Allen, thank you for your answer. So i reasume that there are some degrees and classes of friends, and it is case of cultural meaning of word "friend". 

I think that medri said very important thing.

I don't know about other countries, but in my country we don't call a FRIEND many people. Friend is a person very close to you and you could not be very close with many people because it is not possible in case of time (you have job/school, your own responsibilities, your own passion, maybe your wife/husband). So i also cannot call classmate or people from job a friends. It is a case of quality, not quantitiy. (most of the time) if quantity is high quality is low (of our relationships), and if the quality is high quantity is low (so that we are calling some human beings a real treasure - because it so damn hard to find). So in my mind FRIEND = SOUL MATE (do you have 10 or more soul mates?)

So your opinions are splited - i like it!

 i am a little sceptical about friendship beetwen other sex, maybe because of my personal experiences. and i think that when both sides realize that they want something more sooner or later they will be couple (and it will be beautiful) or when one side will realize that she or he want something more it will cause pain. It will be hard meet two people who are spending much time with each other, who talk a lot about everything and say their secrets, who laught together without some temptation from one or both sides - you know what i mean. I am not mentioning about lesbians and gays of course:D.