It’s all fun and games until someone realizes it’s not going to go on to anything else and you hear those words "just friends". The friendzone is a deep and complicated thing that most people have suffered through at least once in their life. Part of what makes it so hard is that one person, no matter what the situation, gets hurt, is blindsided by the fact the other person doesn’t want to be in a relationship with them. Most of the time once the discovery of you are just there for the other person's gain and company it fizzles out and you awkwardly drift apart and never speak to each other; but there is the rare occasion that you stubbornly stick through it and stay with that person until they are ready for a relationship (with you preferably). Breaking through the friendzone into a relationship is a long and difficult process and once you get there it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows either.
You’ve made it to the point where you’re finally in the relationship with the person you’ve wanted to be with for god knows how long, you can finally describe to other people what your relationship is, but what now? It’s awkward, because to you, it’s always been a relationship, you’ve put the time and effort into that person just like you would have done if you began dating from the start. For them it isn’t like that at all, you’ve never even been considered as a significant other to them, the realization of that truly sucks, no doubt about it. It’s so hard to not let all the doubt and insecurities of your past friendzone take control, if you do it could so easily take your relationship down. You can’t hang all that over your new beau, like a dark cloud, because for whatever reason they weren’t ready it wasn’t because you weren’t good enough. You have to remember that people go through things you don’t see and couldn’t even begin to try to understand. Once you've accepted the realization that to them you were a friend, and for however long you were there by their side as a “friend”, you were exactly that, a friend, to them and that is extremely important. Your relationship is based off of that friendship along with the patience on your part, that will undeniably make it stronger than if you tried to date while they were trying to ready themselves for a relationship.
Even though you aren’t necesaily feeling new things for your person, most likely to them it is new. This gives you the opportunity to start over, putting the hurt of the friendzone behind you, so you can focus on the relationship you’ve waited so long for. Your relationship will be stronger than it ever would have been if you had started out together in the beginning, I grew from my relationship as a “friend” to my boyfriend, it helped both of us understand each other so much more, and I’m grateful I was able to be there for him and I can be there for him in the future as both friend and girlfriend.
