The circumstances of the friendship between a man and woman has a lot to do with the success of a platonic relationship. Those friendships that succeed can because the people involved are in different stages of their lives, proximity to each other or they may be married. These are practicalities that may make having a romantic involvement impossible. There of course are cases of friends who have different sexual orientations and therefore the main problem of having sexual tension, simply does not exist. Because all friendships are built upon a mutual attraction and on compatibility, the potential for romance between a man and a woman being friends is definitely present. In order to diffuse that issue, it must be addressed in order for some sort of resolution to take place and from there, move on .According to Michael Ferrel, there are four key obstacles to the success of male-female friendships. “The inability to define the relationship (Ferrell,).” Men and women have to be honest about the relationship, whatever the reason. There must be honesty as to what the attraction is whether it was sexual, having common interests, etc. “A fear of confronting feelings of sexual attraction (Farrell 1)” is another obstacle that is stated. Whether or not the feeling are there, which there usually is, being able to talk to your friend about them is vital to the success of the friendship. A third obstacle is the “inability of both partners to see each other as equals” and the fourth is “society’s response to a non-romantic relationship”These are serious impediments for a cross-gender friendship to work but not so serious that it is impossible.