The TRUTH About Being Friends With Someone You Like

 

If you like someone and you want to be with them is it possible for the two of you to be just friends? The short answer is yes, but the long answer is it’s actually a bit more complicated.

What is the friend zone?

Is it real? Is it made up? Is it something people use as a cover whenever the person they like doesn’t like them back?

When you first meet someone that you’re interested in, you start to figure out where along the connection spectrum you want to place them.

If you have a romantic interest in that person and they don’t feel that same way they even say something like “let’s just be friends” you might feel like you’re shifting more towards the friend zone now.

But, not everyone gets placed in the friend zone.

The only people that really end up there are those that decide that they’re gonna hide their feelings and pretend that they no longer exist just so they can maintain a sort of “friendship” with that person.

Basically, all you’re doing is pretending to not have feelings for them.

People do this for a multitude of reasons. Sometimes being honest about your feelings might mean that you push that person away and lose them from your life or sometimes people are just too nervous to be open. They’re afraid that if they say something, that person is going to flat out reject them and then boom they’re gone.

Back when I was in high school there was a girl that I was super close with and when I finally worked up the courage to tell her how I felt she hit me with that line “let’s just be friends”. I was so worried that if I told her I didn’t want to be friends she wouldn’t really talk to me or hang out with me as much anymore. She would think it’s awkward or weird because I still liked her. So, I just kind of ate my feelings and told her “yeah I’m totally cool with that. It’s totally fine, no problem at all.”

What I really wanted was to date her, but because I agreed to be “just friends” and nothing more, anytime she would flirt with another guy or talk about other guys that she liked I would just nod along and smile and pretend like it didn’t bother me. What I wasn’t doing was the actual step that would help me just see her as a friend.

If you want to build a real and solid friendship with that person what you’re gonna need to do is to start to shift the romantic feelings you have for them towards other potential people that you want to date. Otherwise, you’re going to keep getting caught up in the whirlwind of feelings and emotions for that person.

Step #1: Think about other people you can potentially date.

Are there any friends of friends that you’re interested in or are there any people in your classes that you want to get to know better?I’m not saying you need to like them in the same exact way that you like this person but, you have to start somewhere. You won’t ever discover those real deep feelings until you start to pursue new people to explore more about them.

Step #2: Accept how they actually feel about you.

Recognize that this person doesn’t really like you back and work towards being okay with that. I know it sucks, I know it hurts but understand that that’s how they feel. They’re not wrong or bad or mean for feeling that way. It’s just how they feel, it’s something that you have to come to learn.

Step #3: Put your hope of them changing their mind to rest.

And third, avoid falling into the repetitive cycle of building up hope that they may actually like you this time only to get shot down and find out that they’re still not interested.

Remember what I said before about the friend zone earlier in being open and honest about your feelings? Well, the way you can kind of put that into practice doesn’t always have to be this big confession of love to the person that you like.

It could just be you acknowledging that you have these feelings of attraction towards them and then choosing not to act on them in your interactions with that person.

Just because you’ve asked that person out and they’ve shot you down doesn’t mean your feelings are suddenly just gonna disappear.

You may not interact with them for a week or a month or even a year but sometimes just seeing a picture of them online or passing them in the hallway at school might bring back all those feelings again and that’s totally normal and fine. It’s okay to feel the way that you do about this person even if you want to be a friend to them. It all comes down to how you choose to manifest your feelings into actions.

Some of us are hardwired to interpret the actions of others as direct signs of interest. So, if someone’s looking at you more often, maybe they message you or they comment on your picture or status, you might think that they’re doing that because they like you when in reality they’re doing it just to be friendly.

The question you always need to come back to and ask yourself as you’re trying to build a friendship with that person that you like is:

Do I think this person likes me even though in the past they told me that they don’t?

If you find yourself trying to wrestle with the look that they gave you or a text message that they sent then you might be stepping outside of the boundaries of that friendship. You might be reading more into it and falling back into that hopeful space of maybe they’ve changed their mind, maybe they like me now, and not really focusing on rebuilding that friendship.

Focus on building a solid friendship with your former crush

If you find yourself trying to interpret everything they’re saying, think back to the other people that you want to pursue, think back to how you want to build a friendship with that person and how you can explore more friendship-like behaviors with them.

For example, you might want to talk to that initial crush about other people you like, other people you want to get to know better, and just kind of start to inform them more about your normal dating life outside of them. You can always start to turn to that friend for advice on different clothing items you want to try out, different hairstyles you want to do, or even new messages that you want to send over to different people that you like so that they can help you craft it a little bit better.

The more you turn to them for friendship advice, the easier it’s going to be for you to start to lay the real groundwork for an honest and open friendship.

It’s time to be honest about your feelings

But let’s talk about the elephant in the room here and I want you to be honest with me.

Are you only maintaining a friendship with that person because you don’t want to lose them from your life?

If that is the case then it’s not a real friendship that you’re actually building. It’s a facade, it’s fake, it’s just not genuine. And that very well may be where you are right after you’ve just been rejected by them and you decide that you want to pursue a friendship so if you want to move closer to the friend stage on that communication spectrum the best thing you can do is to take time to learn about them. Hear out their hobbies and their interests, discover more about them and share more about yourself.

That also might mean learning about their dating life.

They may bring those things up and yeah it might sting so it’s okay to set boundaries at the beginning for yourself. To determine what you’re comfortable hearing and not hearing. But ultimately work on being open and honest with yourself. Recognize what you’re actually willing to work towards or what you’re pretending to work towards just so you don’t lose them.

On that note, I’ll catch you next time.
As always, love and peace.