The subject of today’s blog post is pretty specific. Like, so specific, you’d think there would only be a handful of books that fit it. You’d be wrong. Friends to lovers, specifically the pining best friend story meeting the bi awakening story (and I’m using bi for brevity’s sake here, it’s often demi or pan) combines a classic romance trope with a classic M/M trope. The “best friend you wish could be more but you can’t say anything for fear of ruining the friendship” has been a romance staple for decades, at least since When Harry Met Sally and probably earlier. Meanwhile, bi (or other) awakening is utterly classic in M/M: the previously assumed straight guy, often someone in a hypermasculine field like sports, realizing and coming to terms with same-sex attraction and the joys of gay sex.
First, let’s examine what makes these two tropes so appealing.
The pining best friend
Something that can be tricky to establish in a romance is emotional intimacy. A lot of romances involve characters making big decisions based on their love lives, and a lot of the time, a sane person watching will think “Wait, what? You’re turning your whole life around for a guy you’ve known for like two weeks?”
Just think of those Hallmark Christmas movies where the lead leaves her high-pressure big city job for Farmhand McSmallBusiness from her hometown. It’s no coincidence a lot of the love interests in those stories are long-lost childhood friends – the pace of the story would otherwise make you think that the lead is utterly insane.
With the pining best friend trope, you start off with emotional intimacy. The leads are close, they’ve been close, they know each other well and in some ways have already passed relationship milestones, only, well, in a friend way. That’s a great, solid start for a romantic couple, and it’s also a great way for an author to build dramatic irony, i.e. have the audience totally aware of the pining, but one of the characters is totally oblivious. That makes us as an audience invested and frustrated and desperate for the resolution. It’s also not hard to understand the impediments – most people can empathize with not wanting to rock the boat or risk what you have with someone who’s important to you.
The bi awakening
Bi/pan/demi awakening is really popular beyond just this iteration; it also happens in a lot of rivals/enemies to lovers stories or with a plain old meet-cute. I would argue that the popularity stems from how easily it ties into a very classic romance trope: the love interest is different from everyone else who came before. They affect the person having the awakening in a way they weren’t expecting and no one else ever has. It’s very classically romantic. You get this in F/M romance, too, although there it’s often compounded with virginity kink (aka “I’ve been waiting for the right person”).
It can also be kind of problematic when looking at something like demisexuality, where a storyline like this leading to the conclusion that no one makes the character feel the way the love interest does automatically resolves all their complex feelings around sexuality; a person’s sexuality usually isn’t entirely dependent on one other person even if that sounds romantic in theory. (For reading recs specifically featuring acespec characters, check below)
A lot of bi awakening stories are set with a younger age group, around 20-25 (possibly also younger, but I don’t read stories set in high school for reasons of being a high school teacher). I think this makes sense, given that’s a pretty reasonable time of life for someone to be questioning their sexuality. A lot of them also feature very stereotypically masculine men becoming interested in other men, which…maybe says some things about gender norms. It’s also a classic romance trope, though: the alpha male softening and showing his romantic side.
Combining the two
A few different things affect how this trope combination plays out. One is the duration of the friendship. That directly affects the level of pining going on. Usually, the character who is pining has a lot of moments of thinking “this is a really bad idea for me” when it comes to the other character experimenting with them; if the friendship has lasted upwards of five years, this is even more compounded. Depending on your tolerance for angst, this can be really gut-wrenching, or it can be mostly light.
Another factor is how big a deal the change in sexuality is for the other character. A lot of stories actually play this out pretty low-key, with the character mostly going “huh, I guess I’ll roll with this then” but not communicating that well, leading to a more drawn-out resolution. Some go much more in-depth with it and tell more heart-wrenching stories about internalized homophobia; it’s really a matter of personal preference.
Finally, one of the big awkward landmarks of the pining best friends trope is of course the question posed by When Harry Met Sally: Can men and women be friends without sex getting in the way? It was awkward when When Harry Met Sally kind of ended that one on a stilted “no, not really”; it’s also kind of awkward when the same is true of same-sex couples. Most stories don’t really go there, but it’s something worth thinking about in my opinion!
Now for some recs! A side note on star ratings: If you’re interested in this trope, any of these books will fulfill it. My star ratings are my subjective take on the book, which will reflect my preferences more than anything. Follow the links for full reviews to see why I gave it that rating, and take a look at the other goodreads reviews to get a more general picture!
Trent and Gabe have been friends since they were kids. Now they’re in college together, living in the same dorm and working in the same café, and they see no reason to change that. They might be a little closer than most best friends, but what’s the harm? Gabe’s only torturing himself a little bit. Until Trent turns his head and a platonic cheek kiss goodnight becomes something more.
Especially notable: Trent, the character who has the bi awakening, is genuinely confused and struggling, and it’s given time and space as a central theme. It’s nice to see in comparison to stories where characters adjust very fast!
Zach and Dominic have been best friends forever. They live together and run a landscaping business together, and if they reach forty with no partners in sight, they'll get married. Platonically. Except now Dominic has told their parents they're in love and getting married, and Zach is in hot water because he is in love and doesn't want to get married for show.
Especially notable: Romance between characters in their late thirties, very long scale for the pining character.
Daniel goes to the woods to live deliberately away from everyone he knows and lick his wounds after flaming out professionally and personally. There, he meets Julian, the local vet who helps him take care of strays and awakens some feelings in him that Daniel was not expecting.
Especially notable: Shorter scale for the pining friendship angle; we witness the entire friendship on the page. Great dialogue and well-rounded setting!
Tanner is the all-around smalltown hero, he works for the fire department and serves as a weekend bouncer for the bar and spends all his free time helping people out. There's just two problems: his dyslexia stopping him from passing the exams he needs to become a full member of the fire department, and his best friend Royce who left for Australia five years ago. Except then Royce comes back, having gotten surgery for his epilepsy and ready to get closure from his long-time crush on Tanner.
Especially notable: I would call this one the blueprint for this trope. A very straightforward example.
Finally, some recs if you're interested specifically in sexuality awakening and pining in stories about acespec romance!
3.5 stars. Rafe has been with Laura for years. So many years that he doesn't know how to get out of it anymore, even though both of them want to. When his ex-best-friend Cam moves in next door and starts trying to annoy him to death, it becomes clear that it's time for him to find a way out.
Especially notable: This isn’t so much a bi awakening as an ace awakening, and Cam’s feelings for Rafe drove the friendship apart – kind of a subversion there!
Scoreless Game follows Elias and Nisha, captain and assistant captain, respectively, of the same hockey team. They've been best friends for years despite harboring intense feelings for each other. These have gone unacknowledged because of a sort of mistaken mismatch situation: Elias is asexual, though sex positive, and Nisha doesn't think he's interested at all. Meanwhile, Nisha's parade of hook-ups has lead Elias to believe he's only interested in casual sex.
Especially notable: I wouldn’t necessarily call this one “ace awakening” in that Elias knows he’s ace at the start of the novel, it’s more of a mutual pining situation. It is one of my favorites out there, though, and it really explores how Elias’s asexuality affects his life.
Cohen has been told by pretty much everyone in his life that no, not everyone experiments with their high school best friend. It’s made him consider that he might not actually be as straight as he thought. Meanwhile, Seth is tired of trying to make it work with dates who want too much too fast, chasing a spark he just can’t find. Thinking he might be demisexual, he goes online, where he meets Cohen.
Especially notable: This is a mutual awakening, if you will, where the sexuality awakening isn’t brought out by the other person, but rather through self-reflection after which they go looking for answers and find each other and support each other through it. Slow build, which I appreciate in a story about demisexuality.
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