Friendlationships: From Like, to Like Like, to Love in Your Twenties (Paperback)

~ Jeff Taylor (Author)
Key Phrases: dating relationship, The Couples, Pig Latin, Singles Satisfaction (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

On both sides of the passionate road of love is the less desirable stage of friendship. Anyone who’s ever been there knows the terrain is perilous. Friendlationships will help you navigate. Author Jeff Taylor addresses questions like:

What should you do when you start to like a friend?
What if you’re attracted to someone who is already in a relationship?
What are reasons you should end a relationship?
What are healthy boundaries?

Friendlationships shares stories of those who are in your shoes and gives insight into how relationship issues can make or break your spiritual life. After all, relationship advice should be about more than sex or dating methods. Friendlationships covers all the stages between and during this thing called love.

About the Author

Jeff Taylor is a counseling specialist at Texas University in Lubbock, Texas, and has worked with college students for the past seven years. He is currently pursuing his master's degree in theology and divinity. He is married to Alison and has a baby boy named Clark.

Product Details

• Paperback: 175 pages
• Publisher: Relevant Books (July 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976364212
• ISBN-13: 978-0976364214
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #754,361 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Handbook for twentysomethings from shaking hands to holding hands, December 29, 2005

By	Christian Book Previews.com "Christian Book P... - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Dozens of books promise help for guy/girl relationships. Why should you look at yet another?

You're in your twenties. You're not married or engaged. You don't belong to either extreme: dating without a thought to the future or not speaking to a guy unless you're courting. You don't want a book for teens or one that drones on about the benefits of being "single and satisfied." But the number one reason you should look at this book is if you have a crush on a friend or a friend has a crush on you.

Why? Because no other book seems willing to tackle that delicate, nerve-wracking dance from friendship to relationship. While the discussion of "friendlationships" only takes up two chapters rather than the entire book, much is covered, though you'll probably wish Jeff Taylor dived a little deeper.

The rest of the book is also well worth reading, despite including several issues taught in other books on Christian dating: boundaries, sex, define the relationship talks. Jeff offers fresh insights on being single in a couples culture, asking pointed questions like, "Do you come to church to worship God or to meet people of the opposite sex?" and advising dating couples not to ignore or look down on their single friends. Another chapter discusses what to do if you like someone who is already in a relationship, or if you are the one already in a relationship. Often overlooked topics like emotional baggage, long-distance relationships, and gender roles are brought up as well.

The whipped topping and cherry of the book come with the two appendixes: The Actual Female Survey and The Real Man Survey. Jeff asked 50 guys and 50 girls insightful questions about dating, from age preferences to qualities they avoid in the opposite sex. Some of the answers are given as demographic percentages; others give the participants' essay-like responses.

Friendlationships covers a lot of ground in a fairly quick read, which was my only frustration with the book. I kept wishing the author would go deeper, expound more on vital topics. Beyond that, the book excels in every area - reader friendly format, on-target examples from the author's life and current media, Scriptural principles, and practical applications. The cover says it all - this is the handbook for twentysomethings while they go from shaking hands to holding hands. -- Katie Hart, Christian Book Previews.com

4.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Insight - Less of an action plan than I'd expected, September 18, 2007

By	Niki (Joisey) - See all my reviews

Friendlationships by Jeff Taylor is a very quick read. I actually read through most of the book (I skipped over a lot of the F.A.Q.s chapter) in less than two hours. It's a good book to keep on your bookshelf, and I definitely recommend it for a college and post-college age group (I am in the latter, just recently). As for older adults, it can be valuable but maybe not enough. Even for me, I look forward to reading a few other books in this genre before feeling adequately educated on this subject. It's a very helpful book if you like a friend of yours, but aren't sure whether he or she likes you back. He takes a concept most people write off as sophomoric and validates the very adult reality of relationships. I recommend this to Christian adult singles as well as those in dating relationships. If you have ever considered courtship, this is a good book to keep around. Hope that helps you make a decision!

5.0 out of 5 stars "When I was young my teachers were the old/ "-- Robert Frost, November 21, 2006

By	J. Taylor "lokapala" (Directly over the center of the earth) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

At first, it was necessary to repeat the word "Friendlationships" a hundred times over the course of a few eventful months, before the word began to make any sense. It still stumbles in the mouth like a compound German word; I tried to tell my dentist about the book and had to give up.

Love is one of those scary things to even try to define. It's a huge topic to write about. Finding your soulmate, if there is such a thing, is something like scooping up a single teardrop out of the Pacific Ocean. If it happens to you, surely you must have done something right, to invite such a blessing into your life. Among other things, love is an education, possibly lifelong, in the cultivation of another person's friendship and respect, by earning it.

Please read this book, if you'd like to know how to be a good person who (of course; you're young, loose, and ...) wants to score in every way possible, and who is willing (if at all humanly possible) to wait for intimacy, until friendship has established a good basis for it. Also, if you're curious about how different in aspect and view your oppositely gendered potential new friend is, especially from your boring old self, this book will help you understand one billionth-part of the mystery of women. It is a plain fact, historical, obvious, and visible, that all women understand most men better than most men understand any woman.

Is God watching how you comport yourself in your search for romantic love during these interesting times? Heh. When you get to be my age, with the answer hammered into you a few times by the fist of daily life, then you can tell me. In the meantime, sit down, young Sherlock, ease back on the testosterone challenge-throttle a few notches, and read this book to tatters. This topic is not a matter of blind luck. No, reading this book won't tell you how to get to third base. But it will help you find out that the point of love is far, far past even home plate, and certainly a lot wider in scope than you can imagine, but worth every inch of the search ... until, as, and if you find it. If you're lucky. So, in that broader sense, this book will tell you how to get lucky, and even luckier in due course. No, love is not about luck; that's gambling and combat you're thinking of. Put it this way: out of nearly seven billion humans, you're searching for one in particular? Son, honestly, you NEED divine intervention for a task like that. The whole world will encourage you to set your sights a little lower and do it with everybody every chance you get, twice if possible, like extra lives in a video game. Listen to Jeff Taylors, lad; the process of dating is important. Because getting hurt in love makes a skateboard crash-and-burn feel like a light massage with headphones. Love is far less safe than skateboarding. Study the subject, FGS.


Reading this book made Robert Frost's poem, "What Fifty Said," even more poignant. The young generation has several impossible tasks ahead of them, not least the establishment of world peace forever, and learning about love is harder yet. At 55, I don't envy them, but do wish them well. They have social skills, knowledge, and interpersonal nuances of instant bonding that are light-years ahead of what Boomers had, when we were young and addled in the Pleistocene. The dance of dating has come a long way, but the basic steps are still there.

(It would be interesting to meet this Jeff Taylor, perhaps at the same time as a meeting with a third Jeff Taylor, who wrote a good book about the Democratic Party. My books are about tools. Hence the confusion when you search the name, which is a common one. There's a Jeff Taylor who was a Moscow correspondent, so he's probably a fourth and different JT.)