Someone at YWBB went and dug up an old post of mine from my online dating days and it has clung to the social forum with tenacity for a couple of days now. I was not at all pleased to see it. I really don’t like to be reminded of the games I played with people’s feelings as I ventured back out into the world a few months ago.

Gosh, and it WAS only a few months ago. It seems much longer.

And I was playing. Callously too.

It is as easy to detach from the faces we can’t see on the other side of the computer screen as it is to become attached to them.

Can men and women just be friends? I have had male friends at different moments in time going back nearly as far as I can remember. I can’t remember not having at least a tiny crush on nearly all of them. Though I can’t recall one single time I ever acted on the feeling, I remember a few instances where friendships ended or changed drastically when I was on the receiving end, but those were times when I didn’t return the feelings at all.

So, I suppose my own experiences confirm what most of the respondents thought. That there is almost always sexual tension underlying male/female friendships for one of them, and that when both have feelings, sooner or later action will be taken. Still, sometimes friendships are more important or should be.

All the times that I never acted on impulses even when opportunities presented count for something too.

I think of my friend and wonder if I am better off keeping things at the stage they are at instead of moving into more risky territory. Then I wonder if that is just widow fear talking.

In the movie When Harry Met Sally the title characters were friends for years. Wasted time some might think. But, it was the slow build of friendship that allowed them to learn and grow together and be able to recognize similarities under all the differences. Maybe the question is not whether or not men and women can be friends but whether or not we were meant to be friends first.