Are you in love with your best friend?

By Prathyusha Vedula

Anything in this world feels incomplete without friends. There is not much difference between a close friend and a best friend. The best of all the close ones is just a best friend. All of us have one such property into which none is allowed to occupy or enter: best-friend. To be more precise, a guy best-friend(Accept the difference in the level of possessiveness for your girl bestie and guy bestie).

I am a girl writing this post, so I will be sharing all of this in a girl’s view in the “girl and guy bestie relation”. But if you are a guy reading this, you know how to place yourself into accordingly.

Being a girl, it is a great feeling to know, understand, counter, argue, enjoy, and share things with your guy best friend. For people who are already engaged, if you think of doubting the bond between you and your best friend, your relationship might or might not be healthy.

WHEN DOES THE DOUBT ARISE?

All along when you hang out with your bestie, every one of you might have faced these questions at least once: Are you both dating? Are you into a relationship? I think you need a check on your relation. Why are you hiding things? Why are you so concerned? You aren’t the way you were. Blah blah. You were asked so! Weren’t you?

If yes, that is when you start thinking about your friend, start doubting your bond, think about the freedom you have with him, and the things you share. You start to flash, ignoring all the boundaries suddenly and start to accept if the questions made a point. You remember the times when you enjoyed being with him, slowly switching your mind into another channel, accepting his words, suggestions, and every interaction you had to be the best ones. That is when you’ll suspect it to be “something more” of the bond between you. Initially, you don’t accept people asking about it, later you start analyzing things. This pushes you into the confused state of ‘not knowing the difference between platonic love and pure love’.

So.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU LOVE YOUR BEST FRIEND?

Step 1: Compare your dream guy with your best friend

Imagine, get yourself into that time where you laid a few characteristics about how your partner should be. Give this imagination a human form and name him the ‘dream guy’. Take time, compare him with your guy's best friend.

Solution:

In most cases, you note that your bestie might be a contrast to your dream guy. But you still feel so happy when he is around. You slowly neglect everything and accept your best friend as your dream guy. You clearly observe your mind switching. If this happens very often and you don’t mind about the difference, you can doubt your friendship for love.

Step 2: Attraction check

It is a very natural tendency that you feel more attached and caring when people give you specific importance. All these developing feelings are directly proportional to the time spent with each other ( Text, calls, hanging out, etc.).

Imagine a case where this rate drops, you shift place( work, college, school) and you meet a new friend who puts a lot of effort into your friendship. You feel good in that relation too. If the same cycle repeats. Is this love again?

It is not that a bestie cannot be a boyfriend. Many friendships changed love marriages are among the most successful ones. But do agree to the fact that there is a thin line between friendship and love. People say, if you have issues with your friend when he is dating another, fear it to be love. But that doesn’t make complete sense. There is possessiveness in friendship too. You don’t sometimes allow your female friend to hang out with another girl in your absence. Now, what is that?

Solution:

Even after you meet many new people who make you feel good, if you feel something lacking in your relationship but was perfect with the first guy, it means that you have the best time with him. Check if your attraction is just physical or even emotional. If it is, now, you can say he is something more to you than anyone else.

When you finish checking on steps 1 and 2, you are almost near. Now go to step 3.

Step 3: Plan of action- What to do?

It is not that you should wait for your dream guy. He is just there to help in preventing you from making the wrong decisions without thought. You won’t find the perfect one. Compromise is always the key to all solutions. But knowing when and where to compromise is the ultimate solution.

Solution:

Have clarity in your decisions. Don’t hurry or run behind anything. You cannot prevent things from happening. Don’t overthink to make things complicated. Examine situations accordingly. Do nothing out of peer pressure and out of illogical and impractical imagination.

Now, if you still feel your best friend is the right one, don’t stop. You need to hurry sometimes. I hope, now we have answers to those questions we faced back then!