check your friend zone

"I could never be attracted to her like that," you think. "We're just friends."

Maybe.

"He's like a brother to me," you say to yourself. "No way I could think of him as anything more."

Are ya sure?

Let's (at least) admit this: many of y'all regularly utilize an ad-hoc, 

...unevenly applied and followed, 

...never-completely-verbalized, 

...always-in-edit-mode criteria 

for what sort of person you want to be with (or not be with). It can shift like a breeze on a spring day.

Please don't hear what I'm not saying: I'm not saying that's an unreasonable thing to do.

What I am saying: your criteria for who gets 'friend zoned' also shifts with time, and experiences.

[a Friend Zone Description: a friendship between two people in which one of the persons has an attraction to the other that's not presently reciprocated]

Ergo, it's not inconceivable that someone you placed in your 'friend zone' might respectfully desire more, hope for more. It's also not inconceivable that while they fit the friend zone just fine when you met, maybe they have more to offer. That was then, this is now. Ideally, you get wiser with time.

To put it another way: you would not want to be with someone you wouldn't also be friends with. So an overlap of friendship and romantic love already makes sense. And yes: attraction, sexuality, romance, etc are -- within a proper context -- all great blessings from God. But if this lacks a foundation of respect and a lasting friendship, something's wrong.

Infatuation, having a crush, and 'catching feelings' usually involves a fair amount of adrenaline-laced anxiety. 

But, we can mistakenly think that if we enjoy someone's company, but we lack that shot of octane adrenaline, that's not someone for us. Yet we also should feel safe in relationships. This feeling would correlate to lower anxiety. So don't brush off a lack of, or more subdued feeling of, 'butterflies in the stomach' or palpable 'rizz.'

This world absolutely brims with happy, thriving couples who were friends first. 

And at some point, one of them probably thought, 'This is someone I want to be with' while the other person initially said, 'No way this would ever be anything more.' Dear reader, I personally know many couples who started out this way. Heck, I'm one of them too.

So what am I saying? 

I'm not saying you were wrong to categorize someone as "just" a friend, and nothing more. I'm just saying it's wise to occasionally revisit these choices you made.

Check your friend zone. Check it like you check your blind spot while driving.

Look at someone in a different light. See if there's anything there to see. Maybe you'll still be just friends. But it's at least worth considering.

If you enjoy spending time with someone, and they have character qualities that you respect and want to be around, that's a foundation for a healthy friendship. Bonus: it also happens to be a foundation for a healthy relationship.

Sometimes, we discover the best treasures are right next to us the entire time.

Book to read for further contemplation:

-Boundaries in Dating (by Cloud & Townsend), chapter 7: "Don't Fall In Love With Someone You Wouldn't Be Friends With"

anatomy of a college friendship

Heard a song in an Instagram reel this morning, put my dear, old college friend Vicki to my mind. So I texted her the reel.

Immediate reply: "Love me some Savage Garden!"

I couldn't tell you whether that's her most favorite band -- I just know she loves them. You know how friends will just happen to say the one thing to you that sticks forever in your brain? Her telling me that she loved a particular song of theirs ("Crash & Burn") sticks forever in my brain.

"When you feel all alone, and the world has turned its back on you / give me a moment please, to tame your wild wild heart"

How do lifelong friendships start? 

For Vicki and I, friendship started because we both joined the same college org as freshmen. She came from Colorado. I'm sure we initially met at a party on some weekend night, but those details are (understandably) hazy.

The nowhere-else-in-nature-does-this-regularly-occur sort of closeness one forges with peers in college sure helps. The crowds and friend groups tend to ripen large during freshmen year. Eventually, they start to pare down -- by circumstance, by graduations, by different paths -- by choices. As life pared down, we noticed that we were both around still.

"Let me be the one you call

If you jump I'll break your fall

Lift you up and fly away with you into the night

If you need to crash then crash and burn

You're not alone"

Life in college tosses in hairpin turns that take the shape of heartache, of re-routed dreams, of loved ones dying, of dreams dashed. But it also tosses in times of incredible hilarity, dignified silliness, unforgettable laughs, poignant love, and assured camaraderie. 

I know it was Vicki who once pranked me by applying plastic cling wrap around my dumpy college car so thoroughly that I couldn't open the doors. 

And she knows it was me who toilet papered her house one night -- those were some tall trees to climb to get those toilet paper rolls up as high as we wanted. 

Through either, times come when someone needs a friend, and a friend stays close. At varying times, Vicki would choose to stay close for me. At other times, I would choose to stay close for her. We've attend each other's weddings, had many many conversations over the decades, shared tears and laughs. 

