On friends, part II

…no drama. Sorry to disappoint you guys. We did lose interest in one another though – I was too naïve for him in areas other than dating (i.e., finances, jobs, life in general), and he had an awkward sense of humor that I found only people who were heavily into anime and/or cosplay would enjoy.

In the end, it was a mix of not having anything to talk about and the fact that he’s had more luck with guys than me that ended our short-term attraction with one another. Too bad though, I could have gotten free Caramel Frappuccinos fo’ lyfe!

This might make you conclude that dating a friend must be the ideal route; especially since magazines and TV shows make it seem so standard. But the friendships they talk about are the ones where both parties always found each other attractive but couldn’t be together at the moment so they held off and remained all buddy-buddy for the meantime. That is until whatever obstacle that stopped them before has been removed, and now they can’t keep their hands off each other like two rabbits in a barrel.

Well I’m not talking about those friends. I’m talking about that female friend of yours that you can’t help but insult her every chance you get because she’s so dumb. Or ladies, that one guy friend you have who you fart or pick your nose in front of because you don’t give a flying duck what he thinks of you. And if he did, you’d feel perfectly fine telling him to go F himself anyway.

The kind of friend you don’t even feel flirty with because you’ve never found him or her attractive. Well…maybe once, a few months back, when you had those shots of who-knows-what and when you squinted, your friend just so happened to look like some C-list celebrity that you think is cute (see: Simon Rex, Amy Smart). But that was for like a second. And plus, you were really drunk.

So what happens when a completely platonic, “I wouldn’t even sleep with you if monkeys came flying out of my butt,” friendship accidentally becomes a relationship? It sounds ridiculous but it happens. Out of the blue, one of you guys gets the crazies and pitch the idea that maybe you guys should get together. Then the other person, who has developed the Let’s Agree With Bad Ideas Syndrome (LAWBIS) agrees.

At first, it sounds OK. Being in a relationship is like being in a friendship only you guys get to hang out between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m.without anyone asking questions, receive presents every now and then, are obliged to dress up and attend stuff together, lay down higher expectations for one another and be keener to each other’s “problems” lest you guys get into a fight about it…again. It’s perfection!

A friend I once had named Lan, who is dead to me now, used to have this boyfriend who was her really good friend. At first it made sense – they talked to each other on the phone every night, knew each other really well and had the same sense of humor.

That is, until they both realized they still acted like friends. They’d insult each other (and make other people in their presence really uncomfortable), check out other people with one another (and then get jealous), not really care about each other’s problems together and go out to bars without telling the other one. They didn’t want “things to change” just because they got together and indeed things didn’t.

They tried too hard to maintain their sense of self and that worked out fine except for the random times when they kicked into relationship-mode and got into fights about their “needs.” I suppose they made good friends but a bad couple since it seemed like they fought more often than ever. She wanted him to do sweet things but he found it unnecessary to be romantic to her since he never was before. Likewise, he knew too much about her exes because they’d talk about it back when they were friends (when it didn’t bother him), and he couldn’t find the same charm and mystery in her that he found in girls he was just acquainted with. Needless to say, being more than friends became too awkward and difficult for them so they broke it off.

(Then he became a bisexual and started working at Starbucks and then met me…boom! Full circle!)

LYNN LA would like to stress that her friend’s ex really isn’t the same guy at Starbucks and that her life isn’t as circular and poetically intertwined as she’d like her universe to be. If you’d like to throw sand in her eyes, e-mail her at ldla@ucdavis.edu.