It’s a Friday night, the music is blasting so loud that it starts to feel like an internal thought and the lights start to move a little faster than before. 

You stop dancing and look at your friend; her hair is flowing with the beat. 

You’ve never really looked at her for long enough to realize how pretty she is. Her eyes, her lips, her hair—wait! She’s your best friend, and you’re not supposed to be thinking this way. 

You shake your head to wake yourself up, push the thought down and continue with your night. 

We are always told that college is a place of self-exploration, a time to truly figure out who you are and what you want to be. 

You find yourself having many late nights and meeting some of the best people. 

Sometimes though, these late nights with your new best friends can become confusing when they lean in for a kiss in the middle of the bar or a spark goes off as they grab your hand, pulling you through the crowd.

You think to yourself, “it must just be the alcohol speaking.” 

But you know, deep down, that you are lying to yourself. 

Friendships in college are weird. There is such a gray area when it comes to where the boundaries of friendship really lie. 

I’ve seen people of all sexualities grab their friends in the middle of parties and start completely making out with them.

One time my friend, let’s call her Greta, and this girl, who can be named Ellyn, were going home together after a night out. While Greta went to grab their jackets, and Ellyn said goodbye to her friends by grabbing one of them and making out with them. 

My friends and I had our jaws on the floor as Greta returned not knowing what had just happened. 

We then joked the rest of the night asking, “woah, is that how we are supposed to say goodbye to each other?”

Our joke brings up the whole definition of friendship and begs the question of if there is really a line at all. 

I am not trying to discourage intimacy between friends, but, personally, completely making out with your besties while the girl you are going home with is getting your jackets crosses that line. 

These relationships have been coined as “homoerotic friendships,” the idea of having these sexual or romantic interactions with your friends but never truly acknowledging it. 

I’ve lived through a couple of these and they can be fun. Having someone to flirt with that you are comfortable around and being able to see them in a romantic and friendly way can be nice. 

But this can also be terrifying as you find yourself falling for someone who you see as your best friend.

You don’t want to lose them, and you don’t want to scare them or have them hate you. If you make a move, they could feel uncomfortable and completely leave you.

I truly believe that once you act on these homoerotic “friendship” urges it is no longer a friendship. 

Acting on these feelings come at higher risk the moment you lean in for a kiss or you hold each other a little longer feeling each other’s heart rates increase with each extra second. 

Again, I’m not hating on intimate friendships: the love between someone and their best friend is more valuable than any relationship you will ever be in.

But the moment this friendship intimacy crosses into the gray area you have to decide what you want. 

This “friend” is either your future maid of honor or the person you can’t invite to the wedding because you cannot look into the eyes of your fiancé while your friend stares at you longingly, day dreaming of if there was anything at all. 

Friendships are weird. Lines get crossed and feelings get tangled. 

But in the end, if you feel comfortable enough being that vulnerable with your bestie, you two can definitely get over that one night you deem as one of the most electric nights of your life.

Or maybe, if you think about it that way, you need to rethink if you are really friends at all.