In terms of male friends, my rules for women are:
1. No hanging out with men 1:1 (meaning, just her and the guy)
2. No regular communication with male friends, via text, phone, DMs
#2 is difficult to enforce and monitor. You'll never TRULY know how many guys a woman is texting/DMing with. All you can do is explain your boundary, hope she honors it, and then pay attention to what you are able to see and hear her do. When she leaves her phone on the table and she gets a text, do you see a guy's name? But some women set their phone so you can't see the name unless you unlock the screen, and some women never leave their phone sitting out. Does she talk about guys - share stories with you about what's going on in their lives? Then she has been talking to them.
#1 is a great rule. I screen for this upfront because I don't want the frame wars that
@Barrister mentioned.
@Mike32ct is correct that a lot of friend zone guys are hopelessly beta, but there's enough doubt there that it is worth avoiding that situation.
#2 is a good rule. Sometimes I won't explain #2 because I realize how difficult it is to enforce and monitor. Even with women with no male friends, she's going to have male acquaintances texting her and sending her social media DMs. She might even get the occasional phone call from a male acquaintance.
Reality makes it even more complex. Guys from her past can reach out to her out of the blue and she isn't doing anything wrong if they do this. If she engages with them, then yes she is doing something wrong. But, this situation can be used as an excuse any time you happen to be fortunate enough to notice a guy's name pop-up on her phone either via incoming call or text - she can claim she hasn't heard from them in ages etc. You can then either trust her or ask to see her phone and doing the latter has issues of its own.
I have learned through a lot of experience that women with a lot of guy friends and very few female friends is a huge red flag and you'll never want to LTR a woman like this. During early dating, you should be inquiring about her female friends and her male friends to get an idea of her social circle. A woman with few female friends is almost certainly BPD or NPD. Filter them out early.
Women even as young as 20-25 can have guys from her past contact her. At this age, it is usually elementary school and high school era guys contacting her. At 24-25, sometimes it can be college era guys contacting her 2-3 years after graduation.
As a woman ages, all these school era guys can continue to show up. It's not uncommon for a 35 or 40 year old woman to have school era guys contacting her. In addition to school era guys, women 25+ can have male co-workers contacting her and former co-worker males contacting her. Former co-worker guys are often looking for sex when contacting an unmarried woman. She might even have ex-boyfriends or an ex-husband contacting her. Obviously, the ex-boyfriend and ex-husband contacts are problematic, especially for a childless woman who has no reason to talk to an ex-boyfriend or ex-husband. There are a variety of other types of orbiters who can show up. The longer a woman has been unmarried, the more probability that she has a wide variety of male contacts who could randomly show up. Married women deal with fewer orbiter type males.
Sometimes male names in a woman's phone are brothers and cousins, this is not a problem at all.
I disagree with asking to see a woman phone/social media DMs. That has a lot more problems. It's best to screen for male friends and whatever happens, happens.
Do not debate with a woman about it your boundary. It is ok for you to explain why this is a rule for you, and explain that you follow the same rule with female friends once you are in a committed LTR, but if she wants to debate the fairness of it, you simply say, "I hear you. It seems we feel differently about it. I'm not going to change my mind on this boundary and if it's not acceptable to you, we can either go our separate ways or we can continue seeing each other without exclusivity," or don't give her the last option, depending on what you are looking for.
All true. Frame is everything.
