Love Your Best Friend? Why It’s Best to Back Away Right Now

Partners come and go but best friends are forever—until you love your best friend. Here are all the reasons why you should graze in greener pastures.

If you love your best friend, this scenario gets pretty complicated, especially when intense feelings are involved. You face a dilemma of Greek tragedy proportions. Torn between moving forward with what you feel, and keeping your precious friendship intact.

In a platonic relationship between men and women, one almost always ends up falling for the other. The initial intention may just be companionship. But things get convoluted when sexual attraction gets in the way.

The sex factor, as told by Harry

If you value your friendship—you tell each other your problems. You finish each other’s sentences, and you support each other through career and relationship moves. You may want to fight the feelings and stay in a simple, uncomplicated friendship. If you need help keeping those feelings at bay, just think of these things to help you move on from loving your best friend.

#1 The judgment starts. When you were friends, you told them about everything. What you think of this movie, why you went out with this person, that one-night stand you had, why you won’t go to that Chinese restaurant… your best friend knows it all.

In fact, your best friend may know too much about you. This was fine when you were friends. You have kicks at all your quirks and opinions, and your best friend tells you about everything, as well.

However, dynamics change when more-than-platonic love comes into the picture. Your best friend-turned-lover may get paranoid about every one you meet at the bar or your opposite gender friends at the office. Meanwhile, you may be worried about their boss, whom they told you they really adore and look up to.

All the things you confided in each other and the crazy secrets you both shared—all of these come to haunt the two of you once you take your friendship to the next level. [Read: Help! How to handle falling in love with your best friend]

#2 Someone always ends up getting hurt. Falling for your best friend can also be tricky because they may not feel the same way. Once you open up that dam of emotions and let your heart go to that unknown territory of your relationship, things will pretty much be in turmoil.

No matter how much you know your best friend, you never know how they will react when you tell them you love them.

Although they would do anything to cheer you up when you lost that job, or they dropped everything to take care of you when you sprained your ankle and came down with the flu, they don’t necessarily care enough to see that there could be more to your relationship. [Read: 10 signs you’re dating your best friend already and just don’t know it]

Perhaps they considered it once or twice before, but can’t really see you becoming more than just their best friend. If this is the case, you’ll end up nursing a wounded heart. Once you let yourself fall, there’s a big risk they may not be “the one” to catch you. Even though as a friend they have your back. *And yes, it can be twisted like that.*

#3 Best friends don’t necessarily mean best couple. And don’t you forget it. The thing with friendships is, they are not as complicated as a romantic relationship.

Friendship has an easy, hassle-free, no-expectations air to it. But anything more than that turns problematic. There will be expectations and rules and roles. Expectations alone are enough to ruin not just the relationship you’re trying to build, but your friendship, as well.

When you were just friends, being late for a date was received with a few well-placed and good-natured jokes. However, when you become more than friends, they may not take it as lightly anymore. Telling you how you are always late, and yadda, yadda, yadda. Not making it to movie night will also not be taken as lightly, unlike when you were friends, and there were no expectations. [Read: The tricky pros and cons of dating your best friend]

The reality is, once you become a couple, an invisible line is drawn, where there used to be none. You see sides of each other that you have never seen before. This leads to a whole lot of drama you didn’t have when you were just friends.

Furthermore, you may not be as carefree around each other, once you are together. Knowing their taste and likes, you may overcompensate or change your ways to fit the mold of what you know they like in a partner. There may be certain things they will not share anymore, because you are not friends, but partners. [Read: How to get over someone when your heart does not want to]

#4 You’ll have no one to turn to if you have relationship problems. When you were just friends, and you had a bad day with the guy you dated, your best friend was there to pick you up from work. You cried on their shoulder or bawled your eyes out in your sweats, while eating a tub of ice cream and cursing.

If—or when—you take your relationship further with your best friend, things take a very different turn. In fact, the hurt comes much deeper and stronger, because the person you thought was the living example that there is still hope of finding a good partner just acted like a total jackass.

Whose shoulder are you going to cry on now? Will anyone out there ever restore your faith? [Read: Are you more than friends or just friends? Find out now]

#5 There is no going back to the friendship you used to have. Once you cross that line to sex and being a couple, there is no going back to being best friends—or even casual acquaintances.

Even confessing your feelings to your best friend may prove to be too much to handle, especially if they doesn’t feel the same way. Things then turn awkward. They become wary or self-conscious around you. Or even start to distance themselves from you.

No matter how liberating it may seem for you to say what you feel, you risk ruining a perfectly wonderful friendship that you can never have with anyone else. [Read: 14 signs your best friend isn’t your best friend anymore]

#6 You lose the love of your life—and your best friend. Things are easier when you are friends. When you become more than that, things get messy. There is always that chance the relationship may not work out. When this happens, you not only lost your lover, but you cannot go back to being best friends again. There will be a dent in that friendship, and it can’t be put back together as perfectly as before.

With this kind of breakup, you lose two people—your love and your best friend. You not only have no one to turn to for comfort, you have also lost the only person who fills that special place in your heart. This gives you a heartbreak like no other, and the void may never be filled by anyone else.

Love is a special, precious thing, but so is friendship. You may feel so comfortable with your best friend that you start to wonder how great it would be if you fell in love with them.

[Read: How to ask a friend out without risking the friendship]

Although it’s a good thing to go after what you want, it is also wise to consider the consequences of your actions, and what other people may feel. Allowing yourself to fall for your best friend can be very tricky and places you and your best friend in a pretty bad situation.

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