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"