How to Maintain a Friendship After a Kiss

By: Contributor

Sometimes a friendship can turn into something more intimate and both parties want to go back to being just friends. You might wonder if it's possible to maintain the friendship after you have kissed. If you want to keep the friendship and go back to the way things were before, you can work through the lapse in judgment, but it will require a mutual understanding and self-control. Here's some suggestions on maintaining a friendship after a kiss.

Be careful with each other's feelings. You may not want to pursue each other in a more intimate way, but one of you might have feelings that get hurt when the other rushes off immediately into another relationship. Be kind and respect your friendship.

Enjoy other activities with each other that do not involve intimate moments. Go to events and social functions. Do things that do not fall into dating and intimate activities such as movies, drinks or dinner.

Talk to each other immediately after you had the kiss. Do not let there be a gap of time as you recover from the shock. Behave the way you used to before the romantic involvement and pretend it didn't happen. However, if you're really close, then talk to each other about how you feel, apologize for the kiss and explain that you just want to be friends.

Keep going on with your everyday lives and hang out with each other, but try not to spend time with each other every day. It could send the signal that you're interested in more than friendship. Keep things platonic by participating in activities like sports, social events with other friends or going to see a band play in concert.

Go out and enjoy activities like you always did, but always include a group of friends, so you are not alone together to avoid an intimate situation. Turn your focus to building other friendships, while maintaining your current one.