From friend to lover: a tough barrier to cross

DAN: This issue strikes home for me, as I have, on occasion, found myself pressing my palms against the invisible walls of friendship, like some kind of love-starved Marcel Marceau, hoping to break free and into warm embrace of romance.

Here’s a bit of advice. You can try everything Ms. Syrtash recommends — flirt to test the waters, don’t be a human fire extinguisher (always there in case of emergency, the eternal shoulder to cry on), and “have fun.” It’s all for naught if she “just doesn’t feel it.” You can’t conjure chemistry.

It’s a self-defeating mechanism, one’s attempts to “win” someone’s heart. It only happens in Streisand movies, reality TV and plays like “The Taming of the Shrew,” where Petruchio drowned his lady in a tsunami of kindness. Love is never won, it’s always a gift — you can’t earn it. Affection, yes. Respect, yes. Love, that’s another story.

Unfortunately, I am a dyed-in-the-polyester-and-cotton-blend romantic, and thus, I find the “lost cause” incredibly appealing. I keep pounding on those invisible walls.

JOAN: A soliloquy of which Shakespeare would be proud, Danny. It's true, you can't make somebody love you, but you can say how you feel. My cousin spent weekends (not overnights) with a man who worked for her. They would go to movies, parks, museums, cafes — just friends. Then a year later, she confided in me she was in love with this man. In tears, she asked me what she should do. I offered five little words. “Tell him how you feel.” She called me a week later and said they were engaged.

I'm not saying that the friendship will catch on fire, just be honest. Start with, “How would you feel if we took our friendship to a different level?" The person might answer, "I'm afraid if we did and it didn't work out, I would lose you as a friend.” Then you have to be prepared to talk about how you would feel about that. I would answer, “I'm OK with being more than friends as long as we agree to be honest with each other.”

Single Baltimore resident Donna, 28, says that telling a male friend she would like to take the friendship to the next level is a hard thing to do because she wouldn't want to risk losing the friendship. She says she's a chicken in these matters. “If I knew how to do this, I wouldn't be single. I would ask a stranger out because there aren't any consequences. But if it's someone I'm going to see again through work or mutual friends, I would have to have more of a sense the feeling is mutual before I would ask him out or tell him I'd like to be more than friends. If I finally got the courage, I would ask if he would like to go out for a drink. I wouldn't ask him to go out for a romantic walk in the park. I know it's dumb to be a chicken — how would you know unless you try. Someone has to initiate it."

DAN: I’ve had that “afraid I’d lose you” speech. Sometimes it’s a hurdle you can jump, sometimes, not. Ultimately, for the would-be-lover, you have to decide whether this is something you can tolerate. It’s a terrible thing to love in vain, but as I’ve noted in this column before, love isn’t fair. In fact, love is a lot like running for president. Look at 1992 when Bush Sr. ran against Clinton. Bush thought that he would be embraced by the American people based on his record. He had had success in the Persian Gulf War (Part I), and the economy was rising. Clinton, however, took a page from Don Juan and wooed the voters. He wore shades and played the sax on Arsenio. He did that thing where he bites his lower lip and gives a thumbs-up. Never mind that he had no federal government experience. Bush deserved to win, to be loved. He didn’t. He wasn’t. That’s amore.

Dan Collins is a terminally single 40-something writer and local PR maven. Joan Allen is a noted matchmaker extraordinaire and author of “Celebrating Single and Getting Love Right: From Stalemate to Soulmate.”