Have you ever wondered to yourself, “are we entering the “friend zone” or is this just another one of those hi bye sorta things?

There are two kinds of “friend zones” one is the kind you spend most of your high school and early college years trying to avoid. Remember the dreaded friend zone, thank goodness those memories are more funny than painful at this point.

But then there’s the other “friend zone”, it’s the actual friend zone. You know what I’m trying to say, it’s the zone where you are actually friends with someone. You’ve gone beyond the pleasantries and actually become friends, this is when someone makes your list of 30 people you know. 

These are the people you call, text, marco polo when you’re having an awful or awesome day, the friends you run away with to Target because you can, the ones that get your West Wing and Friends references (or just roll their eyes), the ones that will honestly tell you when your hair cut makes you look like a 12 year old boy, the ones that greatly appreciate it when you tell them that yes grapes are on sale at Sprouts for $0.88. These are the ones that reassure you that work will slow down and that quitting isn’t the answer, the friends you see once every 5 years but laugh/chat with so much that time and distance melt away, these are the actual friends that remind you life if good even if you aren’t feeling it at the moment, the friends that share their own frustrations and disappointments, these are the no make-up and sweatpants friends, the come visit you in the hospital after you have a baby bearing gifts of sugar and arms to hold your new baby. These are the people that make a place feel like home, the people you call when you have a flat tire, a dead battery, or need a sugary pick me up. These are your people!

I’d argue that the second friend zone is more complicated than the high school version. This one requires significantly more effort on your part, and dare I say that making it into this friend zone is even more important than not being in the friend zone was when you were in high school or college.

I am terrible at hi bye relationships, I never know what to say- “Hey! Glad you’re still alive, not sure what else to say since we don’t actually know each other…” While truthful, this is probably a bit too informative. I feel like I need to provide people with a comment card or a link to a survey where I ask, “Do you think we will be actual friends? Or is this just going to be a hi bye thing?”

Honestly, I’m cool with just the hi bye thing, but wouldn’t it be lovely to know? I know I know, life doesn’t work that way… which I’m just going to say is annoying. I’m great at telling Mr. Spreadsheets things like, “yeah I am not cool enough to be her friend” or “ok so that isn’t going to work out because of reasons A-Z”, but I’m not always right, and that might be the biggest issue.

I was joking with a friend a few months ago and she said something like, “wouldn’t it be awesome if your closest friends had to interview and approve “friend candidates’?” Um it would be awesome! Clearly those friends know you, put up with you, and find you relatively awesome, why else would they consent to hosting the weirdest job interview?I think it would be great, not only could they weed out the actual friend candidates, but they could give them a heads up, something like- by the way this girl is off her rocker but kinda worth it. I think there needs to be some kind of movement towards that.

And while we are on the subject, has anyone else noticed the balancing act that takes place while you’re waiting to see if you’re on the way to the friend zone? I’m sure you have. There’s the difficult balance of showing your sparkling personality while keeping most of the crazy tucked back in. I’m terrible at keeping my crazy tucked in, it just spews all over the place all the time.

Let’s be honest you want people to know a little bit about you, but not quite enough that they start to question the sanity of moving forward on that friendship track.

So this second friend zone, well I think this second friend zone deserves to have volumes written on it (and it appears I’m making it my personal mission to do that), I think it deserves awkward movies, and I think it deserves to see the light of day!

This friend zone is tough! Navigating relationships at any age is confusing and hard! It’s time to cut the small talk and get to the point… no? Well maybe its time to just be ok that that I don’t have the answers to everything… yeah that seems unlikely.