Love Triangle? Try Octagon.

[spottedowl]

So school and life are going great mostly because I just reconnected with my female BFF of 16 years and counting. Yay for close friends! Our group includes like 15 people who have known me since elementary school to middle school (girls and guys) Yay more friends! But upon talking with some of the guys-well you pick up where you leave off friendship wise, and we're just emotionally close at this point. Then you realize that your small 4th grade memories, and 7th grade crush never really went away but came back stronger in 10th grade. And you supported him thru his dating adventures, breakups, kisses etc. I wanted to take him to prom, us friends went in a big group instead. We're the same age and act like siblings but I want more. I like him, he is interested in me (still both single) We decided to not date b/c I wasn't ready, but now I am, and he's sweet and smart and I wanna ask him out already BUT what if it ruins the closeness we already share? I don't think breaking up would, but you never know, and gah I just would be devastated if I had to give up a friendship that is this freaking close to date the guy-can't cut him out of pictures. And what do I do with the feelings for like the 6 other single guys in the group, which are not as strong, but like we all met finger painting in kindergarten to pre algebra in sixth grade, and I care deeply for each of these people. How do I choose one without disappointing the others? After 3 years sorta alone, I found these people again and I don't wanna let them go so easily-they are the 5% of my senior class I actually care to catch up with from childhood.

[spottedowl]

VENT POST

I basically WAS NOT dating- full stop, in any capacity all throughout high school and before. This stance I think made me the girl to go to when the guys in my life were having relationship issues or just wanted a friend-because I would never try to get with them. I think our immediate friend group of about 10 guys and girls combined were closer than usual-most of them are either my family in all but blood or very close to it. And yeah-that includes the guys.

I have a very deep connection with this friend group. That’s part of the reason I’m literally jumping up and down ecstatic to meet them. But if I date one of the guys-to be honest I cannot even decide who to date-I feel that strongly about all of them, then that will change the closeness I feel to the others.

The other thing is-are we already “dating”? I mean-we’ve been together in the same classes, doing the same activities, eating lunch, having fun, telling jokes, giving advice, shoulder to cry on, complaining, lending each other time + attention + social life for like 15 years or more (and counting now...yay!) I can’t help but feel like everything boyfriends and girlfriends do-I’ve done with these guys-multiple times over, given that your average high school relationship doesn’t usually last years. Every emotional barrier has been shattered-I’ve even seen them crying for example. And it was “allowed” because I wasn’t kissing them or having sex with them, or being physically affectionate in any way but close friends. But we baked for each other! We shared our snacks! Add a hundred other little inside jokes and cool moments. And when I think of “breaking up”-yeah not happening. Thinking about losing that connection to even one of them leaves me sobbing then like my friends talked about when going through a bad breakup. No way! They mean too much to me to ever risk that happening.

And yeah...I love them. As I said-family in all but blood, and if that’s not love (of perhaps a diff kind than normal) I don’t know what is.

But in terms of dating...as I said I’ve not done anything. So I want to take it super slow because literally even a kiss on the cheek is new. And these guy friends know everything there is to know about me-they probably know me better than I know myself in some ways. So if I’m going to start dating-there really is no safer, slow, warm place to do it. But I like the safe and warm and emotionally rich with all the guys, and not willing to give that up. At the same time-if I’m gonna date someone, this is PERFECT to start in.

And obviously I’m still really really excited about meeting my chosen family at this point. So this will probably dissolve in 2 weeks time when I realize the guys in the group are more interesting as just friends. Right now I’m ecstatic and a little confused.

[Carly]

Hi spottedowl -- this sounds like a really complicated situation, and I'm sorry to hear that it's been source of confusion and stress. You're totally right, sometimes dating within a friend group - especially friend group that sounds as close as yours - can cause tension. The very first thing that jumped out at me about your posts is the feeling of intimacy you feel with your friends. You sound very comfortable and close with them, and you mentioned you also feel like you're dating them in a way because you share a lot of special moments. When you said that this is the "perfect" place to start dating - can you explain a little more about why you feel that way? Have you ever felt this way about someone who wasn't in your friend group?

[spottedowl]

Hi Carly, ( super long post sorry about that)
Well you’re definitely right about one thing-it’s so complicated. I’m taking my own sweet time thinking before I act though-I care too much about myself and my friends to not be sure about what I want first.

