The first time my other half told me they loved me, I had asked them if they liked me. They responded: “Sophia, I love you,” to which I replied, like a bumbling fool: “yeah, but do you like me?” I knew for a long time that they loved me. We had told each other we loved each other so many times before. After all, they were my best friend. I was so sure that they loved me before I was sure they liked me. Either way, their love was a guarantee. How lucky was I that they also loved me?
“Falling in love with a friend means you get to fall in love twice.”
Falling in love with a friend means you get to fall in love twice. I loved my friend first as a friend, and I got to fall in love with them a second time when they became my partner. New avenues opened up when they became my partner and I sat there kicking my feet, giggling that I had managed to bag the friends-to-lovers romcom relationship some only dream about. In an unreleased song, Lucy Dacus wrote about a friend-turned-lover, saying that they were: “my best friend before you were my best guess at the future”. Once again, Lucy Dacus has managed to encapsulate a deeply complicated experience that I couldn’t make as neat a sense of in one sentence.
However, because I want this to be it and I want it to be them, it has always been important to me to keep a balanced perspective. The transition to both a platonic and romantic dynamic, of course, has its upsides, but also has its trials and tribulations, just as any relationship would.
When interviewing a fellow student (Student A), I enquired about the dynamics at play in their relationship with their partner, who they had met on campus. The advantages of on-campus relationships are obvious: similar experiences, and the same space for easily accessible quality time. I asked them about what things to consider when you share a campus. Student A and their partner were involved in the same societies and consequently, shared a common social circle. These factors inevitably allowed a space to bond, to navigate the dynamics of working together, as well as build upon common interests and passions. However, as the relationship matured, Student A felt an increasing difficulty in distinguishing themselves from their partner. It was important for Student A and for their partner to allocate dedicated space for their own pursuits and avenues, be that through allocating certain days of the week for time with separate friend groups, or ensuring that matters from their shared workspaces stayed in the workspace, not permeating their relationship at home. A partner is not your other half to make you whole—you are whole on your own. The joy of a romantic companion has everything to do with how you can support and nourish each other in your individual entireties.
However, what can’t be neglected is the importance and significance of college as an entry point not only to the dating world, but friendship. This is particularly significant in the queer context, where college campuses can become one’s first access to queer spaces. I interviewed another student (Student B), who explained to me that their rural upbringing limited their access to a wider group of queer friends. Entering a larger, more diverse space like Trinity’s campus was Student B’s first time being fully immersed into the queer life they had been longing for. Student B had not had many opportunities to excel in queer spaces, let alone explore queer dating life. College was Student B’s first time experiencing the world of relationships, sex, and dating. Something, they wished to stress, which was made accessible to them through college.
“Love on campus is not exclusively romantic. ”
Student A and Student B are actually some of the first queer friends I have ever made. Despite a few of my secondary school peers later on finding the space to come out and live openly as queer, like Student B I did not have access to a queer circle in my teenage years, which can be an isolating experience. We met at a QSoc freshers’ event, and the trajectories of our lives changed. Friends in college, for many, just like myself and Student B, are often the first friend group we authentically and wholly connect with. Campus cannot be dismissed as a central medium for love and connection. Love on campus is not exclusively romantic.
My other half and I don’t know how long we’ve been together. Neither of us could point to a map and locate the exact time or place that we stepped over the line to that other side. There were times in the beginning of my partner and I’s relationship we weren’t quite sure what was happening. While most of it felt natural, the anxious attachment style within me craved some sense of definition. But if falling in love with a friend is to fall in love twice, despite feeling natural, to do so twice feels intentional. What a privilege and gorgeous thing it is to love twice, to love so intentionally! We were friends, not soulmates which means that everything we have now, we forged by hand, each brick laid purposefully and with care.
In a Bojack Horseman episode, Bojack’s sister Hollyhock worries that “to know me more is to love me less.” For years, I resonated so deeply with this fear, a primal dread I could never shake — but loving a friend has made love feel that bit more intentional. They knew me at my worst moments, moments I was absolutely scarlet at: falling asleep at a nightclub, showing up to work completely unresponsive with a concussion, speaking the wrong language and expecting them to understand after drinking with said concussion. I stopped performing and let them know me until they had begun to know me too well, in all my goodness and in all my ugliness and they still chose to sit around talking to me until sunrise. Being so happy feels wrong sometimes, and I’m not sure I can ever fully trust it — but what I do trust are my friends.
