Sometimes, a friendship, or more likely an acquaintance that involves conversation will split if both were smokers and one quit. Not because the smoker feels betrayed or abandoned, or because the ex-smoker is avoiding them, but rather, because the common ground has gone. And smoking may have been all they had in common.

As you know, I vehemently disagree with this ridiculous doctor who claims that men and women can never be just friends (how on earth he reconciles writing a book about women changing the world with a belief that women will become too much like men if they spend too much time around them is a mystery) and I say that if you have a romantic partner who is jealous of you spending time with your friends, that should be a red flag regarding the relationship, regardless of sex or gender dynamics. So, if a woman is in a heterosexual relationship and her partner is jealous of her spending too much time with male or female friends, that relationship has the makings of controlling behaviour should they come to live together.

A friend of mine said, of this ridiculous doctor, that there is no friendship if there is no relationship.

Here is why I also say that opposites do not attract. If one partner is an extrovert and one partner is an introvert, both may feel lonely.

My formula for a relationship is that things MUST be in balance. You have to enjoy time together and time apart and a good formula should be, if you have kids, especially, and you have at least two sets of grandparents (why I say that is, if one party's parents have divorced and married other people, I say, a child has two grandparents and two step-grandparents, or if one grandparent has died and the other grandparent remarried, all possibilities) who enjoy spending time with the kids, one night a week should be a night for the couple to spend time as a couple, and the grandparents can babysit on a rotational basis, one day a week, they spend time as a family, one night a month, the couple catch up with friends, and during the week, the couple spend time on their individual things.

I had a friendship with a woman, and she got a boyfriend who didn't want her to meet any other men, which I took as a sign of his insecurity and immaturity. I say, the sign of true maturity in a relationship is if a married person can catch up with their friends of the opposite sex and there is no jealousy.

I remember a woman telling me that her husband, one day, had gone out in his boat, by himself, and a storm was brewing and she was worried. What happened was, he returned the boat to his mother's place and then went to his mate's place and when he arrived home, she exploded with him. All he had to do, granted that they didn't have mobile phones, was return the boat to his mother's place, pick up the phone and ring home (if only he'd had an answering machine) and left a message to his wife, something like, "Hi, Love, I know about the storm. I've dropped the boat back at Mum's and I'm just going to my mate's place to have a few drinks. See you when I get home."

I also say that I can be friends with someone who has a different opinion, but, in Australia, I could not be friends with a Pauline Hanson supporter, because what she stands for flies in the face of everything I believe in.

The bottom line, also, is, sometimes, boyfriends and girlfriends come and go, but friends are a constant. It can be difficult, if you enter into a relationship and a friendship breaks up, and that relationship turns nasty, and breaks up, to re-establish a friendship. Not only might the friend have moved in a different direction, but they may not be in the same city or country or they may have even passed away.