The strange divide, Friends v Lovers

[stickygirl]

When we become friends with someone, we mutually accept certain boundaries and rules to our friendship, that are quite different to those between lovers. I don't mean physical boundaries - where exactly we can touch a friend's body, depending on genders or age differences, but something less clear.

If we have an established friendship with someone, it because difficult if not impossible to break the rules and reset the relationship to be lovers. It might be the way my brain works, so I wonder if anyone has noticed this and perhaps acknowledged that strange, unspoken rule in their writing?

Maybe it's a tribal thing? Perhaps as hunters we trust each other in one way, but as lovers, it is quite different? Different goals, different rules.

Humans. We're strange. Maybe some psychologist has an answer?

 

[SimonDoom]

I would add that the peculiar way that we distinguish how we act with friends and lovers is a highly individual thing. Some people are very intimate with those they regard as friends; others aren't and save that behavior with those with whom they are in romantic relationships. I'm definitely in the latter camp.

It's a distinction that's good fodder for a story because boundaries like that one create tension and drama. They also establish character.

 

[stickygirl]

Cheers Simon

It's surely a personal thing and I sense the divide between the two.

People being friend-zoned I think started out as a benign and apt description. Its a shame it got turned into an insult.

Then there are those really irritating friends you've know for years that later say "Oh I really fancied you when we first met" I'm never sure whether to believe them or assume they are taking the piss/mick

 

[jehoram]

You raise an interesting point. I have a friend I've known for ... what, forty years? We've never been lovers, mainly due to bad timing ... either I was in a relationship and she wasn't, or she was in a relationship when I wasn't. Then we moved to different parts of the country for a while.

But we've told each other things we've never told our spouses or lovers. Somehow that's because we feel that we're in safe zones with each other. We know that, no matter what we tell each other, it's not going to destroy the relationship.

And I have no interest in rocking that boat, looking under that rock, or whatever other image you like. We're good.

 

[Omenainen]

I’m not sure what you mean. I’ve got a divide between work relationships and personal relationships, so sure, there are different levels of friendship. But with my “private” friends we do pretty much all the same things as with my significant other. We discuss the life, universe and everything, we spend time naked (duh, we’re Finnish, we go to sauna together), I’ve fucked some of them back when I was still single. I love them, but not like I do my spouse. And every relationship is different, because every one of my friends is different, and we kinda play a different song than with someone else.

 

[KeithD]

I have a different set of intimacies with friends and lovers. But then I also have a different set of intimacies with lovers and sex partners.

 

[SimonDoom]

I’m not sure what you mean. I’ve got a divide between work relationships and personal relationships, so sure, there are different levels of friendship. But with my “private” friends we do pretty much all the same things as with my significant other. We discuss the life, universe and everything, we spend time naked (duh, we’re Finnish, we go to sauna together), I’ve fucked some of them back when I was still single. I love them, but not like I do my spouse. And every relationship is different, because every one of my friends is different, and we kinda play a different song than with someone else.

Clearly, I am not Finnish. Clearly, I need to get to know Finns better. You people sound like a lot of fun.

This underscores what I mean. This is not at all the way I am with "just friends."

 

[stickygirl]

Clearly, I am not Finnish. Clearly, I need to get to know Finns better. You people sound like a lot of fun.

This underscores what I mean. This is not at all the way I am with "just friends."

Perhaps it's because it's such a sparsely populated country? They have a cultural obligation to sex - friends, the postman, the tax inspector... all those long dark nights too!!

 

[Omenainen]

Perhaps it's because it's such a sparsely populated country? They have a cultural obligation to sex - friends, the postman, the tax inspector... all those long dark nights too!!

I suppose we’d be less sparsely populated if we did fuck around more. But we do have this great word, “pirttiviljely”, roughly translates as “cabin cultivation,” which means using the long, dark winter nights to, ahem, increase the headcount of the family. So it definitely is a thing, there’s even a term for it. And just think of a time before electricity, what else were people gonna do all those long winter nights?

