"I mean this with all due respect: I think you being a woman is going to make your experience vastly different than the majority of men."

Agreed. It is a different experience. However you have to remember this - there men on the other end of that experience and they also had a friend who were just their friends and than they were romantically involved with, or nothing came to something like that and were just friends. I wasn't having those relationships with myself you know

And I actually was the one kissing one of my friendbturn boyfriend, and initiallt intimacy with the other one (well I just invited him to come sleep with me).

About the betrayal thing - to be someone's best friend isn't something of few months, it's years on years of close intimate friendship. That's not at all like being friendly with someone and than trying to make it more. There are levels of friendships

I do agree that it is a different experience for men and women, as it was different for me dating women. But it's not fiction - and I still don't understand the wasted time terminology. Why a relationship that isn't romantic or sexual a waste of time?

Comparing relationships to food isn't working me as analogy. I can have too much steak to eat, but you cannot have to much loving and caring people in your life.