Just the opposite happened with me. When I first met one of my friends we were in college over 20 years ago and I was very attracted to her. She had an older boyfriend, and I knew I couldn’t compete. I was also not seriously dating someone. We became good friends. We graduated, we moved about five hours away but still remained good friends. We would see each other about three or four times a year. She was still dating the guy.

Fast forward 12 years. I was divorced, she was single with two kids and reconnected. We became very close, took vacations together but this time, there was no romantic connection. We talked about getting involved on an academic level but we both knew we would be settling. It was just a comfortable, unstressful, “safe” relationship.

I started dating my now wife five years after my divorce and one of the hardest things was detaching from my friendship with her but I knew it wouldn’t be healthy for my relationship with my wife.

I have another close friend that I met when she was a freshman in high school and I was a senior. We stayed in touch off an on and would hang out. She’s objective attractive, we used to have fun when we hung out as adults, she was easy to talk to, but I could never see her as a romantic interest. It was just weird thinking about her that way.