Friendships between guys and girls

The question of guys and girls being friends and nothing but friends has come across my radar several times this week, so I thought I'd tackle it as best I could.  

Can a guy and a girl be just friends?  By just friends I mean that neither one of them have secret feelings for the other.  Some say it's impossible, but I would argue otherwise.  To aid in my argumentation, I'm going to invent some stories.  Here's our first set of friends:  Alex and Heather.  

Alex and Heather met at a college study group for Philosophy.  They hit it off immediately and started spending a lot of time together.  Alex liked Heather's enthusiasm and her ability to have an intelligent conversation.  Heather enjoyed Alex's easy humor and his steadiness.  They would meet for coffee every Saturday morning and discuss Philosophy, they told each other everything and were always there for each other, and soon everyone in the study group was sure they were going out.  But this was not the case.  Heather soon started dating another guy, and Alex revealed that he was engaged to a girl in his home state!  

Alex and Heather were truly "just friends".  I actually have a friend similar to Alex.  We talk all the time, and a lot of people might think we like each other, but we both understand that we're just friends.  We even like different people.  Now here's my second story:  Ben and Kristen.  

Ben was on Kristen's brother's lacrosse team.  He was always over at Kristen's house, and they became pretty good friends.  They talked a lot, and when Kristen's brother started dating Ben's older sister, the two of them were often called upon to chaperone.  However, all of a sudden, Kristen suddenly felt like her feelings toward Ben were changing.  Soon she had a huge crush on him, and she couldn't wait to see him again.  When her brother told Kristen that Ben had started going out with someone else, Kristen was crushed.  

In this case, Kristen let her feelings for Ben--her friend--get out of control, and since he didn't know of or return her feelings, she ended up hurt and no one but herself knew about it.  That's how a lot of guy-girl friendships end up.  They may not end, but one person ends up hurt.  OK, now story three:  Chris and Jade.  

Lucy was a dancer.  Chris was a basketball star.  They were thrown together on a team science project against their wills, but they ended up becoming friends.  They remained friends until the fateful day that Chris confessed his feelings for her.  Their friendship became awkward and strained, and finally they stopped talking all together.  After they graduated that spring, they never saw each other again.  

This is another case similar to Ben and Kristen, except the friendship dissolved.  This is probably the most tragic, because the friendship actually ends.  I have never had a friendship end this way, and I hope I never do.  Of course, there is the best that I have saved for last:  Tristan and Jade.  

Tristan and Jade had been friends since Kindergarten.  They lived next door to each other all the years they grew up in a small town. They both went their own ways after high school but they did keep in touch.  Then they met up accidentally and started seeing each other more.  Tristan suddenly saw her not as his old school friend, but something more than that.  Jade felt the same way, but it was a total shock to her when they were walking together in the park and he told her he was in love with her.  

That, my dear readers, is the best kind of friendship:  the one that sparks into true, pure, and perfect love.  It's rare, but it really is the best.  

So there you go, there are the stories.  Guys and girls can be "just friends", but sometimes things will change, and not always for the best.  Sometimes one will get feelings for the other, and just as the other begins to come around, the feelings will change.  It's sometimes easy for people to look at all the guy-girl friendships that ended like Lucy and Chris' did, or Ben and Kristen's, and say, "guys and girls can never be 'just friends'." But I think that friendships like Alex and Heather's, or Tristan and Jade's are more common than we think.  They're just not talked about.  

Do you have a friend that's the opposite gender that you know you're both "just friends"?  Leave a comment and let me know if you think it's possible for guys and girls to be "just friends" and nothing more on either side.