boyfriend or boy who is a friend?

"A gal and a boy can never be friends", Its one of the old and most Clichéd sentence ever.Is this really true? I mean can't any girl and a boy be just friends and no love involved in it?. Is it necessary that the love factor has to come in? Is it nessary for atleast one of them to have a crush on the other person? Well as everyone else even i have my personal views on it. I say, why can't two people of opposite sex's be just friends and nothing more than that? Why people have to talk about your friendship behind their backs? Its just a normal thing, I mean to say its just a normal friendship which a girl has with other girl and boy with other boys. If two people of opposite sex's are happy and comfortable in eachother's company then why people have a problem with that. Don't a girl have a healthy relation with her brother who obviously is a boy.
If a sister can be close to her brother than why can't a girl be close to other guy? What is the harm? The harm is always there in the mind of people thinking of something like this, they are creating a misconception in their mind and make the others suffer.
I just hope as our soceity has changed soo much over years, even this should be changed as soon as possible.
And once again the same Question of if " A girl and a boy can be friends or not" remains unanswered. Like many other Question's which are debatable and unanswered till date.