Can Men and Women be just friends?

As a single man I get lots of women that want to be my friend, but don't want any romance. Most people know what it means for a man to be in the "friend zone", you never get out of it. Most men hate that zone and many women look for a man to be in that zone with. I think it is a trap! It is ironic that women want to be in this zone, but they don't want their boyfriend to be in this zone with another woman. So, men don't like this zone! If they have a woman friend then other women don't want a relationship, but the woman that is "just a friend" doesn't want a relationship either. Does this sound like a relationship trap to anyone else? I hear many women say they wish they had male friends like they used to in high school or maybe even college. But, they don't want their boyfriend to have female friends like the guy used to in college or high school. A few months ago I had a friend that was a female and she kept saying she didn't want to be my girlfriend. She introduced me to people as her "mentor".

I wanted to hear that I was more than just a friend and she didn't want to say it that way. I had other female friends that this woman didn't know about. Well, she knew about it, but she had never met any of them. One weekend another women came to my house to use my scanner and while she was working in my house I was outside trimming my trees. Well, you know what I am going to say (or why would I be talking about this), the woman that called me her mentor drove up and saw me working outside. She wondered why I didn't invite her inside so she went in and saw the other woman.

She took everything she had left in my house and didn't say anything, just walked out. She no longer called me her mentor. She still needs my helps sometimes, but that is all. We don't hang around any more and she doesn't consider me her friend. Since that weekend she has asked me about that girl and mentions her sometimes. It makes me roll my eyes  when women say they want to be friends or have a male friend. I don't think it is possible to be normal friends. I have some female friends and am happy to meet them or help them. But, they are different than my male friends. I don't hang out with them.

I sometimes see some women from high school or college. I don't mind meeting a woman with her husband or a group of women. That is different than a friendship with a man. With a guy I would go out to a bar and get drunk. With a woman I would go to Starbucks and get a coffee. After the drink we might spend the night talking about everything. After the coffee we would go home and talk to other friends.