So you think you can dance (if dance means sleep with your friend)

so you think you can dance (if dance means sleep with your friend)

written by ella donoghue

photo by ella donoghue

You’re talking to a friend and they casually put their hand on your shoulder. They move their unspoken assigned seat to sit next to you in class, then start asking you more about your weekends. Texts become sprinkled with mild flirtation. Quick conversations start to feel deeper and more intentional, and you notice your bodies inching closer to one another each time. You see them walking down Boylston street looking especially nice. And one day, you start to get that I think I wanna fuck my friend itch. There is only one way to scratch it. 

Friendship and desire are not opposites. They’re neighbors. At some point, each of us will inevitably start to wonder if our platonic love for someone is growing in a sexual slash romantic direction. But unlike a stranger, a friend already knows your vulnerabilities and you know theirs. That knowledge, combined with so many other factors, raise the stakes. How do we know when it’s worth trying? 

Sometimes one friend makes the first move. Other times it’s a slow burn, a gradual and mutual descent into love. Or, one friend conceals how they are feeling, afraid to ruin an important friendship if those feelings are not reciprocated. Maybe it’s strictly friends with benefits. No matter what, it can be a slippery slope. You both have to consider the possibility of it not working out: if you’re in the same group of friends, who gets custody of which friends in the event of a breakup? How will you behave at birthday parties or other events where you’d both be expected during the relationship’s postmortem phase? And even if you stay together forever, what are your PDA rules? What will the reactions of your mutual friends be when they start adjusting to you two kissing and cuddling at hangouts? Even worse—what if one or both of you try things out, and immediately realize there is no sexual compatibility, and it was all a huge mistake? 

Monica and Chandler. Harry and Sally. Jim and Pam. Even my own parents were part of the same group for almost a decade before they finally got together. We all know a friends to lovers success story, and plenty of us have dabbled in them ourselves. It’s really special to like someone so much that friendship is no longer a satisfactory amount of intimacy or vulnerability. Deciding that the inherent risks are worth taking is like making a promise to your friend that they are worth more than what you both have to lose.

Adding sexuality and romance onto an already established friendship might feel like a very natural progression. A couple who started as close friends, Lola and Peter, recently celebrated their one year anniversary. They had been friends for over a year before their first date, and their first kiss didn’t come for weeks after that. “I was already comfortable around Lola because of our friendship, and that made romance feel more natural. It felt less complicated and confusing because we already established a rapport, and we got into having good sex quicker than the average couple because we were already good at communicating and being real and honest with each other,” Peter reflected. 

Lola realized her feelings for Peter first. She had more time to grapple with those feelings before Peter heard from several of their mutual friends that Lola was beginning to catch feelings. For him, “it was difficult to see her in that light at first because we had been friends for so long. I was kinda like, ‘what’s going on? This is my friend, Lola.’ Obviously I always thought she was gorgeous but I kinda thought I was too nerdy for her.”

Another couple, Thomas and Kat, started off with a ton of mutual friends. They, too, were encouraged by those friends to explore one another, but felt some sense of imposter syndrome. 

“She was so nonchalant with me that I couldn’t believe it, at first, when friends told me that she really liked me. I truly believed she didn’t fuck with me like that. I was in denial,” Thomas said. 

Kat, who was not looking for anything serious after back-to-back dating horror stories, would tell friends she really liked Thomas, but that she didn’t know what to do. She was in denial too. “I never thought I deserved a nice guy, and he was so nice,” she admitted. 

When both of these couples initially decided to test the waters of romance, they kept the stakes low. Lola recalled that she and Peter “were really casual about it at first… it’s hard because it is a scary thing,” she said. 

Kat agreed that her relationship with Thomas “evolved from what [she] expected it would be, which was just a fling,” as it is now a very true relationship. 

Many friends who develop feelings for each other try to take things slow at first, because it is a transition that impacts not only the couple, but the people who spend time with them. “Everything changes. Hanging out with your mutual friends becomes different, and weirder, and the friendship aspect becomes intertwined with romance,” Lola said. 

This has benefits and downfalls. “So many of my friends are girls who were used to having me as their hype man, and as a platonic masculine presence in all their lives,” Thomas said. He worried about the ways in which being with Kat might impact his female friendships, and feared the potential consequences of close friends watching his relationship progress in front of their eyes. “I felt like shifting all of my attention onto one woman created some friction. Emotions definitely arose, and I did have to navigate a lot in the first month and a half or so,” he said. 

Ultimately, no matter the implications, you can’t fight love. “As soon as it started we were like ‘oh no, this is going to hurt [if it doesn't work out],’” Thomas recalled.” Kat described the beginning stages of their relationship as “a fun distraction from problems for each other. At first we were just having a good time,” she said. But they both felt an inability to slow or suppress their very real feelings for one another. “Now he’s my rock,” Kat said, happily.  

Lola and Peter also welcomed any changes that came from their transition from friendship to relationship. “We always say to each other, ‘I feel like I know you so much deeper and better now. I knew you as a friend but now I know you, as a person,’” Lola explained. Looking back, the two feel that everything worked so well from the beginning that not exploring it further felt impossible. “We both respect each other as people, and got along very well, so going back to being friends would have felt like missing out on something so good.” 

Taking things to the next level can be really hard. Not only for a couple—who fears losing each other’s friendship in pursuit of something more—but also for the friends who hold both individuals dear, and may have conflicting opinions about their budding romance. I’d like to advise everyone to ignore the noise of anyone outside your relationship who tries to tell you that it isn’t worth it, or that it’ll never work out. However, I know that the feelings of your friends are really hard to ignore. It’s undeniable that getting romantically or sexually involved with a friend is risky, and it does not always end well. Anyone who reminds you to consider those risks truly does have your best interest at heart. It is my belief, though, that what’s even harder to ignore than your friends’ opinions or feelings are your own feelings. Maybe the real risk isn’t in crossing the line—it’s pretending the line was never there. And I’ve Always Said That.