{"id":2622,"date":"2013-12-18T04:00:44","date_gmt":"2013-12-18T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellejolin.com\/wordpress\/?p=2622"},"modified":"2013-12-17T22:18:58","modified_gmt":"2013-12-18T06:18:58","slug":"friends-lovers-or-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=2622","title":{"rendered":"Friends, lovers or other"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nFriends, lovers, or nothing
\nYou see
\nThere can only be one
\nFriends, lovers, or nothing
\nWe’ll never be an inbetween
\nSo give it up
\n–John Mayer\/Friends, Lovers or Nothing<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With most people you interact with on a regular basis, you have some sort of defined relationship. Sure, there is overlap, but you have work colleagues, acquaintances, friends, and lovers. Sometimes you put an “ex” or “former” in front of it. Maybe a friend morphs into an occasional lover. Maybe a former lover morphs into a friend. Maybe there is a colleague from work who you also hang out with outside of work.<\/p>\n

There are, though, some people who just don’t fit entirely into one of those categories.<\/p>\n

Maybe they’re a former lover who is still important to you, but being lovers is not an option. Maybe you’re too close or just have too much history to be friends if one or both of you are currently in other relationships. What do you do with those people? When you have a limited number of people in the world who you love, like I do, then you feel very strongly about the people in your life. I hate to lose even one person who I love. It’s a pretty rare occurrence for me, and I want to hang on to as many of them as I possibly can. <\/p>\n

I hate to get hung up on the definitions. I certainly don’t want to even remotely imply that my friends are “just friends” but there are a few people in my life who are more than friends, but not lovers, and I’ve never been quite sure how that’s supposed to work. They are people who I love, but who are awkward to be around in some way. Awkward for our partners, awkward for us. Or worse than awkward. Painful at times.<\/p>\n

Former lovers who you didn’t love but always liked are fairly easy to deal with, as long as they aren’t completely clueless about how to behave. Former lovers who you love, but weren’t in love with, are also easy to be friends with. <\/p>\n

This is all assuming that you have understanding current romantic partners, of course.<\/p>\n

Of course, a lot of people also say that men and women can’t be friends at all, because men just want to fuck women. I have to call bullshit on that. Perhaps we do want to fuck each other, but does that mean we can’t be friends? Does it mean that just because we want to fuck each other that we will not be able to be faithful to our current partners? Not in my experience, although there are obviously some people who are far more of a challenge in that regard than others. There are also probably people who can’t get past wanting to fuck each other and can’t be friends. <\/p>\n

I think it just depends on the people.<\/p>\n

If you’re hoping that I’m going to come to some sort of conclusion on the best way to handle this, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’m all gorked out on cold meds, and I am even more emotionally\/logically\/philosophically challenged than I usually am. ***<\/p>\n

Plus, I just don’t know.<\/p>\n

I tend to handle it like I handle every emotional challenge: by being completely inept and relying on luck and the good will of the other people involved to figure something out. Mostly that seems to work for me. People who know me well enough to love me seem to realize that although I am a dork, I am a dork with good intentions. Maybe that counts for something.<\/p>\n

I think it will be alright.
\nI’m almost sure it will.<\/p>\n

***an example of just how gorked out I am:
\nI just washed my hair with hand lotion. It didn’t work very well.
\nLooking forward to some interesting dreams….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friends, lovers, or nothing You see There can only be one Friends, lovers, or nothing We’ll never be an inbetween So give it up –John Mayer\/Friends, Lovers or Nothing With most people you interact with on a regular basis, you have some sort of defined relationship. Sure, there is overlap, but you have work colleagues, … Continue reading Friends, lovers or other<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lr3R-Gi","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4806,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=4806","url_meta":{"origin":2622,"position":0},"title":"Body writing","author":"Michelle","date":"April 5, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I started to watch a movie several years ago called \"the Pillow Book.\" In the movie, a Japanese woman has a bit of a calligraphy fetish, and wants her lovers to write on her body. Eventually, she meets the character played by Ewan McGregor and thinks he's great in bed,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3592,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=3592","url_meta":{"origin":2622,"position":1},"title":"Man on the moon","author":"Michelle","date":"January 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"If you believed they put a man on the moon Man on the moon If you believe there's nothing up his sleeve Then nothing is cool --REM\/Man On The Moon Johnny take a walk with your sister the moon Let her pale light in to fill up your room --U2\/Mysterious\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3874,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=3874","url_meta":{"origin":2622,"position":2},"title":"Say what?","author":"Michelle","date":"February 12, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"My mind swirls around. Whorls, whirls Hurricane cyclone vortex Ideas words imaginary conversations fall down to the bottom And float into the whirl again Conversations that never happened Wish they had not Wish they would Harsher words Kinder words More loving More hateful More tearful More forgiveness? What do you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7318,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=7318","url_meta":{"origin":2622,"position":3},"title":"How to tell if someone likes you…you know…that way…","author":"Michelle","date":"September 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The other night I was chatting with a newly single friend, and we touched on some of the difficulties of meeting people. His biggest problem is that women flock to him without any effort on his part. He hasn't ever really had to go after a woman. Hey. It's a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2483,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=2483","url_meta":{"origin":2622,"position":4},"title":"Giving me a pink slip","author":"Michelle","date":"November 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Consider this, the hint of the century Consider this, the slip That brought me to my knees, failed What if all these fantasies come Flailing around Now I've said too much --REM\/Losing My Religion Where you going...? Where's everybody going...? Rose\/The Rose When a relationship with someone ends, it doesn't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11519,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=11519","url_meta":{"origin":2622,"position":5},"title":"An imaginary conversation about letters of reference","author":"Michelle","date":"April 17, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Remember how I told you that I thought people should have to provide references in first dates? No. You never listen. Yes I do, but I can't be expected to keep up with every one of your insane ideas. Some people like my ideas. No they don't. Are you sure?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Random thoughts"","block_context":{"text":"Random thoughts","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=20"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}