Dear Monica,

It sounds to me like you could have some heavy conversations with MikeyG. You could talk into the night on who puts the "girl" in "girlfriend".

Yes, I truly believe that there are such things as platonic guy-girl friendships. I think that although 18 year-old males have sexual thoughts every 20 seconds, even THEY may have friendships with females, and don't have to only see females as sexual objects. As males get closer to my age, and sexual fantasies lessen to only once every couple minutes or so, it's even easier to see women as thoughtful, insightful individuals who can discuss multiple things, other than whose bed to jump into.

As I've said to Wilder13, there are also different levels of friendships, which certainly includes different levels of friendships between males and females. I personally know women whose every tennis stroke is a thing of beauty, whose partnerships I lust after in tournament play, but who I think a handshake and hug after the match is more than enough contact between us.

I have other female friends with whom I enjoy gossiping about all of our relationship gaffes and who exchange tidbits of insight about how to treat the other sex, but not how to have sex with each other because we are "only" friends.

Our culture has changed so that males and females may work as peers or boss or subordinate, and relationships other than sexual must evolve, or there would be many more sexual harassment suits than presently occur.

What do YOU think Monica? Does it make sense to you that every male you see must be related to in a sexual way? That doesn't make sense to me.

-- Lefty