I understand that you can view friendship the way you described, and yes perhaps that's how many people view it. But for me just friendship is the type that ex

I understand that you can view friendship the way you described, and yes perhaps that's how many people view it. But for me just friendship is the type that exists among hetero men or hetero women, where there is no possibility of sexual attraction. So I'm not denying that the type of friendship you describe can exist, but it's not "just" friendship then, like "we're just friends". I think a metaphor that describes this well is the two magnetic poles. You can of course keep them close to each other without them touching, but that requires some constant force. This necessary constant force, that is needed to keep the distance, is a compromise to friendship as I envision it. Now here is another crucial point I haven't even mentioned yet: It is very well understood, that males tend to eagerly and overly interpret signals from females as sexual advances, whereas on the contrary, females tend to underestimate the sexual signals they are giving to males. It could be a mundane joke or a wrong, unintentional move. This creates a constant granular level of tension and uncertainty that needs to be perpetually overcome, which is incompatible with "my" understanding of just friendship.