Sometimes I can’t help but wonder how my best friend kisses. I also believe in perfecting my kissing style and maintaining my perfect technique, and it seems the most natural and comfortable people to practice with are my friends. Since a good kisser is able to adapt to other people’s kissing styles, I want to expose myself to as many as possible. Most people are curious about the kissing skills of their best platonic friends. Right?
-Zips
Dear Zips,
Well, although I can’t speak for any of your platonic friends, sometimes what separates a platonic friend from a romantic interest is simply a lack of curiosity about becoming romantically involved with them. The amount of time you spend together is what makes you unappealing to each other. This is similar to the way a marriage works. Therefore, it seems like you would be breaking down a pretty significant barrier by asking to practice your kissing technique with your friends.
In my calculation, then you would no longer simply be platonic friends, because you would always share the memory of your awkward, undefined foray into romance. Unless there was absolutely no physical attraction between the two of you to begin with, even in this rare instance, it is pretty hard to emerge from a passionate necking session without feeling the least bit romantically attached, even to your platonic friend whom you have employed to trim your nose hair on several awkward occasions.
There’s no way both of you will react in the same way to this event. Even if both of you experience revulsion at knowing you have now kissed the person you’ve watched vomit onto your feet and crawl home from the VR, and you vow never to kiss each other again, this very realization will form a wedge in your relationship. This will also, no doubt, make your friendship significantly awkward for a while.
One of the beauties of platonic friends is that you do not have to worry whether or not they brush their teeth or maintain proper hygiene, or whether they are a groper or someone with a disgusting slobbery tongue. The beauty of having platonic friends is that you never have to find out these things about them! Ever! You can save these disillusionments and disappointments to experience with the random undesirables you meet at parties, and you can anxiously wait until the next morning, when you get to share all these sordid experiences with your platonic friends.
There is just no way to approach this situation and expect both parties to remain unchanged, except for their supposed new kissing skills. Platonic friends simply know too much about each other to be interested in kissing each other, ever, under any circumstances except extreme drunkenness or amnesia. If not, then you probably aren’t really platonic friends.