Ageing, feminism and desire

My recent birthday seems to have sparked a bit of self-examination in terms of how I relate to men. Credit is also due to Kameron Hurley for the following blog post, which also helped to get me thinking about the same subject.
http://brutalwomen.blogspot.com/2005/08/girl-crushes.html
Kameron's post was focused specifically on girl-on-girl crushes, but I'd like to take her idea and expand it out a bit more.
I have always tended to confuse emotional and physical intimacy. I don't mean that I'm one of those unfortunate souls who is constantly jumping into bed with people in the hope that it will turn into a relationship, or that having sex with someone will make the person love them. In fact, I'm the queen of monogamous long-term relationships. I haven't been single for more than 3 or 4 months at a time since I started dating as a teenager. Romantic relationships come easily for me, and always have. Whether that's a good thing or something that may inhibit my personal growth in some ways is in interesting question, and one that I'm not sure that I can answer.
How to define what I mean when I say that I tend to confuse physical and emotional intimacy? I have never had a close male friend with whom I have not at least considered becoming physically intimate. I don't mean that I've actually attempted to hop in the sack with most of my male friends, or that I've ever planned to do so. What I mean is that I can't think of a single close male friend who I don't find attractive in some way, or who I might not be willing to consider as a lover if we were both single at the same time. I used to assume that this was just the way everyone thought, and that all human beings were naturally drawn to people whom they found attractive and tended to end up making friends with them. However, as I've gotten old enough to actually realise that not everyone thinks the same way I do I am beginning to realise that this may not be the case. Other people seem to have opposite friends who they would never in a million years be sexually or romantically interested in. So, what's going on with me? Am I sexualising my relationships, or am I only forming close friendships with men who I was already sttracted to?
I think that what's going on is linked into something that came up on Kameron's blog. In general I tend to be a very demonstrative, affectionate person. I cuddle people a lot. I kiss friends hello and goodbye. My parents were both very demonstrative, and I grew up around their friends, most of whom were equally affectionate. I tend to assume a certain degree of physical intimacy between people who are emotionally intimate. This has gotten me into trouble in the past - people who aren't quite as cuddly in general often interpret my cuddliness as my making a pass, which it typically not the case (when I'm making an actual pass I'm not inclined to be subtle, and it's pretty hard to miss). The only people with whom I'm not demonstrative are people I don't like, or people who I think would be made uncomfortable by too much physical affection. Unsurprisingly, this means that people who tend not to be comfortable with physical demonstrations of affection tend to get eliminated from my group of friends fairly quickly.
What I took away from the discussion at Kameron's blog was this - many of us tend to develop romantic attachments, and a desire for physical intimacy, with people whom we like and admire, people who we feel comfortable with. In itself this is not a bad thing. It is, however, not a thing that is well accepted by our culture, especially if any of the people involved are in a group who we aren't "supposed" to have romantic or sexual feelings towards (people who are in relationships, who are not of the gender we typically see ourselves as being interested in). For many people the "look but don't touch, and you should feel guilty for even thinking about it" category includes close friends. For me it doesn't. Why is that? Am I the only one, or is this actually a common thing that our society has decided to stigmatise and sweep under the rug?
The "crush" idea also got me thinking about what I actually want when I find myself in one of those relationships where I become aware of an attraction to a close friend. I don't think I actually want to have sex with them, necessarily, especially not if I'm already involved with someone (which I usually am). What I really want is to be allowed to be physically inimate up to a point that stops far short of actual intercourse. What I really want is more like what as kids we referred to as "making out" - I want to be able to lie around and cuddle, to kiss them, to fall asleep in front of the TV after drinking a bottle of wine the way that all my friends did when we were teenagers. I resent that fact that once we pass a certain age, that no longer seems to be acceptable behavior. I've thought about why I don't really want to have sex with any of my friends, per se, but do wish that it was OK to be more physically intimate than is generally "allowed". I think that, for me at least, the difference in relationships with men that are romantic and those that are not romantic is not one of kind so much as one of degree. In a way I kind of fall in love with all my friends. What's odd is that doesn't threaten my main relationship at all, and I'm always confused as to why people think it should. Doesn't everyone kind of fall in love with their dearest friends, or am I just wierd? And where do we draw the line between what is acceptable intimacy with a friend, and what isn't? Is that line different for all of us? I'm not sure, but I've been musing about this a lot lately and it would be interesting to hear other people's perspectives.
Another interesting observation...other than for a very brief period in high school, I've always had more close male than female friends. This is particularly interesting in view of the situation I've outlined above. It's more than that, though - I honestly think that in general men like me more than women do, which is an odd situation to be in for a feminist. It's intersting to see that the same pattern is replicating online as in real life. Can anyone clue me in as to what's going on here? I'm honestly puzzled as to why this pattern always repeats itself.

And on another note...how wierd is it that I've started to have boys literally young enough to be my kids checking me out? Last week a kid of about 15 or 16 stopped me in the street to tell me I have nice legs, and then proceeded to follow me down the street trying to make conversation. If a guy my age did the same thing I might feel a bit creeped out or threatend, but how to react when the power disparity is so clearly in my favour? It seems silly to feel threatened. What the hell does a 32 year old woman say to a teenager who's checking out her legs? Maybe I should start wearing longer skirts...