Yaoi and M/M Friends to Lovers

The Little Library is a great example of M/M

romance where the heroes, Elliott and Simon,

build on common interests, enjoy outings together.

In a Last Man Standing episode, Mike Baxter argues that his wife is not his best friend. His best friend is a guy "who might be dead"--someone he never sees who demands nothing of him.

His wife is the person that he will do things for even when he disagrees with her choices.

Bones from Bones makes a similar argument to the surprise of Booth. She isn't his friend; she's his companion/sexual partner/help meet/wife, etc. etc. etc.

With all due respects to these characters, that I both enjoy, the lover-as-friend still represents to me the best of all possible worlds.

I mention in a previous post, "A huge amount of yaoi and M/M doesn't deal with the issue [of competition during courtship] at all. Competition is off the table (except for the ordinary competition involved in work v. relationship, family v. relationship, etc.). The characters are friends--which I will discuss in a later post."

And here's the later post!

And here are some examples:

Second Harvest

Christie and David from Eli Easton's A Second Harvest: Both men are attracted to each other immediately, but David pretends their relationship is only friendship. The result is a nice build-up of actual friendship.

It's also a fun example because Christie and David do not appear, initially, to have much in common. Christie is a city-guy, cosmopolitan, flirtatious, quite obviously gay, an ad designer, and--largely out of boredom at his temporary country-life--a gourmet cook.

David is a farmer living in a Mennonite community--to which he holds half-hearted ties. He took over the farm at his father's death and though conscientious in his duties, farming is not his first love. He enjoys studying archaeology and anthropology (see Jurassic Park). He collects National Geographic magazines and reads them over and over. When Christie begins cooking for him, he requests meals from Morocco and India and the South Pacific. Their first official date involves a visit to a Natural History Museum. Eventually, David goes to college and begins working at a museum.

All this information is discovered through the friendship that builds between the men--shared meals, time at the farm sketching, snowmobile rides, etc. The friendship is believable and stable.

Black Sun

Black Sun is one of my favorite examples of lovers becoming friends after they become lovers (I'm not recommending this as a lifestyle choice; I'm saying it is well-rendered). Leonard is taken captive by Jamal. They survive a number of political crises together. At the end, they gain the freedom to go about their lives as they wish.

Both men are soldiers. Both of them enjoy books and ideas and travel.

Jamal is more extroverted and sardonic; Leonard more religious and introspective. Jamal's teasing, which begins on Day 1, is greeted initially by Leonard with seriousness, then his assertive request to be heard, then by teasing in return. Not that Leonard will entirely lose his seriousness or, for that matter, his need to occasionally cut the teasing short. They are friends, easy companions, who are also lovers.

Not all yaoi and M/M hit the same mark when it comes to friendship--but the good ones are very good!