Before you e-mail me with an offer, and before my friends get insulted, let me clarify.

I have plenty of fulfilling friendships. But now I'm looking for a male friend -- a platonic male friend, that is.

I have no interest in or time for dating, no patience for relationship ordeals. And a guy pal seems the way to go. Having a man to take to social events, a dance partner, someone to help me fix my car is very appealing.

Female friends are wonderful in many cases, but they tend to be competitive and inflexible.I need someone laid back and interested in my passion for sports and drinking beer.

As I start my quest, I think it's important to understand what the overused word platonic means.

According to Dictionary.com, platonic love is a "pure, spiritual affection, subsisting between persons of opposite sex, unmixed with carnal desires."

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I'm clearly not looking for love, and that spiritual stuff sounds pretty good. I just worry that it's impossible to keep the carnal part out of the mix.

For the record, my longest-lasting platonic friend is gay. Sure, I had a crush on him when I was 7 years old, but sex never really got in the way back then.

As I look through my address book for a guy friend, I realize that most of them fit the "more than friend" category at some point in time. Maybe that sounds shameless. I think it sounds like fun -- and often painful and messy.

To me, it just makes sense to confuse my attraction for someone as sexual when it involves a man. I am drawn in some physical and mental way to all my friends. When you throw in the male anatomy, it is natural to misconstrue this chemistry as romance.

I thought Jay and I were off to a good start in the Plato-inspired world. We became friends through my boyfriend at the time, so there was no room for love and no interest.

Eventually the boyfriend disappeared, but the friendship with Jay remained, at least so I thought. Then one night Jay decided he wanted to try more than friends. But it was just for one night, leaving me confused and not feeling so "friendly." When I started to consider him as someone to date, he simply told me, "But we're friends."

I am not complaining about Jay finding me attractive, of course. But the moment he leaned in to kiss me, he was no longer just my friend.

Sure, some people make "friends with benefits" work, but I wonder if someone who hits on you and is willing to ditch the friendship for lust is really a friend.

Friendship is one of the things I hold most dear in life, and I find it hard to accept that so many people out there are willing to let friends, even the good-looking ones, take advantage of them.

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But that's not to say that making out with your pal means the friendship is doomed. In some relationships, getting the carnal out of the way can lead to a closer bond in the end.

My best male friend in college and I were inseparable. People thought Jeff and I were a couple because we had so much fun together, but we were really friends. Yet after hearing, "You guys are so 'When Harry Met Sally'" enough times, it was hard to resist kissing the guy who outshined any boyfriend in the past. But the relationship was not meant to be. Luckily, our friendship was strong enough to keep going, and knowing what he really looks like makes it a little more special than others.

There are many men and women keeping up friendships that don't intermesh with their love lives and don't perturb their significant others. A good co-ed relationship is more like a sibling bond -- rewarding, enduring and incomparable. It is something worth shooting for, even if it doesn't always work.

So ... anyone interested in being my friend? I won't hold it against you if you're cute.

Laura Lewis is an adventurous 20-something who knows how to make the most of being single. Her column appears every other Thursday.