I’ve had periods in my life where I am surrounded by friends and I have had times when I flew solo. I always thought of myself as a person who needed people.

People who need people…are the luckiest people….!!!!

Sorry, had a Barbra Streisand moment there.

(Ha, now you’re all gonna have that song stuck in your head all day…bwah ha ha ha!)

Anyway! Personally, I like people and I like having special ones to be silly with. Or go to a movie with, or share an afternoon at Starbucks. When I reflect on people from my past…I’ve had good friends. False friends. Fair weather friends. Forever friends…

And people who I’m just friendly with. I sometimes think FB needs a ‘Friendly’ button and not the ‘friend’ thing.  Of course, I also think an enemies list would be handy as a FB ap. You can tell a lot about a person by who they consider their enemies, would take a lot of the should I/shouldn’t I out of that accept friend thing.

I like to create friends for my main characters and I love it when my lovers are friends. Though I’ve written books where my lovers are friendly, but not best friends. I think lovers need to have some distance, some mystery. Some time apart. And women need women to be women with. Just as men need men to be assholes with.

Ooops.

I almost think the dynamic between friends can be a hell of a lot more fun to fiddle with than the dynamic between lovers. Perhaps that is the key between keeping the couple interesting to the reader after the HEA point. Because friends fight. Friends disagree. Friends have secrets. And remain friends.

Case in point. “Castle” I know, I’m probably the only pirate still watching this show. And still loving it. The dynamic between Beckett and Castle has undergone an interesting shift now that they are a couple. And they still have problems. But it works. Because in the beginning, it wasn’t just passion and lust that made them think about jumping each other. They became friends first. Caring friends. And now they are lovers and trying not to leave the friendship to the past. And it’s tricky!

Okay, where was I going with this???

Okay, look at Javier and Lani, the other couple in that show. They were lust bunnies, jumped each other and then couldn’t keep it going. Too much lust, not enough friendship. Now, they are slowly closing in on each other again, but keeping it to rebuilding the friendship. First. They might get back together, they might not.

This is the difference between the Moonlighting curse and Hart to Hart. There is a vulnerability to a relationship when it includes friendship. Because that relationship contains a volatility that waxes and wanes.  I never felt the Moonlighting couple were friends, I did feel Hart and Hart were.

It’s all about trust, commitment and a depth to a relationship that pushes a couple to accept that being apart from each other, no longer being friends, is too high a price to pay for when they fight, or just get bored.

I love my husband. I trust him. We are friends. It isn’t perfect and we struggle all the bloody time. But the idea of not having him in my life makes the struggle worth it. 

Castle and Beckett are there. Javier and Lani might reach there. Jake and Miranda, from my books, swing between the two points…in 30 books, there is never any danger that they aren’t going to be a couple. But sometimes, it is a battle royal to make sure it ends that way.

So, my question…meandering through my riddled with holes brain… When you think of the forever couples you’ve read of, watched on the big screen or little screen…where did friendship fall in their courtship? Do you believe in their friendship as much as you believe in their lover-ship? What do you think in more important?