The “friend zone”

I know, I know, here I go again writing a “relationship post”. When the Lord asked me to start writing a blog I honestly did not expect to be writing about things like this but here I am, at it again.

I lay here in bed at 1:30am when I should totally be sleeping. I was at a birth last night and only got 4 hours of sleep but the thing is I knew I couldn’t sleep with this topic burning in my mind!

I have recently found myself in conversation with guy and girl friends alike about the dreaded “friend zone” and I honestly want to have a conversation about it.

What the heck is so “dreadful” about being friends with someone of the opposite sex? See maybe I am a bit counter cultural, or maybe I am a bit out of the box in my ways of relating to people, but I really would like to think that I maintain some pretty awesome brother friendships with the guys in my life. I would also really love to think that these brothers of mine know that they can talk to me about anything including if they were ever to feel attracted to me or if they were to find themselves with the desire for something more than friendship.

I know that I have had guy friends that I have personally found my heart grow fond towards and have had talks with these guys only to find out their heart was not in the same place. I have never really had the reverse situation happen to me, because, well, none of my guy friends has ever felt that way (to my knowledge). Perhaps they have in other female friendships and maybe they’re dying to figure out how to break through the friend zone and into the romance zone.

To make more sense of this I would like to tell you a story about my friends. For the sake of maintaining their confidentiality I am going to change their names to “Jack” and “Jill”. Jack and Jill met while both living in an incredibly large Christian community in the Midwest. Jill had moved out there for training as did Jack and soon they found themselves in a friendship with each other. Jill met Jack’s brother Brad and started to form a bit of a crush towards him all the while maintaining a deep friendship with Jack. As their friendship grew, Jack realized that his feelings toward Jill had changed from looking at her as just a friend. He realized he couldn’t picture his life without her and he knew he needed to talk to her about what he was feeling. There Jack was in a very vulnerable position, Jill obviously had a crush on his brother Brad but here he was realizing he was falling for his best friend. Jack spoke up and in confidence shared with Jill what he was feeling. Jill realized that she too didn’t want to lose her best friend and she gave him the go ahead to pursue her heart in a romantic manner. Their relationship blossomed and they got married and now have one child and one on the way! This is an incredibly beautiful testimony to me of working past the awkward “friend zone” status, to embracing the possibility of being hurt, rejected, of a friendship falling apart etc. all for the sake of being honest, open and honoring to the other person. Friendship is and can be a beautiful foundation for marriage!

This testimony screams “LOVE” to me! It screams vulnerability, transparency, honesty, respect, honor etc.! This story tells me that Jack loved and valued Jill so much that he knew he had to be honest with himself and honest with her even if it meant risking it all.

This brings me back to the conversations I have been having with people about guy-girl friendships. I have girls and guys alike asking me “how can you be friends with that guy after ____?”. Most recently it was “how can you be friends with that guy after him leading you to believe you could like him and that he was interested?” My answer is and will always be “because he is worth it.” I’ve said this before and I will say this a million times more: I believe that people have an inherent value because they are created in the image of God! Their value is something I only know bits and pieces of and something that I continuously ask the Father to give me deeper revelation of! See, I believe that even if I am in friendship with a guy and I find myself liking him and we have a chat, the chat brings the clarity for me to take him at his word and therefore place a guard over my heart to say “you are my brother and nothing else. I will now be able to receive everything you do for and toward me as a brotherly act of affection. Should your heart grow toward me it will now be up to you to tell me since we just cleared the air.”

I really believe that we have so missed out on being friends with the opposite sex because we are so broken and so self-focussed. I have had friends ask me “how is your heart doing after realizing ‘he’ doesn’t like you?” My answer is “GREAT! I am so blown away that Jesus is using me to be a safe sister/friend to this brother in the season of life he is in! I am SO humbled that the Father would choose ME to be a safe place for this man to grow and to heal by having a healthy female friendship.”

So maybe I am a bit unorthodox in believing that no guy is ever truly “friend-zoned” and that if I am truly friends with a guy that he would know that if at any moment his affections towards me were to grow outside of the boundaries of friendship, he could approach me. I want him to know he can approach me without feeling shamed, judged, embarrassed etc. This is a major life process: navigating through male-female relationships and I want those in my life to always feel safe and protected through the process!

I am so eager to see us grow in love with each other, to heal from our friendships with one another and to walk out in the fullness of what God has created us to be- mighty sons and daughters!

With deepest love,

Your Sister