Where is the line between « relationships » and friendships? When does friendly become flirtatious, and when does being playful equal being a tease? Was Harry right? Is it impossible for a guy and a girl to ever truly be friends?
It sometimes seems as though the minute one begins to contemplate the apparently fine line between friendship and that «something more,» the line immediately disintegrates, and one finds themselves in that messy, grey, dangerous area fraught with the emotional entanglements of the relationally-confused. However, as humans seem to be incapable of contemplating anything but that fine line, it seems as though the line has no chance of ever really surviving before it is contemplated right out of existence.
In an era where relationships are the fall-back topic of conversation, the subject that we jump to in order to fill even the briefest of conversational pauses, the line has been given an increasingly short shelf-life. In fact, we seem to be using the line as sour cream before it ever had a chance to experience life as milk. Do we create relationship issues with friends in order to avoid the banality of comfortable friendship? Or do others create relational conflict for us and our friends so that they can enjoy the angst without having to trouble with the emotional investment themselves? And inevitably, does this growing obsession with relationship dysfunction strip me of my freedom to be friends with a guy without having unreasonably romantic expectations piled on the relationship?
Heck, I’m terrified to even hug a guy now for fear it’ll be read as a come-hither gesture. What would they do if I pulled out some bisous?
This is just another reason why I love les Français!
