Can men and women be just friends?

This is a repost from earlier this year.

This is a question I've been thinking about for some time now, "Can men and women be just friends?" I asked my friends on Facebook this question last night. There doesn't seem to be any one right answer. Some said No, they can't, some feel that Yes, they can. But both seem to feel very strongly about their opinion. I keep thinking back to my friendships over the years. I have quite a few male friends, but the ones that I seem to be the closest to are the ones I have some sort of history with. Most of it is innocent history, boyfriends from high school but it's still history. Somehow it seems that the connection we shared then allows us to have a deeper connection now. Is this wrong? These boys from my youth are now men, some of them married, most of them have children. I've never been truly intimate with any of them. Is this what makes the difference? If I had ever been sexually involved with these friends, would we still be friends today?

But what about emotional intimacy? Since I have known these men since we were kids I'm able to talk to them on a deeper level. It's different then talking to my female friends. They give me a whole different perspective on things. Men and women see things so differently that it's nice to get an "inside" view on men. There's many times when a male friend has helped me work through a problem better than my female friends.

Another variable here is that my close male friends live in a different state. Would be still be able to maintain our "just friends" closeness if we lived closer to eachother? Is the physical distance what allows us to stay such good friends? I can't find any one right answer to this. It seems to all depend on the people involved and all the different variables.