Why do people treat friendships and relationships as two different things?
Inspired by this post and many thoughts I had about the topic previously.
For some reason, a lot of people treat friendships and romantic relationships as two entirely separate things. People say stuff like "I could never date a friend" or "I want to date them but they just want to be friends". The top comment by @BeanBurrito on the post I linked mentions how men want to become friends with women simply because they have too little confidence to just ask them out.
I've never understood this. To me, being a friend and dating are just two points on the same closeness spectrum. You go from acquaintances to friends, then best friends, then partners. You can obviously skip some of those steps sometimes, but those are still the same thing - being in a romantic relationship is the same as being very close friends, it's just an even closer form of it. Yes, there's usually an extra factor of exclusivity in a relationship - but they can be non exclusive, so it's not a defining trait.
Asking someone out shortly after meeting them is such a wild concept to me. You probably wouldn't meet someone and immediately just go "hey, let's be best friends", so why would you ask them if they would be even more?
I also don't really get why people care about being "friendzoned", for the same reason. Like ok, you won't be the "bestest closest friends" with someone, but you can still be good friends? If they agree, you can still have personal conversations, or cuddle, or do whatever else that you can do in a relationship. I get why people can be upset if a person they like shows absolutely no attention towards them, but why would you be upset at them just wanting to be friends?
It it literally just about sex and physical attraction? But then also, things like "friends with benefits" exist. So clearly, you don't have to be in a relationship in order to do that. And if that's the only thing you actually need, why would you ask someone "let's date" instead of just directly saying what you want?
I don't get it.
I see it as more of a venn diagram than a single line from "friend" to "partner". There's the things that make someone a good friend, and then there is a circle for sex, but there's also a third one for "you maybe want to build a life together". Plus there's some inexplicable pixie dust that we call romance, and that can show up in a 10 year friendship or on a first date or a first conversation or never.
You can be maxed out on the friendship zone, but not have anything in the other two circles. My best friend and I have had sex in the past and we didn't hate it, but we could never build a life together. The things we want are too different. She hates animals and I need to have pets. She has weird family stuff that she handles that I could never put up with as part of that family. I have like, no ambition and that would annoy her to no end. We've also just never had that spark of romance in 18 years of knowing each other. I don't want to build a life with her and I've never wanted to just lay in bed together with my head on her chest listening to her heartbeat and the rain. But she's still my best friend, aside from my husband.
Because yeah, friendship is important in a relationship. I've never been just friends with my husband, but he is my best friend. We built our friendship and our relationship at the same time, but we've always had that spark of romance to set it apart, and when we were old enough for the idea of building a life together to be more than a distant hypothetical, we fit right into it.
It just feels completely different to me.
To complicate this further, these are hugely individual experiences that vary wildly from person to person. You might not feel that way. Maybe you're young and haven't experienced the shades and flavors of closeness you can have with other people, or maybe you and I are just wired differently. Maybe you're demisexual or aromantic. I can't tell you about why you feel that way about relationships, but I can tell you that for other people, friendships and relationships do feel different, even though there's a lot of overlap.
Ok, yes, I understand what you're saying. But also, there are different kinds of friends. There are some friends who you can discuss your problems with. With some, they're just a good person to laugh and have fun. Every friendship you have is different, and there are different characteristics defining them. I see romance as just another type of that.
That would still answer all of your questions. People who say "I could never date a friend" mean "I could never date any other kind of friend than the primarily romantic kind". People who say "I want to date them but they just want to be friends" mean "they want to be a different type of friends than that".
If you go through your original post, all of those questions are answered by "they want to be a different type of friends than that".
I feel like it might be a slightly unfair reading of @BeanBurrito's comment, I think they're just talking about the case in which someone sought a relationship but it didn't work out, not necessarily assuming this is all cases.
In any case, as a woman, this a mind virus: just knowing that this is the motivating factor for befriending women for some men makes you question the intent of all men. And this is also unfair for men for whom it's not the case...
After I proposed to my (now) wife, our pastor gave us a book to read called As For Me And My House by Walt Wangerin. The central idea I took away from the book is that marriage is not defined by love, but by commitment. This was a pretty radical idea to 27 year old me who was "in love" and thinking about something longer term, but having little idea what it meant or would mean. Thirteen years in, I still think it's a good definition of marriage.
I think the idea of commitment is closely aligned with @GenuinelyCrooked 's "build a life together" circle. All people change: their direction in life changes, their needs change. I think the core of commitment in a marriage is to grow together, which must to be done with intention so that you don't grow apart.
Friendships, on the other hand, don't have the same level of commitment. One might have a very good friend that they would do anything for, and vice versa, and I don't mean to minimize the importance of that. But those relationships are defined by common interest, history, or fellow feeling, not that central promise that tomorrow will be like today. They might move across the country or get busy with their kids or jump onto a completely different political bandwagon and want nothing to do with you. Any of those things would be a loss, but the definition of friendship doesn't preclude them the way the idea of spouse or partner does.
This is not to say, of course, that marriages don't end. But even that is done in a more formalized way than the end of friendships. Even if you set aside the legal aspects of marriage and divorce, there is a moment where you "break up", where you intentionally end the commitment.
aside about marriage and Christianity
I don't want to get too bogged down in Christian definitions of marriage. Just to make my position clear, there are lots of things not to like about Christian marriage norms: complementarian/patriarchal gender roles, ignoring spousal abuse in the interest of avoiding divorce, the hypocrisy of a high divorce rate alongside the rejection of gay marriage. That is definitely the place we were in when we got engaged, so it is important to my story. For me, the central idea that marriage / having a partner / whatever you want to call it is commitment holds up pretty well despite its origin, rather than because of it.