Best friend and lover. Who does that?

By Maclynn Kemigisha and George Wabweyo

One of the most treacherous of pitfalls to me, is the mess we make when distinguishing between lovers and best friends.

The concept of your lover being your best friend is the stupid stuff , Hollywood movies are made of. It does not seem to me all that helpful as a sensible principle. The way I feel about my best friends is not the way that I feel about my boyfriend.

That is a good thing because, while Tim McGraw, with his rugged looks and perfect accent, makes the idea awfully romantic, if your lover is your best friend, and your best friend is your lover, we have a problem with the way we de ne friendship.

Certainly, I am not the first to question the logic behind  this statement, but it warrants continued discussion – and, perhaps, some wisdom gained from personal experience. I am very good friends with my boyfriend. I genuinely enjoy spending time with him and sharing a lot of my interests with him. However, I do not consider him my best friend.

“Is she insane?” You may ask. It is not that I do not want it – if I thought that it was possible, I would be all about it. I do not
think that it is possible and that we are making romantic relationships much more difficult by putting pressure on them to meet our every emotional needs.

I am not saying that you should not feel comfortable sharing things with your significant other, or expect them to support you through the diffcult times in life. They still need to be a decent human. But, we are asking for trouble when we ask our partners to pull quadruple duty and be our lover, parent, friend and general dumping ground.

It is also incredibly vain to think that any of us could full someone else’s needs entirely. One of my friends is always up for whatever random event and another friend shares an interest in books, movies and dancing. I enjoy getting to share those things with my besties. Not because my person would not attend events with me, but it is a chance to indulge a part of my personality that is not core to the relationship that I have with him.

Your best friends keep you grounded to the person you are; the one outside of the relationship. Your lover keeps you grounded within the relationship. These forces tend to move in the same direction and in many ways overlap, but they are not the same, and a weak hold to one only increases the work that the other has to do. So, cheers, to lovers and best friends, and their continued separation.

She says...

According to the Webster dictionary, a friend is a person you know well and regard with affection and trust; that is not so far flung from how we would regard our lovers, right? So it should not be an earthquake-warranting move for you to be best friends with the person you intimately love.

Think about it, your best friend is the person you call when you are chest deep in quicksand. Your best friend is the person who is there for you when you need them most. Now, just how awesome is it that you get to kiss that best friend, get to sleep on the same bed with them? That is extremely, amazingly awesome!

I mean, all you need to do is turn in bed and your best friend is there to rescue you from whatever peril the evils of this world have contemplated. By shutting out your lover from friendship, you risk your bond spiraling into one of those business transactionlike couples. This could be the person you totally have to spend your entire life with, why would you want to isolate them in certain arenas of your life?
 

There are scars, birthmarks and other un-pleasantries in the nooks and cranes of your body that you might trust with your lover. If so, why would you nd it hard with entrusting that person with the more mundane matters of social companionship, confidence and anything else that best friends are supposed to do?

Hey, there might be a dictionary definition of a best friend, but that might remain so in paper. We define our own best friends, it is not  like a job you have to sit a flipping interview for and get dictated to your job description. Friendship thrives when it is not limited by one-sided boundaries and rules.

In fact, the cardinal rule of finding a lover should be your best friend. Lovers are just not there to satiate human appetites, emotional needs and procreation needs. They are there to have fun with you too. They are there to make you laugh, to bail you out of jail and to stand by you when the whole world thinks you are phony.

And it is funny how the alienating phrase is “I do not consider him to be my best friend.” Who really cares about being a best friend when you are already a friend with a variety of shared interests and middle ground?

You do not get a paycheck for being a best friend. Sometimes, I feel like this best friend thing is pushed too far! Bottom-line is if you can share your body with someone; you have got a best friend.