As for why it’s the perfect situation, I think that has a lot to do with my Indian family culture of arranged marriages ( 80% of my family had one) and how it matches up with what I want, mostly. I totally understand that my friends (Indian and generally Asian mostly) do not want the same things I do from relationships, but I’ll explain my personal viewpoint from my family. Not trying to judge anyone or any way of dating either.

My cousin, parents and grandparents all knew each other for at least 1-2 years before dating. The parents and extended family who “set them up” all knew each other really well, like for 20 years at least beforehand just from living in the same community, talking together, and attending each other’s weddings and funerals. Imagine a group of 6 families all living about 2-3 hours away from each other for 4 generations. The kids grew up together or at least knew the other family for their whole lives. When they were in their 20’s they were encouraged to get to know each other more personally for about a year (become friends), then dating for 6 months maximum-which was where the actual physical affection (hand holding, kissing, declarations of love) happened. Then they got engaged and married weeks to a month maximum after.

There was a lot of emphasis on finding a stable match, 2 people who were educated, who had a career and work ethic, polite, confident, who could genuinely be each other’s best friend.

Also, due to the focus on a stable career and traditional gender norms “husband provides for wife”, there was often an age gap of 5-7 years. I mean, my parents are 6 years apart, my grandparents are 6-7 years and my aunts/uncles are 5-6 years, but some are 2-3. They are all happily married, and so it’s not weird for me if at 22, I fall for a 28 year old guy. I mean I’m not exactly sure how this would happen outside of an arranged marriage-and not all arranged have the age gap either (my friends are all my age too). But if it did I would not say no to the relationship just because of the age gap, which freaks some of my non Asian friends out.

As for public displays of affection, this I don’t think I will ever really understand the “American” culture around it, the Indian influence from family and friends is too strong. Again, not trying to make fun of or judge anyone. But what I’ve noticed is that my white/black/Hispanic friends in general are “too public” with their relationships. By this I mean they will talk about their relationship and how much they love each other to everyone. At college, I’ve seen them talk explicitly about how much sex they are having/not having, intimacy issues. They kiss each other in the hallways and also just kiss anyone they find attractive. Public displays of affection like kissing on the school bus in 8th grade were accepted. And yet for some reason, dancing with my close girl friends to songs at school dances (where we would do like a tango, waltz etc) has gotten me suspected of being a lesbian? A group of people I have no problem with but like I’m a straight cis girl please don’t mislabel me.

The best way to explain it is the norms regarding affection between the same sex and opposite sex are flipped between India and the USA. At home in India, my female friends and I could literally sit in each other’s lap and braid hair while dancing whatever moves were want to songs for 4 hours straight and my grandma would not even care. But opposite sexes dancing the tango will get disapproval. Opposite sex friends and couples just don’t touch as much. With my friends, holding hands and walking down a hallway is enough to signify close friends, if I am just friends I might put a hand on your shoulder, give you a hug, squeeze your hand once, that’s it. Kissing in India especially, is something that (again traditional gender) signifies protection, loyalty, promise of the couple. Basically you only French kiss in public when you want to meet the family and possibly marry the person. Like if you are serious. If you want to break up the relationship after that it will probably take a handwritten letter and short talk with the family.

So the kissing thing is confusing for me, because I always thought in middle/high school, and have trouble not
No system is perfect:there were still messy divorces here, people who felt trapped by relationships, by cultural taboos surrounding sex etc.

But bottom line-my high school friends understand me and the emotional connection I want from relationships, they understand the Asian dating culture to some extent. I feel like all of this is a bit hard to explain to other people outside my friend group. Plus I’m a more introverted person who has no issues with big parties but likes a smaller, closer friend group in general-to feel comfortable enough to date someone there seems to take 2-3 years of casual acquaintance. Used to ignoring the physical attraction by now and want to look for the best friend type of emotional connection before getting physically intimate.

A short list of other things my friend group knows that most other guys I’ve felt this way about don’t.

Mom has a blood clotting disorder. Took birth control pills in 2000’s for pregnancy prevention. Somehow got (despite extremely rare probability of) a blood clot that almost killed her-had she not been taken to the hospital. Emotional pain runs worse than the actual risk of me having the gene defect that causes the disorder. Very rare to have any issue even on birth control-my mom got very unlucky there. Women in my family don’t really trust the gyno- except our female Indian gyno who is awesome, ever since that happened. Doctor said she would get me birth control if I needed it-but since idk if I want to have sex for a long time I’m not on it yet, and kinda don’t want to be since I’m not having sex-there’s no need.

