Can’t date into a friendship…

I love and hate long drives at the same time. I hate wasting my time sitting in the car but love the time spent laughing, discussing, arguing, solving world problems that are not ours to solve.

We were coming back from a friend’s wedding and somehow got into a conversation about friendship. Yes, so many articles have been written about this, so many other conversations have been had, and not much have changed since the day people started developing friendships with each other.

The question that we tried to answer was the following:

If your friend starts dating, do you have to automatically accept the partner as your friend?

Some time ago somebody made a statement that you have to and that it is unacceptable not to.

My personal stand is – absolutely not. And here is why.

Friendship is like a marriage. You love your friends but are not sexually attracted to them. You can’t live with them but you can’t live without them either. You are drawn to them and you enjoy spending time with them. It is a love hate story. You might not agree with certain choices or beliefs but you wholeheartedly love the person for who they are.

You can’t just marry or date into a friendship.

We do not pick our friends based on whom they are dating. You have to earn the trust to be considered a friend. Partners can be tolerated and accepted as part of your friends’ life but they also can be not welcomed into a house and not invited to some gatherings if they have been disrespectful or have done or said something hurtful.

You respect your friends’ choices and you accept them but you are not obligated to be friends with the partner. You can’t bully somebody into friendship and you are definitely not obligated just because it is your friend’s partner.

Friendship is a different kind of love story. You have a click with a person. You can’t fake that click. They make you laugh, they challenge you, they make your day just by being themselves. You can’t fake that.

What do you think? Do you have to accept your friend’s partner as your friend just because they are together?