David Bar-Magen and illini07:
Maybe you guys should come spend some time in Eretz Yisroel where it’s “????? ????? ??????” (“the air of the Land makes one wise”), because you need to be infused with some wisdom (if you can make such an equation…) 🙂 (don’t take that personally, we’re just having a great time discussing this)
If you go to the bakery, you’re not there to inter-mingle with the customer; you’re there to buy your bread. If you call your neighbor to find out if your kid is there, and the wife answers, you’re not calling to shmooz with her; you’re calling to find out some info.
According to you, Rabbonim shouldn’t ever receive women’s shaylos b/c they might becoming friendly with them. What will Dovid Hamelech say to that? (where the Gemora early in Brochos says he took pride in the fact that his hands were blood-dirty from answering such shaylos.)
The point here (and I’m not quite sure why it’s so hard to understand) is that friendly-like situtations CANNOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE be gender-mixed. Business-like cases: well, “you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do”.