Mom also blocked the HIV vaccine at 12 saying she wanted me to be abstinent. I wouldn’t have had sex anyway-so yeah I think her reasons are a little crazy. Getting it now since COVID is over. Just so I have it even though I have till 26.

1980’s India-when mom and aunt grew up. No sex ed at all, even about periods. My grandparents were open minded and educated so they taught them the basics but it was really skewed toward no sex till marriage. Because little knowledge on condoms, birth control etc etc. Aunt had consenting happy fun with a guy in college-hey no judgment-ended up pregnant and choose to keep the baby. But why no sex ed! Cultural standards made her marry the guy-who then passed away-leaving her to raise the baby on her own. Half the family wanted to send her away, half wanted her to stay. This obviously impacted my mom who watched all this happen. Aunt is doing great now, happy, successful, her son is happy and great as well. But the message is clear-no happy fun sex times in college or you will RUIN YOUR LIFE AND CAUSE EMOTIONAL PAIN. Obviously not true, but you see why my family thinks it is true.

Also the whole girls should avoid giving boys “ideas” which is why my grandma won’t let me wear bright pink lipstick to a family restaurant outing. Or wear a short skirt. Like basically see the MeToo movement for my thoughts on this. Consent is important. Girls shouldn’t have to do anything to avoid getting raped or inappropriately touched. But like apparently my grandma still thinks ladies should act a certain way.

So this is all kinda a lot to process. Which is why I won’t be doing anything about dating my friends anytime soon, or anyone else, cause I’m not sure where to begin? And I gotta deal with this stuff before I date and probably even when I do start dating. Because the other option is to have an arranged marriage and I don’t want to be boxed into that, as much as I like some aspects of it.

[Valerie J]

Hi spottedowl!

Thanks for sharing all this. Man, you have hit on some very important and complicated concepts in this post that I completely feel you on! Intimacy is such a complicated concept on its own, add on cultural understandings, gendered understandings, AND romantic understandings of intimacy.

One thing that was really lovely to hear in your post was how much you value your platonic intimacy with your friends. That's something a lot of folks struggle with and, as you said, society in the US does not emphasize its importance. In a culture of extreme individualism, the US actively pushes against intimacy of all kinds between people and pushes against community support. So I think what you feel with your friends is really something to celebrate and I hope you can continue to be physically affectionate with your friends.

Gender really complicates things though, doesn't it? In your experience, you've had your platonic affection with other women be romanticized into a context of queer love and, on the other end that, there are a lot of lesbians in relationships where society refuses to acknowledge the romantic nature of their relationship and insists that they are "just friends". Society's decision on what qualifies as what kind of love is completely subjective and constantly changing. I think what is important is that you know how you feel about your friends and what physical affection towards them means to YOU.

That being said, you've also hit on a another complicated component of attraction. The line of platonic and romantic attraction can be blurred because of the exact question you've sort of asked, "what makes a relationship romantic? What takes it beyond friendship?" And there is no clear cut ansewr to that question. In heterosexual, cis relationships, society has a habit of naming intimacy between men and women as inherently romantic which is simply not the case.

So in the case of your friend that you are possibly interested in persueing I would ask the question, what do you want out of your relationship that you don't have right now? Does it feel like you want to be romantic with this person because of attraction? Or because it feels like the "perfect" relationship as you put it. It is not abnormal for you to want to develop a close friendship intimacy with someone before trying to explore something more. With all the hesiteancies you've named that might be a great place to start. Try listing the parts of your friendship you love: the kind of support you are provided, the things that make you happy, the affection you recieve, etc. Maybe then try listing the possible things you'd like to explore. What would dating this person look like to you in an ideal setting? What makes a relationship romantic to you?

I know you are scared of rupturing a friendship and that's a real fear. I am very simliar to you in that I think the intimacy of my friendships often trumps my desire for romantic relationships because I know I do friendships well. I know the kind of support I can get from that and its comfortable to stay in that. In someways I find myself thinking "its easier to stay in the friend zone than risk it all." But it doesn't have to be that high stakes. You've both expressed some form of interest with each other and that makes for an awesome place to actually have conversation if and when you explore this idea. Stating, "hey, I'm interested in you this way and I'm really committed to our friendship. Do you think we could try this out and if it didn't work we could go back to what we had?" Really let yourself have the space to try and have the safety net to know it's not this "no going back" sort of decision.