In college, Vicki held politely firm to her inclination that my college girlfriend wasn't a suitable enough match for me, and you know ... she was right. Thank God for V's wisdom in that. 

You learn to trust those who you can totally be yourself around, who've seen you at your lowest (and highest) and still show you light. There's a sort of friend sticks with you closer than a brother, the proverb says (Prov. 18:24, for those keeping score).

Anyway, Vicki became and is still one of those people for me. Her undertone giggle when she hears something funny, her mere presence, her wisdom, the uncomplicated way she's stood with me and been my friend ... it still all means the world.

"When you feel all alone, and a loyal friend is hard to find

Let me be the one you call" 

And for you? 

If you're reading this, you might not yet know who such people will be. As freshmen, Vic and I knew of each other. We weren't yet close friends, nor particularly on our way to becoming that. Odds are fair that your version of this person is someone you've met, but with whom you're not yet close.

It's fascinating to think of who -- among the people you regularly see now -- will become this! The future awaits you in ways you cannot fathom.

So I pray for you all, of course I do. Among these prayers, I pray that your eyes remain wide open and alert for who God will put in your life in this way, these people that would become such life friends. The gift of friendship is one of the great blessings of God to us.

"Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others." -C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)

Crash & Burn - Savage Garden

embers

In this life, times of great inspiration and hope typically precede times of serious challenge, malaise, or trouble. 

I've yet to figure out why this is. I doubt I ever will. It doesn't always happen. But it seems enough of a pattern to share about it.

Consider these Bible examples:

-Moses spoke with the Lord on Mt. Sinai. Moses & God, a DM chat! 

But ... Moses had to descend. What awaited Moses? Israelites were up to no good: perversely constructing a golden calf to worship. In other words, Moses faced a horrible, absurd situation that he had to deal with, immediately after the epiphany atmosphere of visiting with the Lord (Exodus 32).

-Some wise men from the east visited Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus. They brought Jesus some opulent gifts fit for a king, testifying to who Jesus is. Wow, what an inspiring moment! Imagine how wild and otherworldly this would be for teenage Jewish parents such as Joseph and Mary. 

But what happened just after that? A horrible, absurd injustice. This family immediately had to flee to Egypt -- in the night, after an angel's urgent warning -- to avoid a massacre aimed at them (Matthew 2).

-Jesus, after being baptized by John the Baptist, was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to endure many days of temptation (Matthew 4). A tough, tough time of faith followed the time of inspiration.

-Jesus, during the Transfiguration. [First, a word: there's not the time, or bandwidth, to properly encapsulate all this event means, meant, foretold, revealed, continues to reveal -- just know that all the books written about this one event would fill several libraries]. It was a moment teeming with hope, inspiration, out-of-sight sensory, supernatural experience. 

But what came the next day? A horrible, absurd situation awaits Jesus and his disciples. 

Have you noticed this in your life? This ever happened to you? Maybe more than once?

Sure it has. You hear a dynamic, amazing talk. Or you attend an event that absolutely lights (or re-lights) that fire in your heart. Or you see a longtime prayer answered. Or you read a book that reorients how you perceive yourself, to help you forgive. You take a trip -- or a walk on a beach -- that changes your life for the good. 

You become so rejuvenated, like you could radiate LED bleach-white strobe light shots out your fingertips and your hair. That lit fire within you -- it roars with resolve, awe, inspiration. You're an energized, boisterous, walking stack of personified jubilation.

But then? 

But then. 

It eventually changes.

It won't "always" happen that tedious monotony, wrenching pain, or unsettled disillusionment will follow times of great inspiration. I'll just say this: it seems to happen enough in history, in the Bible, with people throughout time, to make mention of it. 

Every fire has to die down to embers sometime. Every wave meets a shore.

So if this is you  ... I'd encourage you to stay with it. It doesn't necessarily mean you're off track. We're never meant to stay in and hoard (this side of glory) those places of uninterrupted inspiration and insight. But those special places and momentous times do serve a purpose. 

They serve a purpose, particularly with how and when we face the harder times, the heartbreak, the disillusionment that life sometimes brings. God's continually reminding us through creation, through others, through the Bible, through a million other ways of this truth: the heartbreak, the s*** of life isn't all there is to life, to say it plainly. It's OK to need reminding of that.

"I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." -Psalm 27:13

There's always one more wave heading to a shore.

There's lots of places out there where someone's stoking some embers to prep for another fire.

Grace never quits.