Love Letters: How Do I Decide If We Should Be Lovers or Friends?

Hey lovers! Hey friends!

It’s time to dig into the inbox and salvage a few more relationships. Join us for the ride.

And if you wanna get in on the action, here’s how:

Send your inquiries to soulinstereoblog@gmail.com, or find me on Twitter @etbowser. Just provide your initials, or a fun nickname. 

Here’s today’s question:

So there’s a guy that I’ve been friends with for some time. He’s very attractive and we have a good time together. At times he seems like he wants to take the friendship to another level. My gf said one night when we went to happy hour and I was a little late he was on pins and needles trying to figure out where I was. When I made little hits at us becoming more than friends he seemed like he curved me. He said ‘man, go ahead.’ So I left it as it was. My gf said just continue to be friends with him and see where it goes. What is your advice on this?

PJ

Ah, the old lovers n’ friends debacle.

Chill, Lil Jon.

I can definitely relate to this story. My wife and I are literally a month away from celebrating 13(!) years of marriage, and our story is pretty similar.

We too started out as friends with no real intentions of dating. But as we got closer those feelings got stronger, resulting in the age-old debate – shoot your shot as lovers and risk screwing up a great friendship, or stay friends and maybe miss out on a great love?

CHILL LIL  JOHN

And the only way to figure things out is to have a real conversation.

Ladies, lemme tell y’all something about your “dropping little hints” thing – THAT NEVER WORKS. What seems as clear as day to you often flies right over our heads. The only way you’re going to truly know what’s going on in his head is to flat out ask him.

I know that goes against society’s gender norms of “letting the man be the man” to initiate dating conversations, blah blah blah – but from the sounds of things, we’ll get that Yandhi album from Kanye before this guy opens up on his own. If you really want to know what’s on his mind and where this relationship is heading, you’ll have to have to speak up.

That’s how my future wife and I did it. To this day, we call it “the kidnapping”– one summer day in 2002, we rode around the city of Louisville, Ky., for probably 45 minutes while we talked about whether we should stay friends or go lovers.

UGH.

And guess what? We decided NOT to become an official couple at the time. But that conversation opened the door, showed that we BOTH had feelings for each other and maybe six or so months later, we were official. And we’ve been that way since.

I can’t tell what’s going through your dude’s mind. Maybe he’s interested in you but doesn’t want to mess up a good friendship. Maybe he absolutely doesn’t want to move beyond being friends. And honestly I wouldn’t read too much into the happy hour thing – he could have just been worried about your well-being. That’s what friends do.

But it’s also what lovers do. You won’t know for sure until y’all talk. For real.

I guess I have time for one more:

So there’s a young man I attended school with that I’ve only become reacquainted with  on IG. He has a steady GF. She recently threw him a surprise birthday party. He professed his undying love for her on IG the next day. I posted a pic and he in turn DMs me and says “you’re going to make me do some things.” I told him with the last post you just posted I feel bad about you jumping in my DMs. He said “lol cut it out.” OMG people have no respect for relationships these days. Should I unfollow him?

KC

I love when y’all ask me questions you already have the answer to. Makes my job easier than Drake reciting raps written by his ghostwriters.

Dude JUST showed his hand. If he’s being that unfaithful from jump, you don’t want to be caught in the middle when his girl winds up DMing YOU throwing accusations your way. None of this is worth your time.

Unfollow, unsubscribe, unplug– run for your life.