Back on post #12 on this thread, I wrote the below because the OP was obviously posed too generally black and white and her response to what I wrote, points to that was slyly on purpose. Well ok let's see? And indeed, the majority of responses addressed that question essentially as I wrote and in fact numbers were just defensive statements to show the audience they were not the type that some probably would instinctively imagine. Reality is, many men constantly have sexual thoughts on their minds because they have trained themselves to think so over a lifetime.
"Maintain" implies a relationship over time that changes little with people content to enjoy friendship at that level. Very common in professional work places with lots of people and awareness that sexual advances may result in complaints to HR and potential loss of employment. But such is not the case within the small social blue collar working class worlds of large numbers of others in both employment and other societal infrastructure.
The usual issue becomes one gender person plays a game like whatever friendship and mutual respect they started will remain platonic but is really just waiting to change that to a sexual one when an opportunity occurs, hoping the other party non-verbally begins to show signs of feeling so. Men that have been fantasizing the latter, may become frustrated if that doesn't change and at some point emotionally expose their real feelings, especially with innuendoes and non-verbal grinning facial expressions, inadvertently exposing their true intents, thus looking like jerks. And as I wrote, such is more likely among more attractive (or wealthy) persons to get hit on, versus plain to unattractive persons.
Thread title is:
This question lingers. Can men and women truly maintain a real friendship?
Thread title should be:
This question lingers. Can some men and some women truly maintain a real friendship in some circumstances?
Reads like one is asking whether some people can maintain opposite gender friendships without such being affected by lusty thoughts.
The OP replied "NO, the thread title should not be as you say. It should be exactly as I posted it."