This week’s Advice Nerd is on the topic of love. It’s Spring, Skyline College… apparently, love is in the air. Take the following question into consideration:

I’m openly in love with one of my good friends. She’s got a boyfriend and I’m wondering; how can we remain friends without the awkwardness?

Sorry, but in my humble opinion, it’s impossible.

Taunted Love

By remaining friends, all you’re doing is putting salt in the wound. There is no friendly way to remain in contact without refreshing the old hurts. Every time you talk, the memory of how you feel about your friend will come to mind and it will cloud everything you do together. My number one piece of advice in this situation is to separate yourselves for an undetermined amount of time. It could be a few months, it could be forever, but taking a break from each other will help you both clear your heads and might save your friendship. In my experience, falling in love with friends is a bad, bad idea. Don’t do it.

Step Down

From what you’re telling me, she has a boyfriend. Looks to me like she’s taken. It’s not your place to interrupt their happiness, and even if you do somehow manage to stay friends it will surely put a damper on their relationship. I know if my girlfriend (what girlfriend?) had some guy hitting on her all the time, I wouldn’t want them to be friends. There would be nothing I could do about it, but I’d still be objective to the situation.

Acquaintances are better than nothing at all

There’s bound to be some tension between you already, but keeping up the friendly act is going to make it even worse. If you don’t want your charade to explode in your face, you’d better limit your contact. Like I said before, severing yourself altogether is the best idea, but the next best thing is consciously making the decision to just be acquaintances. A casual conversation here and there is fine, but any involvement over the minimal is going to one day get you in trouble. You don’t want that mean old boyfriend to come after you with a baseball bat.

I know I’m probably not much help in this matter, but these are my suggestions. Matters of the heart are hard to control and my advice will probably fall off deaf ears, but someday you’ll know I’m right.

Don’t fall in love with your friends.