It also sounds like both cultural and familial history of what romantic relationships should look like are weighing on you in some matter. I just want to acknowledge that those histories are a lot to engage with. You've listed medical traumas and health scares, lack of sex education, familial moral standards of what a proper relationship looks like, and a culture of possibly victim blaming. Of course these are all coming up as you think about potentially dating someone or just sitting with attraction! That's a lot for one person to handle. And I see you bringing your own perspective and opinion to these histories and recognizing them without necessarily internalizing them and that's huge !

I think you're entering a period of great questioning and self-exploration. As you do that, take the time to think about the ways your family and its history might be impacting you. Think critically about how you feel and if that feeling is coming from you or from other messages you are getting. Try to focus on what feels good to you and center your own emotions. You are taking things slow which is great and it means you have the time to critically think about what romance can look like for you.

This was a VERY long response but I would really love to hear how you are feeling. Are any of these prompts resonating with you? Are new anxieties popping up? Am I misinterpreting anything that you shared?

Let me know what you think and I look forward to hearing back from you!

Best,
Val

[spottedowl]

Hi Val,
Thanks for the response. Everything you said really resonated with me and you didn’t misinterpret anything! I have decided not to date anyone in my friend group yet. We’ve met up after a long time since everyone was busy with college and are just enjoying each other’s company as friends for now. And I personally have had a tough few years with my mom getting cancer in 2019, and COVID in 2020. My mom is fine now, COVID lockdowns are done where I am, and I’m getting the love and support I need from family, teachers, and these close friends. So I’m just really happy about that But I will definitely continue to think about what romance means to me and continue to unpack how my family affects that.

No new anxieties really, just a lot of things to journal about. Yesterday I remembered sharing my celebrity crushes with a mean girl (but I didn’t know this) in middle school who first of all called me a prude for not wanting to kiss Jack from Titanic (it didn’t make logical sense to me at 14 years old given that he’s a fictional person played by an actor I’ll probably never meet). And then a few days later she said that prudes were “grandmas who would never get any because by the time they were ready everyone would be married”. That really hurt at 14, and I feel like I’m at the point now that I can acknowledge that and also say that I have the right to feel sexual feelings and then not act on them or act on them consensually.

As for the guy I like in my friend group I think I’ll take the time to get to know him better as a friend first, and then decide if I want to date. I actually told him that I liked him once when we were 18, which was half because I wanted to and half because of the desire (high school pressure?) for my first kiss before I graduated high school. I broke it off 2 days later before anything happened because I didn’t feel ready and realized wanting a kiss wasn’t a good reason (for me) to date him. He was a great guy and called me after we both took a week to collect our thoughts, to make sure I was okay. Even though nothing happened-which was great though. I remember him asking what he was to me, since he didn’t think he could go back to being “just friends” since he had liked me too, from afar since middle school. I told him to imagine a spiderweb with me in the center, and that my closest friends were next to me and he was 1/3 of the way out. I didn’t know him as well as my extremely close female friends, but we were still good friends. He agreed with this assessment and said that he would definitely still be present for group movie nights, and lunch outings, and that we could still talk about whatever-my life, his life, random trivia. This made me feel so much better about at exploring the possible romance and still getting to be his friend after .

In conclusion, doing great, and better than ever! Have a lot of ideas to unpack but can do it without them affecting me directly. Thank you!

[Elise]

Hi there spottedowl, I'm glad to hear that chatting with us here on Scarleteen helped you feel heard and that you are able to approach your self-reflection from a place where you feel optimistic and have supportive friendships too.

I'm sorry to hear that mean person in middle school decided to say those kinds of things to you, it sounds like you understand now that her saying them was not because they were real, but because she was looking to cause hurt, which unfortunately is what bullies do, and can take a lot of time to heal. You are completely right that you and only you have the right to decide what to do with your sexual feelings, and that as long as anything involving another person is done with consent, kindness, respect and communication, it is completely valid.

If you're interested in some affirming reading on the subject, we have some articles here:

• I Feel Good: Pleasure and Fulfillment
• Don't Want to Have Sex? (then don't.)
• Yes, No, Maybe So: A Sexual Inventory Stocklist

Also, that sounds like a nice gradual approach that you are taking with regards to seeing how your relationship goes platonically and feeling more comfortable with the idea that you could remain feasibly remain friends through any kind of romantic exploration.

If you have any further thoughts or questions you'd like to share, we are here on the boards and our other direct services like chat too