And that can honestly work out depending on the person.
However, when you really like somebody, and they were giving you signs that they liked you in return (or you thought they did), only for them to shoot you down to the "friend zone", its going to hurt (really, really hurt) and its hard to come back from that.
Sure, some people can take it reasonably well and maintain a friendship with that other person. But others take it hard, wondering if they did something wrong to ruin that chance at a relationship or if they even HAD a chance at a relationship to begin with. A bunch of thoughts keep swirling around:
"What were they looking for?"
"Did I do something wrong?"
"Will they ever like me the way I like them?"
"Was I being led on the whole time (and was it a mistake on my part or were they just teasing me)"?
After all of that, being in the "friend zone" is going to be rather painful (especially if, even after asking all of those questions, you still have feelings for that person).
I'm not saying that its impossible to maintain a friendship. Just that, depending on how strong your feelings were for a person (and how seemingly strong those signals were that the other person was "sending" in return), just being friends is going to be rather tough.
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