It's Nothing 'til It's Something (Late 2013)

My experience has been that the best relationships are the ones that never get the official title of "dating."  We never officially made our friendship more than being "just friends."  Dating automatically denotes that the participating man and woman can make certain extra demands of the other.  For some reason, daters seem to put a lot of energy into making sure everyone knows what they expect of their boyfriend/girlfriend, and how well that significant other is meeting their demands.  That's really the worst part of dating (immature, "just for fun," self-serving style).

 Friendship has a huge advantage against dating.  Friendship is built on acts of 100% voluntary love and trust.  No one has to make any demands of their friends. Friends subconsciously assume that they should be loving and trustworthy and unselfish.  That is what I love about being in a relationship that's honestly just a *special* friendship.  I could always step back and reevaluate us somewhat objectively if I felt the need.  Honestly, it has all the parts of a great dating relationship -just not the ownership, and self-servitude.  Still, sometimes I like to just bask in the possibilities  (what if this friendship will turn into the friendship...) and not be weighed down by negativity.

And, when I began to think that maybe, there might be more on the horizon, she said, "It's nothing 'til it's something."  And all I really heard was, "Be afraid. Be very afraid."  In came the negativity of IF like a tornado, destroying the simplicity of my relationship with that friend.  I know I had begun to fantasize, but I wasn't going to do anything extra.  Since then, I have been unable to not question our friendship. Up to that moment, we were just two friends who really liked each other and played around with the idea of getting serious later.  But, what my mom said made it "something" then made that "something" susceptible to becoming "nothing" and that shocked and upset me.

You see, I really wasn't thinking that I was about to get serious anytime soon.  In fact, I don't fully believe that I have all the inner working in place or in motion to be in a serious relationship and it not #EpicFail.  However, I would like to maintain every friendship I begin and build.  Lord knows true friends are hard enough to come by these days.