Some Thoughts of Male/Female Friendships

So anon raised an interesting point in the comments section of a previous post, in regards to men and women being friends:

And on the question about if we are just trying to foster a friendship, we do not want to be friends with you. That is not meant in a mean way, but we don’t want to be friends.

Also, Samantha Jones bluntly put it: "Women are for friendship, men are for f*$&ing".

I am not sure my thoughts on this personally. I actually think almost everyone has some opposite sex friends, especially in the form of coworkers, former classmates, friends' significant others, or friends of one's significant other. I definitely have some male friends - friendships I've fostered through all of the above circumstances. I mean, why not? Friendship makes the road easier and helps us get through the hard times (Kleenex?) - I mean, look at my friendship with Emily. A terrible situation brought us together - if we hadn't found each other in that mess, I'm afraid to think of what could have happened.

Anyhow.

I do think guys and girls can be just friends. I think, though, a large factor is how good of friends they are - of course a casual friendship is easily understandable. However, if we're talking really good friends/best friends, then there might be issues. I think, personally, as Piper pointed out in a previous post - it all depends on if that's been worked out. I think as long as both parties are not interested in more than a friendship, then everything is ok. Throughout life, I've had multiple decently close guy friends (and they are the kind of guys who happened to often have close female friends - perhaps there's a certain type of guy best suited for this).

Anon also pointed out in his post that perhaps if there is more communication amongst men/women, there would be less confusion. I think that's probably one of the best perks of an opposite sex friend - getting a guy's opinion on stuff. That, and sometimes, situationally, friendships just happen based on circumstance/proximity/what have you, and it's not like dating someone - the gender doesn't really matter.

However, there's some Dave Matthews quote out there (which obnoxiously infiltrated many of AIM profiles back in college):

A guy and a girl can be just friends, but at one point or another, they will fall for each other...Maybe temporarily, maybe at the wrong time, maybe too late, or maybe forever.

Here's my take on this - I think if the man is interested in more than a friendship, he knows this from the beginning. However, if he is not interested in the woman as more than a friend at the start, I personally don't see him becoming interested, despite becoming closer to her emotionally, etc. Simply, men know if they are attracted to someone or not, and this generally doesn't change. However, with women, I can definitely see things going the other way, because women have a tendency to feel attracted to men they feel close with and comfortable to (as opposed to it being based solely on physical appearance). So, in short, I don't think a guy will fall for his female friend unless he feels that way about her off the bat, but I can see a woman falling for her male friend over time.

Anyhow. Your thoughts? Is it possible for a guy and girl to be very close friends/best friends without one falling for each other? Are women more likely to fall for their male friends, or vice versa? Do you believe in male/female friendships?