A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.

When attraction isn't the problem

Most of us have experienced that tricky thing: a genuine friendship with someone we're not attracted to, versus one where there's some underlying spark of desire. Nietzsche's point isn't about being rude or cold—it's something more subtle. He's saying that when two people find each other genuinely unattractive, the friendship can actually breathe easier. There's no unspoken tension, no "what if" lingering in the background. The physical boundary becomes almost protective.

What makes this observation sting a little is how honest it is about the alternative. When there's even mild attraction simmering, friendship becomes a constant negotiation. Energy gets spent managing possibilities instead of just... being together. The friendship becomes a holding pattern rather than its own thing. It's not that attraction ruins everything—plenty of friendships handle it fine—but Nietzsche's identifying something real: sometimes a complete lack of physical interest actually lets two people be more fully themselves.

The non-obvious part? This cuts both ways. It suggests that the friendship we're most proud of—the one that "transcends" gender or looks—might actually be the easiest kind, precisely because there's nothing to transcend. The messier, more interesting friendships are often the ones where we're negotiating attraction that exists but isn't acted on. Those take real work.