Saturday, April 14, 2018

A to Z Blogging Challenge: M is for Moving Past the Friend Zone #singlenessmyth#14

My A to Z Challenge is a blog about singleness.  Some myths, some thoughts, some of the things I have been learning as a 30 something year old single American woman, in a culture that sees this as something that is less than...join me on this journey! 




M is for Moving Past the Friend Zone.  Singleness Thoughts #14:  How do you live in the friend zone? 


Okay, so in my lifetime I have had a handful of men that I have come to know as good friends.  Not just acquaintances, but the kind of guys that I could go to and I knew that they would be there for me no matter what.  I knew that they were there to help me through life.  You know what though....  I don't know that I have them any longer.  Something always happens to create this wall between us.  Either it is me that has stronger feelings for them, and they don't reciprocate, or they have stronger feelings for me, and I can't see them as anything more than friends. 

So, when feelings are involved that go beyond friendship on only one side, is there a way to still be good friends?  I have had to think about this a lot lately, because I recently had this situation come up.  Without going into too much detail, I had to ask myself how I was going to protect my heart.  How was I going to make sure that I kept the friendship, but didn't lose myself in the process.  It is so easy to let our feelings get the best of us. 

As a single person I feel like I have to be extra careful with the boundaries that I have.  I am not sure that I was ever taught how to guard my heart.  The safest friendships that I have had have been friendships that have ended up hurting me so much because I let my guard down and then I got damaged. 

So, do we live in the friend zone well?  Maybe some people are better at it than I am.  For me it is a learning process.  I believe in being vulnerable, but I also believe in protecting my heart. 

I guess I will continue to try to live in the friend zone with those that mean a lot to me, but I have to set boundaries, right?  Or else I am just going to keep getting a broken heart. 










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