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Men and women can be just friends, but the right circumstances need to be in place for this to work successfully. If there is an imbalance about how the man and the women feel about one another, as in one finds the other attractive, then there is trouble on the horizon.

Once you fancy someone and your friendship grows then there is a chance of more serious feelings getting involved. This either means that the person with these emotions has to hide them, which would be very difficult, or reveal them. Under either circumstances the dynamics of the friendship will have changed to something more, even if nothing physical occurs.

The circumstances that are good for producing real mixed sex friendships without such difficulties are where both the man and the woman are happily in a relationship with a long term partner who they respect above all. It helps even more if the couples are friends together, spending time with each other.

Men and women can be friends, of course, under different circumstances, but usually at some point in the friendship one of them will begin to question whether their feelings run deeper than that remaining on a friendship level. Either that or during difficult times, when one of the two people needs support, they will become vulnerable and may end up wanting physical comfort with their friend to make them feel better.

When both the man and the woman are unavailable, and clearly have no intention of having any kind of romance, they can relax and sexual tension doesn't need to appear.

This doesn't mean though, that men and women need to steer clear of being friends, just because all of the aspects belonging to an ideal friendship, that will remain only a friendship, are in place. It just means that friendships between a man and a woman that don't evolve in such a way, are vulnerable to changes in circumstance, which may or may not alter the dynamic of their 'just friend's status.

All friendships grow, or fade with time and those between opposite sexes do as much as those between the same sex. The friendship can remain intact, even if at times one of the two people gains extra feelings, as long as they decide to remain firmly within their friendship status. The difference though, will be that emotionally they will have to deal with how they feel without bringing it out into the friendship arena unless they want the changes on the inside to become visible and either move the friendship on a level, or lose it.

Learn more about this author, Bridget Webber.
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