"Just Friends"

We have this code phrase at work that we use on anyone's newly-acquired significant other: his or her "just friend". This phrase was unknowingly used by our summer student today, so she was set straight as to what that means within our group. Later on, one of my coworkers called me to let me know that on yahoo.com an article popped up on how to go from "just friends" to something more. He found it such a funny coincidence that such an article showed up today, when we were precisely talking about the concept of "just friends" with our summer student. All wrapped up into the magical coincidence making today "just friends" day. 

Almost four years ago one of my coworkers came to this country from abroad to join our group. She knew no one in our city. She was single, unattached. At a party with people from her home country she was introduced to this young man, also single and unattached. At the time she was looking for someone to teach her how to drive as she was new to the U.S. and was working on getting her driver's license. What started as parking lot lessons turned into longer trips and, before she knew it, a relationship blossomed. However, anytime we asked, she replied with a coy, shy smile: "We're just friends".

"Just friends, huh?" we all quipped. 

They're now happily married with a 2-year old son, and planning for a second child perhaps next year. So much for "just friends".

In two occasions, the last of which was last year, I used this infamous phrase to refer to new love interests in my life. At the mere mention that I had a "just friend", they all fluttered with excitement wanting to know more, "just friend" being code for the juicier "more than just friends". 

So naturally I had to read this yahoo.com article by Kimberly Dawn Neumann that my coworker pointed me to on how to go from "just friends" to something more.  The article goes over 5 steps in order to achieve such a transition: looking before you leap, testing the waters, making your move, steaming things up, and announcing your new status. If ever there is one resounding theme throughout that article, it is the one thing that we have known since the beginning of time. And that is that the deal-breaker, the make-it or break-it, the absolute must-have in order for a relationship to even get off the starting block is communication. 

You can't have a successful (loving, harmonious, happy, joyous, blissful, fair, comfortable, insert your own adjective denoting success) relationship without communication. 

Talk. Discuss. Everything. Anything. A lot. Question. Answer. Ponder. Laugh. Cry. Argue. Ponder some more. Ask. Communicate. A lot. 

The thing is, you can't even have the start of a relationship without communication. I mean, how will the other person even know you want to start something if you don't communicate that? I know better than anyone on the planet what I feel, but how will the other person know what I feel unless I communicate that? Likewise, the other person may have the most awesome, wonderful intentions, but really, without a crystal ball I will never be able to read them. The one problem I still need to overcome on this is that I'm not one of these modern women totally unafraid to be the forward one making all the first moves... and I suppose I couldn't be the one to drop on one knee and propose, either. I guess I'm shaped in too old-school of a mold when it comes to "first moves early on in relationships". Couple this with men being so anti relationship talk, and therein lies the root of my quandary. But I understand that nothing sends a relationship quicker into the gutter of failure than forcing the other person to have to read between the lines because you're too afraid to communicate what you truly feel. I particularly could relate to the point the author made about stating your expectations early on, which again drives the point home of the importance of communication. More often than not the two people involved have completely different expectations and it is not until this is talked out that they come to this realization. Worse yet, sometimes one side is operating under the assumption that they know what the other person's expectations are. Nothing could be further from correct than assuming.... anything. Let's face it: you just don't know what the other person is thinking or feeling. You're digging your own grave by thinking that you do and worse yet, by operating under mere assumptions or stereotypes. You're really not affording the other any kind of fair treatment by lumping them into categories or societal statistics rather than simply getting to know them as the individual that he or she is via communication.

Relationships can be challenging, especially in the beginning, even when there is communication. Imagine the insurmountable wall you're creating for yourself when you deprive a budding relationship of that. Especially, of all people,  your "just friend". I'm a firm believer in treating a relationship as a living, breathing being. Nurture it properly and it will blossom into the most beautiful creature you could ever dream of. But deprive it of the most essential nutrients it needs for survival and, sadly, like a forgotten plant or neglected pet, it will quickly perish. Communication is as essential a nutrient for a relationship's survival as water is for every living thing on this planet. A relationship can't be subject to neglect any more than any other living thing can, unless you want it to die.

And so, my coworker approached me later on today, asking what I thought of that article. I reviewed what the jist of it was, thinking about how every reader probably gleaned something different than I did. We each read with our own pair of eyes after all, and through my brown pair of "windows to life" I gaze at things differently than others do through theirs. He commented what a funny coincidence it was that on the same day that the topic of "just friends" came up among us, that article popped up on yahoo.com. Funny coincidence indeed. But the best part was that we were able to talk about it. To communicate. What a gift.