As cool as it would be if i came up with the definition myself, I can't take credit for it. Esther Pauline "Eppie" Lederer a.k.a Ann Landers is the mind behind the statement "Love is the friendship that caught fire.". She was famous for being one of the few ladies behind the classic newspaper advice column Ask Ann Landers. We don't have stuff like that anymore though, because 1. Who reads newspapers? 2. Everyone just goes to twitter or instagram for relationship advice; which isn't always ideal ;)
Honestly couldn't agree with you more, Eppie. Previously, whenever the question of "What're you looking for in a relationship?" came up, the answer was always "A sense of humour." At some point in the last few months, however, that answer has become "I want to be friends with them first before I date them." The last few posts have touched on this concept, mostly being the reasoning for why I believe certain things. Now it gets it's own post.
In my mind it’s stupid simple, if a friendship is a relationship that has a happiness scale of 1-10, a romantic relationship that evolved from that is one that has a scale of 10-20. i.e. there's hella happiness potential in those relationships. One of the main reasons for a flourishing relationship is how the two (or 3 or more, I won’t judge) people involved get along, and since obviously not everyone in the world is compatible with each other, doesn’t it make sense that a friendship that happens to turn into something more already has an advantage opposed to a romantic relationship that just starts from scratch with the people barely knowing anything about each other?
Who knows? Like everything else that has to do with love there’s no real answer. There’s the obvious downside of risking a great quote-unquote level 10 friendship if a break up happens, and it goes without saying that that would not be fun to go through at all. There‘s also the fact that for most people, they prefer to keep their amazing friendships as just that - an amazing friendship.
You could always let them know that you’re open to the possibility of a relationship at the start of the friendship - but that just eliminates all the spontaneity/surprise that would come from naturally becoming involved later down the line... Why? Well in that moment where you let them know where you stand, they are forced to evaluate the “you” they know right now as a potential partner, the “you” that is nothing more than a kind friend they just met. That situation is pretty similar to randomly looking at a guy in the bar and trying to figure out if he’d be a good husband. Not even fortune tellers can determine that fate.
In the case where you don’t tell them this, it becomes indescribably awkward when the time comes for them to face a brother or sister in the eye and say they aren’t looking for more and risk hurting someone they consider family. Blood family.
To summarize - just like in real life, friendship can catch on fire, the spark may not always be there but when it does light... just make sure you take care of it effectively, or else irreparable damage could be done.
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