Can men and women be just friends?

There's a great scene in When Harry Met Sally where Harry explains why men and women can never be just friends:



I thought of it tonight when I was explaining to a friend how somehow, in the course of a year, I feel like I've lost all of my male friends. For years, I had many male friends - great, fun, close male friends. And then I got divorced, I became single... and sex really did get in the way.

I scroll through my phone these days, and there's not one guy in there that I'd text just to say hi. Yeah, if I'm in their city, I'll call them up for a beer, or I might text them to trash talk during a football game. But I used to have friends that I'd really talk with... about life, and love, and girls, and work, and other real things. I don't have that any more, and it makes me sad.

There are two guys in particular that I thought I had solid friendships with.

The guy I love.

This is the guy I was drawn to as I was going through a divorce. I thought he was cute, we clicked, we had fun, we hooked up. Things got weird, we got over it, we hooked up again. I tried to just be friends with him, but things kept getting in the way, and I think I've reached the point where I can't stand it any more and need to cut him out of my life. I really do think, deep down, he's a good guy. And I don't think he's malicious or intentionally hurts me. I just don't think the two of us are cut out for being just friends, and we're not cut out to date, so we're left with this limbo that's just torture.

The guy who loves me.

This one cut me out the way I should probably cut out the first guy. And it wasn't till that happened, and I questioned mutual friends about why he was acting weird, that I found out he'd had feelings for me for years. He (in true guy fashion) never actually said anything to me about it, just drifted off and started avoiding me. I wish I had feelings for him too. It would be so easy - he's a wonderful, thoughtful, smart guy. But I've always thought of him more as a brother, not as a boyfriend. And so another friendship slipped away.

I want these guys back in my life. I considered them among my closest friends for awhile, and I feel a void without them.

Now that I'm in a new city, it seems very unlikely that I'm going to make male friends. I've got a few acquaintances here and there, but I've already screwed up a work friendship by making out with the guy. And when I think about my friends, very few of them have guys in their crew. The couples have couple friends, but overall, I now look at my girls and see them hanging with other girls, and the guys hanging with other girls.

I thought we lived in this enlightened time where men and women are equal. But I'm starting to wonder if Harry was right... can men and women be just friends? Or is sex always in the way?