What made you realize you wanted to try a relationship with a friend?

8 comments

1. There was no specific moment that made me realize I wanted to try a relationship with a friend, but there were definitely several factors that contributed to my decision. First and foremost, I have always been attracted to the idea of having a close friendship as the foundation of a romantic relationship. I believe that being friends first allows you to get to know someone in a more meaningful way than simply dating them right off the bat. Additionally, I have had several bad experiences with traditional relationships, so the thought of trying something different was very appealing to me. Finally, I have always been very independent and self-sufficient, so the idea of being in a committed relationship with someone who is also my best friend seemed like the perfect compromise.

2. We were 14, horny, and the only gay guy that the other knew.

3. Because we liked each other and wanted a relationships?

4. I don’t think there’s really a “realization point”.

   I was friend zoned in every situation while in school, but there was one friend I really liked and we got together very well. We kept winding up being put together, almost every class, and we also applied for the same job in high school without knowing it and we both got the job and worked together.

   At the end of high school I was thinking we were both going to go our separate ways and that would be it, but then we wound up both staying for community college and again somehow had classes together.

   We would hang out and talk about not ruining our friendship by getting into a relationship, but I told her that eventually our friendship would likely be ruined by us having other relationships….

   I explained I thought it was a bad idea to let this go for the sake of trying to preserve a friendship and then wind up being 40 and running into each other again with the pressure to cheat our significant others for a “what might have been” night.

   We’ve been together for 7 years lol.

5. When I find myself wishing I was with her when I’m not. I sometimes miss friends but I never long for them.

6. Experienced Love and now like a drug I’m hooked

7. I had a conversation with her.

   We had gone out for a couple of drinks to catch up after having not seen each other for a few years, and we ended up having one of the most engaging, insightful conversations I’d ever had. She is one of these people who can juggle multiple threads at the same time, taking you down a tangent, then to another tangent, and maybe even another tangent, and find her way back to the main thread of the story to tie it all together. If you’ve ever seen any of Mike Birbiglia’s stand-up, it’s very similar – except she was doing it unrehearsed and on-the-fly. On top of that, she had an improbable breadth of knowledge and the vocabulary to articulate it. It was fascinating.

   We also discussed and debated all sorts of social and political topics, and she *fucking schooled me*. She knew exactly how to identify errors in my thinking, get two steps out in front of me, set up a logic trap, then sit back as I walked myself directly into it. It was fascinating. None of this was done maliciously, by the way – she actually gave a shit about helping me realize that I had some bad perspectives and shitty takes. That feeling of being cared about in that way (something new for me) amplified what I was feeling about her.

   I barely slept that night. It was such a stimulating evening that wrinkled and lit up my brain in ways it had never experienced, and i just couldnt shut my brain down. I immediately knew that she was someone that I wanted to keep close to me. Unfortunately, instead of just telling her this, I made clumsy, elbowy advances [that would have made Hank Hill cringe](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e5/5c/16/e55c163fac94af017ab4e0fa88b50db0–movie-tv-the-movie.jpg), and nothing ever came of it. That said, I think that this experience was so fundamental in changes to my worldview (and self-perception) that ultimately took me to places I never thought possible.

8. cuddles were had.