A “friend crush” is different from a crush on a friend. You meet someone at a party or in class and they seem so cool, like the kind of person you would want to be best friends with. You want to ask them to hang out, but it’s scary. The fear of rejection is in play platonically. You ask yourself: “What if they don’t want to be friends?” or “What if they think I’m weird?”
With the word “crush,” I don’t mean romantic feelings, but a pull toward someone’s energy, a kindred spirit. Friendships and romantic relationships have surprising parallel values, challenges and dynamics.
I can’t speak on behalf of men or the dynamics of their close friendships, but for women, a best friend is like a sister. It could be from the innate maternal instincts to love out loud and care for one another, or that we as women feel things very deeply and can empathize with one another’s intuitiveness.
Once the friend crush develops, the two have to initiate a friend date to get to know one another and strengthen their relationship. It starts small; getting coffee or going shopping to lead to meals together and eventually discussing every detail of their lives.
There needs to be a desire and sense of admiration on both sides for the relationship to work, just like a romantic relationship. Both need to be receiving and giving. This can be happiness and peace or a new style and new hobbies. The best friendships work when both admire each other and want to be more like their counterparts.
At a certain point, the two now inseparable friends act like a duo, a team, but they must decide when to call each other their “best friend.” There’s nothing wrong with having no singular best friend or having many best friends, but there’s something about choosing one person, with them choosing you in return, that has the same power as choosing a significant other. Comparingly, this label comes more naturally than it often does in a romantic relationship, but with this title comes a sense of importance and responsibility.
When women first start to become close, they debrief one another on tales of ex-partners and ex-best friends, unlocking new chapters of the plot as trust is gained. With trust comes the expectation for loyalty that, when lost, hurts like a real heartbreak. We expect our best friend to be there for us when we need them most. We expect them to know us and to care deeply. The hurt felt from the betrayal of a best friend cuts deep because they should be the last person to hurt you.
In a romantic relationship, if one person loses attraction for the other or falls out of love, the relationship can end amicably or ferociously, both mostly out of one’s control. You can’t control your romantic feelings for someone, even if you care about them. With friendships, however, you love them for their whole true selves despite how they look. Caring is loving because you allow them to exist and have a separate world without you in it and still know they love you without constant validation of physical appearance.
Just like romantic relationships, friends can be toxic, and for lots of similar reasons. Friends can be jealous, manipulative, insecure in the relationship, narcissistic and so on. With the same parallel, it can be difficult to leave these relationships even when you know they’re unhealthy because you still love them despite it all.
Friend breakups can be messy and result in baggage or trauma carried for years unresolved. Decade-long relationships in comparison to one or two yearlong romantic relationships have the buried treasure of infinite inside jokes, trips, photos and favorite songs that they showed you for the first time.
Every failed relationship, platonic or romantic, teaches us something about ourselves, our values, who we want to be and who we want to be with. Although gone, they leave parts of themselves behind that are ingrained into familiarity and can’t be washed away. I do my makeup like my best friend from high school. I still have a bracelet a girl made me at summer camp. I use the same shampoo as my freshman year roommate. I want to name my future daughter after a childhood friend who moved away. They are with me and I am with them in ways I might never know.
Libby Evans is a junior studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk more about it? Let Libby know by emailing her at le422021@ohio.edu.
