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"The witty folks over at Lemondrop are wondering if the possibility of platonic friendship between men and women exists as you get older. Weigh in on the discussion after the jump. In her article, writer Erin Scottberg (not to be confused with the lovely Erin from Single-ish) explains that when she was younger, she seemed to have plenty of guy friends and that they fell into two categories. Boy BFF: The guy you&amp;amp;#8217;ve known forever and are not attracted to. I instantly thought of my friend Nathan. We met when we were awkward little high school freshman and have been close friends ever since. Erin provides the example of Zack Morris and Jessie Spano&amp;amp;#8212;remember that hot smooch they shared for the school play? Anywho, she qualifies that while there might have been some level of attraction between you two at some point, now you wouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t see him in that way &amp;amp;#8220;even if he delivered you breakfast in bed, in the buff.&amp;amp;#8221; The Former F-Buddy: This is the guy who you hooked up with a couple of times. Or maybe even had a relationship with. But now the two of you are just close pals&amp;amp;#8212;and your relationship isn&amp;amp;#8217;t based on hooking up. I&amp;amp;#8217;m not friends with any of my exes (except for a junior high &amp;amp;#8220;boyfriend&amp;amp;#8221; who came out of the closet at 18&amp;amp;#8212;that doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t count though, does it?) so I can&amp;amp;#8217;t speak from personal experience on this one. But, one of my friends is super close with one of her exes. She even invited him to her wedding! I can certainly see why this sort guy might stay in your life. You two had some chemistry together and now that the attraction is gone, you still have some common ground. Erin suggests thinking of Elaine and Jerry for this one&amp;amp;#8212;though I&amp;amp;#8217;m convinced those two always had feelings for each other. According to her article, as you reach your mid 20s, these categories no longer exist&amp;amp;#8212;unless you&amp;amp;#8217;ve known the dude for awhile. And I&amp;amp;#8217;m going to have to agree with her. For the most part. At my first big magazine job, a research assistant started the same day as me. We had a lot in common&amp;amp;#8212;we were the same age, we were both goo-goo-gaga over publishing and we both loved to read. And yes, he was&amp;amp;#8212;and is pretty cute. We developed a friendship and to this day we&amp;amp;#8217;re both still close. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve been in a relationship the whole time I&amp;amp;#8217;ve known him, so I guess the pressure to actually start something together never existed. He&amp;amp;#8217;s clearly not a fomer f-buddy but he doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t exactly fall into boy BFF territory either. But we are friends and even if circumstances were different (I suddenly became single, or he suddenly became single&amp;amp;#8212;yup, he&amp;amp;#8217;s in a relationship now, with a lovely girl) I don&amp;amp;#8217;t think we&amp;amp;#8217;d consider hooking up. Though, if I&amp;amp;#8217;m being completely honest, I can&amp;amp;#8217;t say the thought hadn&amp;amp;#8217;t ever crossed my mind&amp;amp;#8212;even if only for a split second. Eek, I&amp;amp;#8217;m seriously blushing writing this&amp;amp;#8212;of course Chris reads the blog, but so does the research assistant and lots of our former colleagues. I think Erin definitely has a point&amp;amp;#8212;it&amp;amp;#8217;s easy to be friends with guys when you&amp;amp;#8217;re younger. And now, when you meet a guy at a bar, through a friend, at work, I don&amp;amp;#8217;t think the first thought going through either one of your minds is, &amp;amp;#8220;Wow, we should really be friends!&amp;amp;#8221; But I do feel it&amp;amp;#8217;s possible for guys and girls to develop strong platonic friendships. If there are feelings of attraction, perhaps they&amp;amp;#8217;ll diminish over time. And let&amp;#x27;s not forget about our boyfriend&amp;#x27;s friends or our girlfriend&amp;#x27;s husbands. Those count as platonic friends, right? This is a pretty touchy topic so I can&amp;amp;#8217;t wait to hear what you have to say! Can a guy and girl truly be platonic friends? Or is one person (or both!) always going to be attracted to the other? When you meet a potential guy friend, do you tell him right off the bat you&amp;amp;#8217;re in a relationship so he gets any romantic ideas out of his head? Are most of your guy friends dudes you&amp;amp;#8217;ve known forever? What other categories can guy friends fall into? Let&amp;amp;#8217;s just be friends! * Who is your best friend? * Do or Don&amp;amp;#8217;t: being BFF with a co-worker? * Are you short on female friends? More Ways to Get Glamour You could win $50,000 just for registering or logging in to Glamour.com! Sign up for Glamour.com&amp;#x27;s Style Tips of the Week and Beauty Tip of the Day newsletters! Add Glamour to your iGoogle homepage. Follow Glamour on Twitter. Photo: Jupiter Images. Image used for illustrative purposes only."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/smitten/2010/01/do-or-dont-or-just-impossible>