Ramayan,

You're simply you. You dont need to be somebody else to be recognize or to make a big point to other person's life.

I dont believe in such friendships because it never worked for me. There is always sexual interest and it may be hidden but there is. Or both should be ugly to each other, then it can work.

Sure, i´ve had and still have many male friends. If we´re stereotyping, we´ll never have friends - we´ll fear our male friends would like to shag us and our female friends would treat us as rivals. Friendship depends on what kind of people meet, not what their gender is

  Ã also think it can be, you can have male friends as well, it depends on the person too and your judgment if you can take him as a friend or not

Men same as women, some of them think its possible to be friend with women and some dont ..and ask for more!

 But nevertheless in some cases things may be developed to more than friendship, imagine you have a close male friend who understand you more than anyone else in the whole world, knows what you dis/like, sometimes know what you are thinking if you have a moment of silent...etc and you understand him same too, so by time feeling may be developed between you, and also may not and you stay a good friends for ever!

No guarantees actually it depends on the persons themselves.

As someone who grew up with only brothers, I have never had problems being friends with boys/men.  I think it is very possible for men and women to be friends without their being a physical attraction between the two.  The problem arises when people can´t put aside their stereotypes about men and women. 

I never thought of my friends in terms of gender, till I was exposed to ´too much Turkish culture´. Sometimes when I realise I now do, I am rather ashamed of myself!

Actually I have more close male friends than female friends, but I never really thought of them as ´male friend´ and ´female friend´. They are all just FRIENDS. And yeah, some of them understand nailpolish better than others, but seriously, we discuss the same things over the same wine. Sexual tension has never been an issue, simply because we never saw eachother in terms of gender, but in terms of friends.

Yeah, that´s what happens when people grow up to see each other as humans, not merely sex objects. In countries where gender is not such a taboo and people mix freely, there are very normal man-woman friendships. It´s only when you teach girls and boys that they need to be scared of the opposite sex, when they can´t form normal human friendships.

There is unfortunately a big lack of communication between the two sexes in this country. This is not very true for those who live in better neighborhoods. As they call them, they are the white Turks and I think I fall into this group. We tend to stay away from the restrictive aspects of life. We have a totally different understanding of religion, friendship and life in general. Sometimes, we are blind to the realities of this country. We tend to have idealized notions about Turkishness.

Many a typical Turk honestly describes himself  as an opportunist who takes advantage of every opportunity for the bread money. Europe  therefore, is quite attractive to him. He fancies a world where he can live his own life at the expense of others. I have encountered many young people from poorer circles who sought exactly this form of life abroad. There are exceptions for these people as well. They are extremely faithful to their own family and kinsmen. They consider foreign women as a stop over on the way to marriage, a good opportunity to taste the pleasures of life before stepping into a usually arranged marriage with a person who can be approved by his family. Of course, there are people of other kinds too but this is sadly the general outlook.

You can´t expect people of this sort to have genuine friendships with the other sex. They are usually sly enough to take full advantage of the naiveness of their foreign friends. Of course, in such matters no one cares about what kind of a fame Turkish men in general will gain as a result. The fame is currently quite bad and it is getting worse. If your boy friend wants you to pay a debt, send him a phone, you should really be suspicious of him.

I know this is getting a bit off topic but since this is becoming rather irritating, I wanted to say a word of caution.

I too have many female friends and there is no such thing like it being impossible between different sexes.  After a certain age, sex is no longer a primary objective in life. Of course, this does not apply to hormone driven teenagers.