[WTRanger]

It is simple genetics. We are not set up to be "friends" with the opposite sex. It just makes sense these days since the future of our species really isn't in danger. Sure, cavemen lived in villages but that doesn't mean caveman #1 wasn't trying to bone caveman #2's wife.

The initial stages and attraction of men and women are not well defined and are blurry at best. Half of them are getting to know someone romantically and half are getting to know them on the friends/personal level. Our weak and feeble brains cannot tell which direction we are going. Are we friends? Are we dating?

Once the initial stages are past, then the lines become a lot more clear. This is why most of the friends falling for each other happens very early on. Even though one side may hold it for years, those feelings developed from day one when everything was confusing and blurry.

So short term, no, men and women cannot be friends. Long term, yes, if and only if the initial feelings are dealt with in a very open and adult manner. Anything short of that, you are not friends and you might was well take a pack of smokes, a short length of hose, and continue to blow smoke up your own ass.

[panzer6]

I have a few women friends that I am quite close with. I don't have any desire to date them but I do find them attractive in their own ways. Sometimes it's tough because you can really click with someone and you start to think " what if ? " But I find that most of the women I know are surrounded by a lot of emotional baggage. From their families, friendships, and past relationships. Seeing this part of someone actually makes them LESS attractive to me. Over the years I have found that women have a way of attracting emotional drama like a magnet attracts steel. Many of them seem to make the same mistakes over and over, doesn't anybody learn from these mistakes ? Being friends with a woman gives you access to all her issues, problems and mistakes and I sometimes thank god that I am a man because life, it seems, is a lot easier for men than it is for women. So, yes, men and women can be friends as long as they don't want to have a relationship with each other. If that happens, then everything changes.