This question has been debated time and time again. I’ve witnessed people of two different sexes have normal friendships, and I have some of my own friendships with men that are strictly friendly and non-sexual.

But what happens when you’re in one of those friendships and you realize you’re falling for someone? It can happen on either side of a friendship and it often makes things very complicated.

It is essential to understand that I am talking about one-on-one male-female relationships rather than friend groups or classmate relations. Those can be upheld in normal friendly fashion, since no one is friends with each other for any benefit other than the benefit of the whole friend group.

In one-on-one friendships, it can become more complicated, as two people become closer friends than they would in a friend group. If one person falls for the other, it becomes hard to uphold the friendship values that were established when you first became friends. Sometimes even friendly gestures can be mistaken for something more if one side of the friendship is more romantically-oriented than the other.

The real question here is, is it possible to have a true one-on-one friendship with a person of the opposite sex without any feelings developing at some point during the friendship?

My personal opinion on this is that it is possible, as my experiences being friends with people of the opposite sex have only escalated to the point where someone feels more than the other person several times.

Even then, the person who developed feelings eventually understood that those feelings needed to be suppressed for the friendship to continue.

However, I have also heard horror stories from friends who have becomes friends with people of the opposite sex, only to later discover that the other person was never truly interested in a friendship but rather a future relationship.

Thus, it is almost impossible to know for sure if someone is friends with you for the sake of being friends or if there is a hidden agenda behind the friendship.

A friend once pointed out to me that for two people of the opposite sex to be friends with each other, one person must see something in the other in order to start a conversation or friendship. That initial pull towards the other person is usually based on intrigue or interest, which can only mean that the person who starts the friendship must be interested in the other person to some extent.

Although this is accurate, sometimes these friendships turn out to be genuine, albeit extremely rare. The best way to approach friendships with people of the opposite sex is to ensure that you are on the same page at the beginning of the friendship so that these issues don’t arise in the future; yet, even then you cannot assure that someone won’t develop feelings in the future.

The question is therefore up for debate since there is no solid answer.