I’m currently talking often to a girl who I met from meetup.com. We have a sort of romantic tension that is pretty fun. I think the Japanese expression I put in the thread title explains the situation pretty well.
I guess I was just curious if anyone else had any similar experiences.
It’s pretty common for me. Of the half-dozen friends I consider my best or closest, I’ve got feelings for all of them, and they’re all aware of it. Of those, I’ve slept with one and would consider my chances with three others to be better than average if I actually tried to take things further. I’m fairly content to keep it mostly-platonic, though.
In my experience, it only stays fun as long as you’re both on the same wavelength. If one starts to feel more or less than the other, it gets kind of uncomfortable. It is a common occurrence with me, though, and I’ve ended up dating a few friends when this situation spilled over into something more overt.
I’ve had this happen several times, generally when there’s a very strong emotional and intellectual connection, but not a physical one. It can be fabulous if you’re both coming at it from the same place, but it can be absolute torture if you’re not. I tend to approach friendships like others approach romances anyway, and I think I sort of “fall in love” with my closest friends. Usually, this happens with my female friends, though I’ve had a few romantic friendships with male friends, too. Four of these romantic friendships blossomed into actual romance, though three were pretty one sided and were more about me getting swept up in the other person’s interest than a genuine mutual interest.
And then of course there’s the stupid and tortuous pining for one’s straight friends, which is a whole 'nother problem entirely.
I had a conversation about this with a friend of mine last night. She recently had to ask her (male) flatmate of 5 years to move out because the boundaries of their relationship had become so blurred it was confusing the hell of both of them.
They both said very similar things to me about it - along the lines of “we really love each other, s/he is my best friend, we’re very attracted to each other and there’s no-one we’d rather live with - but we don’t think we should have a relationship because we don’t think we’d be right together.”
Daft sods. I really want to knock their commitment-phobic heads together and ask what the hell they think any relationship would give them that would be better than what they already have.
A whole lotta marriages aren’t ever that good.
That’s what I keep telling them. I don’t know what’s up with him, but I know she feels that because they didn’t have the cliched “eyes meeting across a crowded room, swept off their feet” instant soul-mate connection, he can’t be “The One”.
I tell ya, fairy tales and Hollywood have a lot to answer for. Lots of lonely women, for a start.
Totally agree. I’m in the latter boat right now, actually, and it sucks. 