Very well stated everyone but
OOmis – i am having trouble ageeing with any of your latest statements (i usually do, thats why i’m mentioning it). I dont remember the exact quote but Rav Moshe said that inter-gender relationships cannot be simply a “just friends” relationship (there’s a fancy word for it i forgot sorry), its just not the way humans were built. Although I think this is one of those things thats very different for boys and girls (I am talking from the guy-side)
and like ‘says who’ so beautifully stated, there is a huge aveira present called ‘hirhur’, that if you think your kids (or grandkids?;-) will just go and ‘socialize’ and it wont lead to hirhurim or any other aveiros ur terribly terribly mistaken (maybe this has changed over the times being that ur probly more than 4 decades older than me).
And ther is no bigger distraction from learning and focusing on growing than this yetzer hara of socializing, arayos, etc.
VK”L