I got two requests via email last week asking me to write on the topic of whether men and women can really have platonic relationships. Well, here's my take on 'the friend zone'. Again, this is from my perspective, and not every man thinks the way I do.

A man usually ends up in 'the friend zone' with a woman because of one of four reasons:

1) The woman is a family member (cousin, niece etc).

2) He tried to date that woman but she wasn't interested.

3) He has absolutely no physical attraction to her whatsoever.

4) You were friends with benefits and it withered away to just being friends.

Fact is, most men are going to want to get into bed with females they are attracted to. We have no desire to start out being your friend. We don't wanna hang out and talk about Real Housewives of Atlanta, your latest diet plan, or the girl at work who keeps trying to ruin your life.

We only listen to these stories and pretend to be interested because we hope you're gonna think we're sweet and caring and somewhere between sweet and caring we end up seeing you naked. That is THE COLD, HARD TRUTH.

However, sometimes, some very rare times, our charm, swag and sharp wit don't work and we find ourselves in 'the friend zone'. Now depending on how much time, effort and ego we invested, we may decide that versus just walking away and chalking it up to a loss, we actually really like the woman and would like to keep her in our lives.

This usually is the case if the woman is pretty cool, gets along with our other friends and family members, and we can trust her. She usually can help when we have questions about other women (counselling); when we don't know where to buy a gift or what to buy for a woman we care about; and she also is a great "wing man" because she can size up other women pretty quickly and let's face it, out of all of our friends, she's probably the one with the most sense.

Now, after saying all of this, if that woman slips even one day and cracks open that door we will shove our foot in and go for it. Yes, we will risk 10 years of a great friendship just to have sex with her, even though the woman probably doesn't realise this or thinks 'Oh we're such great friends'. We are, but we're also men and we'll still sleep with you if you let us. This is how we're wired. Sorry.

So yes, a man and a woman can be friends, but it doesn't mean that we won't still take that yard if you give us that inch.

Follow Asafa on Twitter @officialasafa, visit his website at iamasafa.com or catch him at facebook.com/asafapowell. E-mail him at info@iamasafa.com.