Before, of course, I believed in it, or rather, I didn’t even doubt it, because I myself was more friends with boys. In my childhood and youth, I often surrounded myself with boys, and I didn’t feel any romantic overtones. (I always had girlfriends too) Then, as time passed, I began to hear more and more often that friendship between a man and a woman does not exist, there is only a “friend zone,” that is, one (usually a man) feels a desire to get closer physically, and the second (usually a woman) does not feel this desire and takes “courtship” for friendship. It’s time to sort out these wilds. First, let’s define what friendship is. According to the concept of psychology professor Robert Sternberg, there is a formula that seems to me quite believable: Perfect love = passion + intimacy + commitment. According to the same theory, spiritual intimacy alone, without passion and obligations, is friendship. Friendship is characterized by spiritual connection, mutual respect, mutual understanding, interesting communication, warmth, tenderness, care and care. Here we can add a willingness to help in difficult times, but this is not an obligation, we cannot demand anything from a friend, since he has his own life, and, as a rule, obligations to other people. It turns out that for Friendship does not matter what gender its participants are. If there is no mutual passion and commitment, we can call it friendship. Even if one person experiences not only spiritual interest, but also attraction, strictly speaking this does not mean that such relationships do not fall under the definition of friendship. There is intimacy, but there is no mutual passion. On the other hand, for a man to be friends with a woman, he must have a need for emotional intimacy with a woman, so when he has this intimacy with his wife/girlfriend, then this need is usually satisfied, and interest in communicating with a simple friend drops almost to zero. In the same way, for a woman to be friends with a man, she must have an interest. There are very sociable people who are interested in having spiritual intimacy with several women/men, and they can be friends, but sometimes even have affairs with several people at the same time. In short, people have very diverse characteristics, so I believe that friendship between M and F exists, but it is difficult for it to be as durable as friendship between people of the same sex, since there is a great chance that one of the couple will build spiritual intimacy with the husband/wife, that is, with the one with whom there is passion, and will lose interest in friendship with the one with whom there is no passion. People who claim that there is no friendship between M and F are usually the same talk about the non-existence of female friendship. I think the reason is that such people, like Freud, at one time overestimate the role of the need for sex and underestimate social needs. Or they basically overestimate friendship. Like, true friendship is a must from childhood and for life, and even with obligations, such as sharing everything, being at each other’s important events, and even falling in love with the same person not falling out. There are such friendships that last a lifetime, but it also happens differently. Sometimes we change and we simply lose interest in communicating with a person who has remained the same (this is well known to those who undergo psychotherapy). It happens the other way around, we still want to communicate, but they leave us. I am convinced that our social needs often trump our sexual impulses. In the end, monks live to old age maintaining their sanity, but it was much more difficult for Robinson Crusoe, even despite the presence of Friday. The human need for connection and community is critical to mental health. So I am sure that you can be friends, that is, create spiritual closeness, with any person, regardless of gender, age and other data, as long as there is mutual interest and sympathy. And there's no point in devaluing someone's relationship by saying, "It's not a friendship, he just wants you!" Even if this is so, one does not interfere with the other, I think. Friendship lasts above all else?