Friendship between a man and a woman - reality ? or myth ?

Friendship…. It is one of the values that people talk about and try to appreciate. Yesterday was the International day of Friendship – July the 30th . That made me think about something …. Can a man and woman be just friends? Or their communication can lead to marriage ??? I mean – a single man and a single woman ….. Is that possible in reality to be just friends ?
Sometimes a man when he communicates with a woman thinks about marriage , he dreams about mutual feelings , but the lady feels only friendly feelings to him and doesn’t see this man as her husband…. Can such relations keep long ? I think that depends on the person.
I have one example. One of my friends started to communicate with a man from the prison. He had life situation that he had to stay in prison for 5 years. The time of being in prison is coming to the end .They communicated in one dating service and the girl understood that the man felt in love with her and she decided to visit him in the prison…. She came and they met, but she went to him as to a friend , to see him in reality , to feel his touches , to see what future she can have with him .She told him about this – that she needs time to understand her feelings. But he was very offensive and stopped communicated with her. He accepted her as his future wife and a soul mate . And he told her that he has never had the friendship between him and women. He is going to break off the relations with my friend now just because she told him that she needs time to wake more deep feelings in her heart. As he is an officer, maybe he accepted that as a refuse …. So I will see how the relationships with them will develop … but actually that made me think about such notion as friendship between a woman and a man….
Do you have any examples in your life when a woman and a man are both single but they are just friends ?
Write me a personal letter , I will be happy to know your answer.
Your Julia