Beyond the Love of a Friend

Friendship cannot genuinely happen if one or the other is in love or attracted to a partner. Such intense attraction needs to be resolved first as how an art love
gets hooked to landscape painting when he is professing his obsession to portrait.

Let such strong feeling of love die down for being friends to settle. Otherwise, there is a constant pain to have the love unreciprocated, to have the love unexpressed, and a constant battle within oneself to miss and long for sweet and caring embraces. A man and a woman can be real friends in the strictest sense of the word if there is no attraction that lies in the middle. Admiration is natural. We admire people for their valor, for physical attributes, for character, or for something that they have done but when we get attracted to a friend, it is never pure friendship anymore. There will be constant struggle to keep feelings at bay. Heart palpitates in differing situations like unexpected glance, when eyes meet accidentally, or a friendly touch that is supposed not to cause any tingling sensation. The heart of Mars cannot be pure friends with that of Venus in the presence of attraction, and in worst case scenario-- in the presence of chemistry. Chemistry between two people is until now a mystery. Not all couples will bump into each other feeling a strong connection between them. Friends with this sort of inertia coming from within plus being physically, mentally, or emotionally attracted to each other cannot sustain friendship for long not unless they will hide from each other and profess long-lasting committed friendship. However, mature ones can handle this kind of relationship. Friendship for instance is settled instead of nothing at all when each of the involved has already pledged a committed relationship to someone other than them.

Mature ones can label this as settling to friendship. But feelings are feelings and cannot be questioned. It is best handled when real emotions are revealed for both to assess reality and help each other handle or perhaps resolve the emotion. It is better than denial and using friendship as an excuse to keep the other person close to his loving sight. An original oil painting cannot be masked by acrylic or other medium. It will no longer be authentic. It will be retouched with different effect to alter its meaning. If it is oil, then so be it. As if it is love beyond friendship, then better assess its veracity. Be clear about it. And handle it.