Didn’t mean to turn your thread into a discussion about Finnish breeding policies. I’m sorry. And to Simon, sorry dude, but not all Finnish are like me and my friends

 

[SyleusSnow]

Friends to lovers is a common trope and lots of fun. All that unresolved sexual tension, being 'friendzoned' and secretly pining for the other... never daring risk the friendship by breaking those unwritten rules. Endless possibilities for great stories.

In real life I had a friend become a lover. It was *very* gradual and took a real-world inciting incident to finally make it happen. Worked out well in the end... we were together for years.

There are a ton of friends to lover stories on Lit, especially if you include roommate to lover, co-worker to lover and all the other variations where the unstated platonic boundaries are slowly tested and relaxed. Orie's Roommates or more for example.

Or broken very quickly. Like in How My Best Friend Became My Lover by ewriter cuts through all that with a little non-consent bondage and forced (at first) impregnation

Plus we have "lover's friend to lover"... girlfriend's best friend, best friend's girlfriend, and so on. Lots of those on Lit and seems to be very popular in published mainstream Romance. More boundaries to cross leading to even greater tension. I tried to do one of those in For Her Too and mostly pulled it off, I think.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Well, as the old saying goes, gain a lover, lose a friend. I agree that there is a line, or maybe a one-way door. And maintaining a friendship between a man and a woman is, I think, always difficult, for that old demon Sex is always looking over your shoulders.

In any case,

“I find that the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance. I find that the moment I let myself make friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical.

Shaw, Pygmalion

 

[SyleusSnow]

Well, as the old saying goes, gain a lover, lose a friend. I agree that there is a line, or maybe a one-way door. And maintaining a friendship between a man and a woman is, I think, always difficult, for that old demon Sex is always looking over your shoulders.

In any case, Shaw, Pygmalion

Most often a one-way door:

And I would have, now love is over,
An end to all, and end:
I cannot, having been your lover,
Stoop to become your friend!

- Arthur Symons

 

[Athalia]

You raise an interesting point. I have a friend I've known for ... what, forty years? We've never been lovers, mainly due to bad timing ... either I was in a relationship and she wasn't, or she was in a relationship when I wasn't.

Frequent readers of this board have probably cottoned on to the fact that he's talking about me. We have not only been friends for a long time, but collaborators. We edit each other's stories, so we have access to all of each other's dirty thoughts (or, at least, the ones we put into our stories!).

But we've told each other things we've never told our spouses or lovers. Somehow that's because we feel that we're in safe zones with each other. We know that, no matter what we tell each other, it's not going to destroy the relationship.

I value that friendship and that level of confidentiality very much. It gives each of us a safe place to go to. It may be why women are so much more open with gay men than with straight ones. We know that he's not trying to hit on me. nor I on him, so we can proceed with all the rules defined.

And I have no interest in rocking that boat, looking under that rock, or whatever other image you like. We're good.

Which brings up another point. I also value and appreciate the relationship Jehoram has with his wife, and wouldn't want to spoil that for all the world. And during the times when I was in a relationship, he backed off almost completely, because he didn't want our friendship to cast any cloud on that.

 

[Bramblethorn]

When we become friends with someone, we mutually accept certain boundaries and rules to our friendship, that are quite different to those between lovers. I don't mean physical boundaries - where exactly we can touch a friend's body, depending on genders or age differences, but something less clear.

If we have an established friendship with someone, it because difficult if not impossible to break the rules and reset the relationship to be lovers. It might be the way my brain works, so I wonder if anyone has noticed this and perhaps acknowledged that strange, unspoken rule in their writing?

Maybe it's a tribal thing? Perhaps as hunters we trust each other in one way, but as lovers, it is quite different? Different goals, different rules.

Humans. We're strange. Maybe some psychologist has an answer?

