Emmy Award-winning TV host and best-selling author Steve Harvey, much of whose work deals with dating and relationships, said that a man being “friends” with a woman is really a façade because the man silently “hopes that one day there will be a crack in the door, a chink in the armor” and romantic sparks will fly.

As he explained in an interview with CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield, “All my friends are men. I don't have female friends. I don't. I'm incapable of that.”

Asked if this was because he is married, Harvey said, “Well, I have a wife and I don’t really have female friends because, look, okay – okay, let me tell you this. Let's get rid of the myths. You're an attractive woman. There's some guy somewhere saying, yes, we're friends. No, that's not true.”

“He's your friend only because you have made it absolutely clear that nothing else is happening except this friendship we have," said Harvey, author of the best seller Straight Talk, No Chaser: How To Find and Keep a Man.

“We remain your friends in hopes that one day there will be a crack in the door, a chink in the armor,” he said. “Trust and believe: that guy you think is just your buddy, he will slide in that crack the moment he gets the opportunity because we're guys.”

A screenshot from the movie "When Harry Met Sally," a comedy based upon the idea that a man and a woman can't really be friends because of the ever-present possibility of romance. (Photo: Castle Rock Entertainment)

Whitfield then asked, “You think most men think this way?” and Harvey said, “99.9% of us think that way. You tell this to a woman and it blows her back -- 'No, I have male friends.' You have male friends because they know it can be nothing else right now.”

In conclusion, Harvey said, “I'll tell you what, all your male friends, just ask them in a friendly way, ‘If I wanted to date you, would you be okay with that?’ and watch the fireworks. Watch. I'm telling you.”

In addition to Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find and Keep a Man, Harvey is the author of the best sellers Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, and Act Like a Success, Think Like a Success.

Steve Harvey, 57, hosts the Steve Harvey Morning Show (radio), the Steve Harvey show (television), and Family Feud, which is syndicated by ABC and won the 2014 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host. The Steve Harvey show won the 2014 Outstanding Talk Series Award at the 45th NAACP Image Awards.