Friends Dating Places

I think the first time I thought friends dating was a good idea was when I was four and saw Corey Matthews fall in love with Topanga Lawrence. Since then I’ve seen countless friends fall in love on television shows, and have seen most of them go up in flames.

When it comes to friends falling in love on TV, there’s a lot of examples of what not to do. If you’re looking for a little bit of good dating inspiration, here’s the 6 best shows where friends fall in love, and it actually works.

6. Cougar Town
Although I find it extremely hard to watch Courtney Cox and not think of her as Monica, she does a pretty good job as Jules on Cougar Town. I don’t think the show has that many fans, but the three people who do watch it were pretty happy when Jules and Grayson got together. They continue to have their hilarious ups and downs, but the episode actually have a lot of hidden messages under their layers of fart jokes and alcoholic references. They continue to show a solid example of a good relationship coming out of a friendship.

5. Supernatural
Dean and Jo seemed more like brother-and-sister for their two seasons together, but when she was about to die from wounds inflicted by invisible hell hounds (it’s a pretty stupid show…), Dean realized he had been in love with her the entire time, and gave her the long awaited kiss goodbye. The show goes on to follow Dean having to deal with the death of Jo, which highlights him struggling over the regret of never getting to tell her how he felt. It’s a pretty heart-felt story line for a show about ghost hunters, but it gives you a little push to actually tell your friend your feelings towards them.

4. The Big Bang Theory
In the classic story of boy-likes-girl-but-girl-only-sees-him-as-just-a-friend, the guy ends up taking a chance, asking her out, and they live happily ever after (until season 4 when they break up and she sleeps with his best friend, who is also his new girlfriends brother). Regardless of how their relationship currently stands (spoiler alert! They get back together next season), the show proves that if you simply take the chance to tell someone how you feel, then you’ll have the opportunity to open the door to take things where you want them to go.

3. How I Met Your Mother
This show is a bad example at times, and a great example at others. Ted falls in love with Robyn, Robyn falls in love with Barney, Barney falls in love with everyone, but won’t admit it because he wants to continue to be a ladies man. It’s a tangled web they weave, but the story is narrated by Ted 20 years in the future, proving that whatever drama went on with their friends while they were dating each other presently gets worked out and everyone lives happily ever after.

2. Friends
If Monica falling in love with Chandler isn’t the greatest example of friends dating ever, then I don’t know what is. They met when he was friends with her older brother in high school, lived across the hall from each other for years, and eventually hooked up drunkenly in London, which sparked the start of one of the best TV romances of all times.

1.  Saved By The Bell
Slater and Jessie! If I need to explain this one, then you lived under a rock from 1989-1993, and you need to get to Amazon to buy the box sets. If you’ve ever had a friend you wanted to hook up with but thought you were just too different to make it work, Slater and Jessie will be your idols.

If you need a little friends dating inspiration, these shows will act as great confidence boosters to finally take that last step!

“Me and Jeremy broke up.”
“Awe, I’m really sorry to hear that. Are you two going to stay friends?”
“We’ve talked a couple of times.”

It seems like every time we ask someone if they’re going to stay friends after a break-up, we get a runaround answer. Sure they may not know at that exact moment what is going to happen in the future, but wouldn’t they have a pretty educated guess as to them wanting to remain on good terms or not?

When two people break up, it’s hard to tell from the outside what exactly went wrong. It’s always surprising to see two close friends go from the perfect couple to being back on the dating search. If you were friends before you were dating, can you be friends with them after the break-up? Well, it all depends on what the two parties involved want.

A big reason as to why we never really get a straight answer to the ‘Will you still be friends?’ question is because the wound is still fresh. After a break-up, you think about every option– Getting back together, cutting them out of your life, trying to get things back to normal with them– But it’s very unlikely you actually know which route you want to take until some time has passed. Not knowing yourself is the perfect reason to not want to discuss it with someone else.

It is possible to be friends with an ex, but the circumstances have to be perfect. Both parties can’t have feelings for each other anymore, if they’re dating new people then the new people have to be okay with it, and they have to make sure that their conversations stick to an extremely platonic subject manner.

Ex’s can be friends, but it takes time and effort on both parties parts, and remember, it doesn’t help to push somebody into it. Next time friends are going through a break up, let them figure out their friendship dilemma on their own!

It’s a vicious circle, the friend zone. Boy meets girl, boy doesn’t tell girl feelings, girl finds boy who falls in love with her, boy is left alone. I can’t count how many times this story has happened to good friends, friends of friends, and everyone in between. If you’ve found someone who you think might end your dating search, then don’t mess it up by getting stuck in the friend zone!

If you can’t figure out why you’re always getting stuck with the dreaded ‘friend’ title, then let’s see if this list rings any bells:

• You meet a the girl of your dreams. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s extremely pretty, and she somehow manages to make you feel shy, regardless of how outgoing you really are. In the first few days of knowing her, you totally over analyze if she’d like you or not, which leads to you being too scared to asking her out.
• You decide it’s better to play it safe than sorry, so you continue not to say anything, and all the time the two of you spend together leads to the two of you being good friends. Instead of wanting to take off your clothes, she wants to take you out shopping.
• You keep your feelings for her under wraps, since now that the two of you are such good friends, you don’t want to risk ruining the friendship by saying anything about your crush on her.
• After months of movie dates, her complaining about her boyfriends, and platonic sleepovers, you finally realize: You, my pal, are in the friend zone.

Dating is hard enough, but when you’re stuck in the friend zone with the girl you’re dating? Not much could be worse than that. Tomorrow we’re going to take a look at the 5 best ways to get rid of your ‘friend’ title. Until then, have fun listening to her complain about her bad date from last night!