dunno:
Ok, before you thought that it was ok as long as marriage might come out of it.
Now you are saying it is ok as long as halacha is kept.
Now, I agree that we need to keep halacha. But, there are many things which are ok according to the letter of halacha, but we don’t do anyway as a chumrah. I don’t see why you’d limit yourself here to saying anything is ok as long as it is not contrary to halacha.
The halacha is that a man may not get any ???? from a woman who is not his wife. Not from looking, speaking, thinking, or otherwise. I think that about covers anything we are talking about.
Because while I am sure you have a charming personality, the boys in geulah are not hanging out with the girls for that reason.
And you are correct that our parents were not as machmir on this. They should have been. I don’t know how anyone can possibly argue that there is no harm in the socializing that goes on. If you read the article from yesterday in the YU Beacon which was removed, you know exactly what I’m talking about.