Thursday, May 15, 2008

We are back, for real this time!

So, we’re finally actually back. This time with real posts, written by us. Yay!

So, on to tonight’s topic: dating friends. April has kindly laid out some prompt questions for me to answer, because I like doing that, rather than just rambling, so, I’ll start answering.

Will it mess up the friendship? Well, I think that depends on what happens in the relationship. If you date and remain friends, but with physical attraction towards each other then I think that of course you can still be friends, at least during the tenure of your relationship. O course, if you break up in a way that is disagreeable to one, or both of you, then the likely hood that you will be friends after the fact grow less and less. This is not to say it can’t happen, but I think that it could cause a worse situation if you do break up. This would be based on the fact that if you had a lot of history together as friends and you had history together while in your relationship it is going to be worse if you break up badly. This is especially if the person that you begin dating is someone who is a best friend, someone you tell everything to already and you basically can’t live without. If that falls through if you break up (which it probably will at least for a little while) though, unless you have support in place of what your until recent boyfriend or girlfriend would have provided, you’re going to be in a much worse situation than you would if you still had your friend. So, there is the potential for a friendship to be messed up.

Is it different than dating non-friends? I think this is an interesting question, mostly because I don’t think I’d think about seriously dating someone, in the sense that I date it to mean (not just going on dates, but being a couple officially or whatever), unless I was friends with them. Now, dates can establish friendship and interest and that can grow into a relationship, but I think that you can’t totally discount friendship from a relationship. If you two can’t get along except when you’re making out with each other I don’t think it is really working to well. But, I’m sure some people see otherwise. I think though that dating a best-friend figure or a close friend is definitely different than dating someone who is only a sort of friend. I think that if you two are good friends already you’re going to be able to have a good time together almost no matter what, but otherwise you’re going to need to work at it more. So, I think that dating close friends can be helpful, it can be easier, but it can also of course cause problems as I just discussed in the last paragraph.

Now, April had some other prompts, but I basically answered them in the first paragraph, so, a final one.

If you don’t date, will things be weird that way too? I think this is an excellent question. I think it depends on how you go about bringing up the subject to begin with between you two. I think that it is going to create some tension, some awkwardness no matter what you do, even if one party doesn’t know about the other liking them. But, I do think that things don’t necessarily have to be weird forever. The two people can stay friends, even if both are quite aware of the feelings that they either have, or had for each other. Obviously it also depends on the people, some people could totally freak out and it could cause a problem where the two people might not talk for a really long time, but for others it might just cause a more subtle tension and awkwardness, one where both of them know it is there, but it is harder to detect unless you know what is going on.

So, even though I think most of what I just wrote seemed rather negative, I feel that dating between friends isn’t a bad thing. It can work out just fine, but sometimes it isn’t for the best. You just have to be aware of what is going on and how things are working out, because I think that it can get awkward very quickly, possibly more quickly that with someone you don’t really know, or aren’t really good friends with.

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