How far does friendship intimacy go before it's romance?

Well, I am a male, but I do have a lot of lesbian friends. I personally think it's the same for everyone, regardless of their gender. I just think that if you're very close with a friend, and then you go from laughing at random jokes, to kind of like - laughing and then maybe staring into each other's eyes a bit or maybe cringing afterwards? Maybe skidding your hand against there's... All I know is that I believe everything is meant to happen, and if you end up dating a friend, regardless of whether the outcome is good or bad, it's just meant to happen!

 

I've heard that a lot of girls get intimate in friendships too, but It's never happened to me. I guess It's because I'm not an affectionate person, so I get weirded out by it easily -shrug- I would think hugs are okay, but anything a bit deeper than that just seems odd for friends.

 

Sexual flirtation is usually where most people draw the line with friends (though some guys lately seem to fake flirt with other guys for some reason, in a benign joking manner). Girls often are very comfortable touching each other like close siblings. Many hand-hold platonically. They can also be touchy with each other's faces, such as helping to get something like an eyelash off, pointing out a mistake in makeup application, etc. Girls will not however demonstrate these behaviors towards guys their age, even if they are flirting. Girls usually only casually touch boys when they're either in a relationship or heavily flirting.

Guys on the other hand tend to be much less touchy to each other, and when they do touch it's usually just on the arms and shoulders, and virtually never the torso or abdomen. Newer generations seem to be loosening up in this regard, so some guys are emerging who are comfortable casually hugging, etc. Guys will generally try to touch girls or guys they're interested in romantically casually around the waist or arms to "break the touch barrier".