Families For Life | Is it Love or Are We Just Friends?

There is sometimes this confusing space which opens up when someone you’ve been friends with for a while suddenly starts to look more and more attractive to you. It could be the other way round too, someone who’s always been your best buddy suddenly starts acting in a different way, but you’re not sure if it’s interest in you romantically or just a sign of extreme friendship and attachment.  

There’s always the risk that if you jump to the wrong conclusion, that not only will you embarrass yourself and your friend, but you could also lose the easy going friendship which you’ve always enjoyed. 

So before you do decide to act on your feelings, you might want to go through this checklist to see if your feelings might be mutual and romantic.

The Love or Friendship Checklist

Here’s a quick way to give you an indication of where your relationship might be headed. If you answer yes to most or all of the questions below, then it could be love and not just friendship. 

1. You Call Each Other Everyday
Maybe it started with a couple of texts every few weeks, and then these morphed into daily messages before bedtime, and then eventually you were calling each other every night to talk about how your day went and plan what you would like to do together when you meet again. It might be a pattern of calls which you didn’t plan on, but which has become a routine for both of you. If this is happening, then it’s likely that you and your best friend are more than just interested in how your day went. You have started to share dreams and feelings with each other regularly.

2. You are Concerned about Each Other
This happens when you know so much about each other that you know when to be concerned about each other. Does your best friend call you right after your job interview to see how it went? Do you call each other after you reach home – for a “safe and sound” update? Does your friend always bring along an extra umbrella for you or have a ready supply of your favourite mints? If the answer to these types of questions is a “Yes”, then you are clearly a cherished person in your friend’s life.

3. New People You Meet Assume You are a Couple
Friends who have known both of you for a long time might not see any changes in your relationship, but new people you meet will pick up on unconscious signals and body language fairly quickly. So if you are often mistaken as a couple when you meet new people, then it is highly possible that you are treating each other as a couple in all the ways that matter to other people. 

4. You Feel Jealous
If your friend goes on a date with someone else, or admires someone and expresses an interest in them do you feel unsettled or upset? Does your friend seem remote and less than happy for you when you have a date? You and your friend could be feeling jealous although you may not want to acknowledge the feelings. However, being unable to feel positive when your best friend seems to be interested in someone else is a good indicator that you have more than just feelings of friendship for your friend. 

5. You are Together on Weekends and Holidays
Great friends do go on holidays with each other now and then and see each other on weekends. But couples see each other every weekend and plan exclusive holidays together. If you and your best friend are seeing each other every weekend and spending many holidays together, you may already be behaving as a couple without realising it. 

6. You are Physically Attracted to Each Other
You may realise this last, but suddenly you look at your best friend and instead of feeling just affection for them, you feel attracted to them and want to reach across and create a physical connection. With friends, this tends to happen after you have already formed deep emotional bonds with each other. The chemistry tends to be the final catalyst needed to change your relationship from friendship to love. 

So Should You Date?

So you’ve gone through the checklist and you think you’re both ready to move out of the “friendzone”. Should you date? The answer to this question of course, depends on each and every couple. But before you lean over and ask your friend what they think about moving beyond friendship, you might want to examine your own feelings and motives first. 

Ask yourself if you are genuinely interested in dating your best friend or if your interest in them is one of curiosity. You may know your friend so well in everything else but this, and you just might be curious to see what it would be like to date each other. 

Ask yourself also if you are attracted to your friend because you are on the rebound from a failed relationship and your friend seems like a safe haven for you. 

If you’ve been friends for a long time, ask yourself why you never felt an interest in each other as a couple. Was it a timing issue or a compatibility issue?

If you’ve thought through your feelings and motives and still feel confident that this is what you both want, then, by all means take the next step. The best companions are also the best of friends, so a friendship that turns into love can form a great foundation for a happy relationship.