It's quite different for me. I can pretty much only see somebody as a lover if we've already developed a strong friendship, and some of my exes are still close friends. Sometimes it's quite ambiguous, when I have a history with a friend who lives a long way away - when we meet up again, we have to figure out whether we're still physical.

 

[SamScribble]

In the course of my lifetime, more than a few of my (lady) friends have become lovers. And, after we have ceased to be lovers (for one reason or another - usually geography), we have, almost without exception, remained friends. Unfortunately, several of them have now fallen off the twig.

 

[yukonnights]

It's quite different for me. I can pretty much only see somebody as a lover if we've already developed a strong friendship, and some of my exes are still close friends. Sometimes it's quite ambiguous, when I have a history with a friend who lives a long way away - when we meet up again, we have to figure out whether we're still physical.

I thought I was going to have to write what Bramblethorn said. But I'm the same; I have to have a 'connection' before any real sexual interest can begin. In some ways it's inconvenient — it was especially so when I was younger. Too often though, my energy and a "friends" energy weren't / aren't on the same frequency. I can push too hard to connect — and for some this is a negative, a turn off. I did discover a term a while back that made me feel not so "weird"; demisexual: "Not experiencing any sexual attraction to another until a greater bond is formed." [ Urban Dictionary ]

So it seems that, in so many ways, we humans are both similar and infinitely unique. I have to say though, now I'm good with needing a deeper "friendship" before intimacy. When I was younger, it was confusing — the spark just wasn't there on some awkward dates.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I thought I was going to have to write what Bramblethorn said. But I'm the same; I have to have a 'connection' before any real sexual interest can begin. In some ways it's inconvenient — it was especially so when I was younger. Too often though, my energy and a "friends" energy weren't / aren't on the same frequency. I can push too hard to connect — and for some this is a negative, a turn off. I did discover a term a while back that made me feel not so "weird"; demisexual: "Not experiencing any sexual attraction to another until a greater bond is formed." [ Urban Dictionary ]

So it seems that, in so many ways, we humans are both similar and infinitely unique. I have to say though, now I'm good with needing a deeper "friendship" before intimacy. When I was younger, it was confusing — the spark just wasn't there on some awkward dates.

FWIW, I do feel attraction to complete strangers now and then, but it's a passive sort of attraction - that person's hot, might be nice to fantasise about them, but with zero interest in trying to make it happen for real. It's a different thing to the attractions I develop that might actually turn into relationships.

 

[yukonnights]

FWIW, I do feel attraction to complete strangers now and then, but it's a passive sort of attraction - that person's hot, might be nice to fantasise about them, but with zero interest in trying to make it happen for real. It's a different thing to the attractions I develop that might actually turn into relationships.

Yes, same with me. I can "see" just fine — I can imagine/fantasize. It's when we actually start "trying to be friends" that it gets awkward. I think I've turned many people away by trying to dig too deeply into their depths. Not all people are wired to be so emotionally/intellectually intimate and it frightens them away.

I understand it better now and can control my desire to mentally dissect them. But then I feel a dull boredom set in — casual chit chat is like dying by a thousand dull knife cuts. My eyelids grow heavy .....

 

[Omenainen]

And maintaining a friendship between a man and a woman is, I think, always difficult, for that old demon Sex is always looking over your shoulders.

If I took this approach I couldn’t be friends with anyone, being bisexual. Primarily I don’t approach people through sex at all, at least now that I’m in a relationship myself, although I am always searching for some kind of mental connection.

I emphasize with Bramblethorn and yukonnights, with the distinction that of there’s no meaningful connection to be had, I’d still rather have any sex at all than go without. All sorts of “friends with benefits”-arrangements are really convenient, because you already know and trust and like the other person. It doesn’t have to be so serious. But I understand your approach in that all of my serious relationships have started out as friendships.

And just so that all of you don’t think I’m some sex-crazed maniac, I do also have friends I haven’t fucked, some I’ve know for a very long time. Relationships are just different, depending on the participants.