have some time to find it, but you don’t have forever. But it has to be something that compels you to write to each other. It could be writing, itself, but I think that is pretty hard to maintain. Better a fascination in politics or philosophy or model train building or something.

I have to say the the online friendships I have formed – here and on other sites – have grown organically out of a response to each other’s public posts and thus a mutual interest, sense of humor or affinity. I never deliberately set out to make a platonic friend here – it is has either evolved naturally or it hasn’t.