Can Men and Women be Friends?

Last night while watching When Harry Met Sally, there was a part of the movie that really hit home with me. I had heard the saying before, and really got thinking about it.

Can men and women really be friends?

Now I am a person who has a lot of male friends, in fact I would say that majority of my friends are of the opposite gender.

The thought was that men and women cannot be friends, because the man wants to sleep with the woman. Once the woman finds this out it becomes awkward and the "friendship" is over.

I started to think about my male friends to see if this was true. I figured out that there was a handful that fell into that category, however, once I found out that they wanted to sleep with me they got the old, "that is never going to happen, so forget about it and lets move on!" To this date I am still friends with those people.

How about you? I would love to hear some stories or ideas regarding this. Can a man and a women really be friends?