You've got more comrades in that camp than you think, I'd bet, but you're right. Most of the city I'm from thinks of it that way.

( and, as someone raised in that environment, she, too... )

Hahaha... but that doesn't mean it's completely impossible. If you're both getting something out of it, both using one another, both thinking of each other as a "means to an end", whatever that "end" is... you really don't think they couldn't form a meaningful relationship like that? Time spent together is time spent together, whatever the intentions are.