Can a guy and a girl who are attracted to each other, but one is involved with someone else, be "just friends"?

Yes.

Thread over.

Yes, but there will be a lot of temptation for the person in the relationship to cheat on their partner.

Yes… but it could be difficult.

Yes. And no. It always starts out ok, then it gets complicated. In my experience, when you are young it is the guy who complicates things, once you get past thirty it is the woman who starts wanting to “take things to a higher level” – or offer benefits. I have been constantly in and out situations like this for the past twenty years or so. I have a persistent offer now from a female friend not much older than my daughters. They get needy after an emotional upset and equate physical love with security – or at least security with regard to their feminine self-image.

I’ve done this a few times…. once with very bad results.

It can be done, but there’s a lot more work/difficulty in not letting it go too far.

Attraction is not a choice. Attraction level is pretty much proportional to the ammount of time you spend with whom you’re attracted with.

So you can be ‘just friends’ if you limit the time you spend with each other.

Or at least one out of the two needs some crazy self control & discipline. Otherwise the signs will show. The other partner will start to notice. From then on it’s just fun!

@kenbu Attraction is not a choice. Attraction level is pretty much proportional to the ammount of time you spend with whom you’re attracted with.

Whoa! You need time to decide whether another person is sexuality attractive or not?

They didn’t base that “40 Year Old Virgin” movie on you did they?

You really do need to get out more.

(Affection on the other hand often increases with proximity.)

Whoa! Hold up. Your interpertation of ‘attraction’ might have just been different from mine.

In ties with the op’s context – I meant ‘How bad you want to be in a relationship with whom you’re attracted with.’ That does increase with time spent.

@kenbu Whoa! Hold up. Your interpertation of ‘attraction’ might have just been different from mine.

I don’t “interpret” a word. I accept the dictionary definition. Life is already too complicated to do otherwise.

Very very hard, but possible. I’ve done it once, and failed it once.

You should decide now if the friendship is worth more than the relationship might be. If you’re happy with the friendship, leave it at that, and try to find another person to occupy your feelings.

yeah, im going thru it now but its hard as hell because its been 4 years now and i want him more than ever. and its killing me. i dont know how much more i can take but im hanging in there because i love my friend sooo much.
when we have sex, and i mean “GOOD” sex and he goes back home to his girl, i just wanna wreck their relationship to pieces, but then i think about it, if he’s doing this to her IMAGINE what he’ll do to me! and that usually puts me back in my place.

No no no no no.

Even if it were possible why would you put that kind of stress on the relationship?

Yup. I’ve done it. Am still doing it, I suppose, although it’s not really something I think of actively. :) One of my best friends and I used to have what was essentially a friends with benefits relationship – honestly we probably would have dated each other but there were extenuating circumstances. We hooked up for about 6–7 months about 2 years ago. We’re both attracted to each other, and definitely remain attracted to each other, but he’s now in an extremely committed relationship with someone else. I’m fine with it (I’m dating someone else, too) and he’s fine with it, and we’re still really good friends. We spend a good deal of time together when we can, but have never even so much as kissed one another while either of us is dating someone else. Sometimes we even have a jolly good time reminiscing about when we used to hook up, haha, luckily we don’t date sensitive people who’d be bothered by that!

Of course we’re both kind of crazy so maybe that explains it? :)

In my personal experience, I tried, it didn’t work. It ended badly.

It’s actually done all the time but the two parties never tell each other they’re attracted to one another. Why would they, unless the interest was more then a friendship??

Well, I suppose I should give the story so that everyone who’s responded can at least understand teh context of it all.

I had just gotten out of a relationship with a girl that I was head over heels for. She left me for an ex, and I took it pretty rough. Well, this girl i work with and I started talking online at night. I basically cried on her shoulder, while she cried on mine due to the fact taht she had just lost her grandfather, whom she was very close to. We spoke every night online, and even began doing lunch together at work.
One night, I kind of got a feeling that perhaps something else might be there, and I called her on it. She admitted that she was indeed “falling in love” with me. The part I haven’t told you yet is that she has a boyfriend.
So basically I told her that she needed to decide who she wanted, because I wasn’t about to get burned in a situation like this. She took a couple of days, and in the end chose him.
We tried our best to remain friends, but in the end my feelings just kept getting in the way, and we’d fight (like a couple) over the most asinine topics. She now swears to this day that she no longer feels anything for me…which is entirely possible, except that she still talks to me more than her boyfriend. (Well, she DID anyway. Now we don’t speak at all.) Guess I’m just looking for some clarity in all of this…feel free to throw your thoughts…because I’m fresh out. lol

That’s almost exactly like my situation was, He and I don’t speak anymore, and it’s been almost 2 years. Situations like this just don’t work because it’s not fair to either party involved to continue to try to be “just friends”. Do yourself a huge favor and just try to move on and forget, the more time and distance you put between yourself and this situation, the better it will get. I promise.