Friendships are Relationships

Hello everyone! :)
How is the world today? I hope all is well and many blessings to everybody! I just recently met a new friend, a woman, and we have been talking on the phone Non-stop since we've met, which is great. I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know her better. I mentioned to my new friend, Bridget, how friendships are relationships, not romantic ones, of course, but relationships none the less. For instance I asked her, and you can laugh about this, if our friendship was moving too fast, and was she afraid things between us were moving too quickly? LOL After laughing at the comparision, and agreeing with the analogy, she confidently assured me things were moving along just fine, and I agreed.
Interesting though, right? Another good friend, a woman named Irene, said she once felt like she was getting 'friend dumped'. Irene's friend wasn't calling her v. often, Irene was doing all the calling, her friend wasn't making time to get together with Irene, and when they spoke on the phone, the conversations were brief. (sound familiar women? Ever had a bf behave this way to you?) Thankfully, they did work things out, and no, she didn't get friend dumped. :) Can men and women be friends? I don't think so, but my new friend, Bridget, thinks you can. I think she can. My perspective is that if a guy is friends with a woman, he likes her, or vice versa. Guys have told Bridget that men aren't friends with women. Men hang out with women they are interested in, and not for any other reason. I imagine that for men it boils down to 'pie.' 'Pie' gets in the way of friendships between men and women. I know when I am friends with my brother's friends, they don't want to hang out with me unless my brother is there. I suppose they believe I like them, or I might feel they like me, or they just sense it would be too complicated, or too confusing. Subsequently, I don't have any guy friends, which is sad, but that's just the way it's worked. And, yes, this sort of contradicts what I said about men/women being friends. I just wanted to let the reader know I have tried to be friends with men. The exception to the man/woman friendship is this: if the man is gay, then the man can be friends with the woman. No 'pie' question there! LOL This is a great friendship too! Talk about some great advice from the gay man on clothing, etc! It's fantastic. If you'd like to weigh in on this topic, feel free to leave comments. God bless!