Sapphic Yearning: The blurred lines between friendship and desire

I discovered sapphic yearning in the form of a flatmate with a buzzcut and a missing thumb from a motorcycle accident in Cambodia. An artist, she drew abstract images of the female form. She spoke with a confidence that completely captivated me.  

The first time she showed interest in me, we were in the kitchen. Face flushed, I wanted so badly to make a move, but my body felt pinned to the corner of the room. She had an intense directness that both terrified me and completely turned me on. The stuffed animal she left behind still sits on my bed. I think of her all the time.  

Yearning is not exclusively a sapphic experience. Anyone can yearn for what they cannot have. But there’s something divinely feminine about it. Women seem to possess it like a superpower, yearning with an unbearable depth.  

For many young sapphics, the experience comes with confusion as you learn to navigate the blurred lines of friendship and romance.  

Ashley*, a friend and sapphic love of mine, tells me about her first time experiencing the yearn. She was 14 and in love with her best friend.  

“I remember we would have sleepovers, and I would make my bed first so I could put it next to hers and we could sleep together.”  

Ashley struggled to tell her best friend the truth, “We were very physically affectionate, but I refused to tell her how I felt. I’d do everything in my power to make it desperately obvious, but I could never admit it her.”  

I understand what she means. In my 22 years of dating men, the formula for attraction was easy to navigate. Learning the sapphic world of communication meant decoding signals, eye contact, charged silences, and training myself to make bold moves to communicate my interest. 

Looking back, Ashley says the feelings were likely mutual, but she’ll never really know. She describes the familiar feelings of sleepless nights, up talking till early hours of morning, never daring to cross the line, obsessive thoughts and feelings that consumed her whole being.  

Those feelings have followed Ashley into adulthood — sometimes more muted, sometimes all-consuming. She recalls one experience late last year when she became entangled with someone she knew would never be hers. 

“I knew what I wanted but I couldn’t get it, so I settled for what I could. It went on far longer than it should have before I finally stepped back.”  

Ashley felt like she lost herself in the process. “I couldn’t think about anything else, couldn’t prioritise anything else. My whole life started to orbit around them and who I thought they wanted me to be.”  

This wrestle with directness is common in sapphic yearning. My friend Francesca tells me how she yearned for clarity. “I’ve never gone out of my way to make something happen with a woman because I’ve never been sure.”  

She continues, “There’s never been clarity. Are they interested in me or just being really friendly? Imaginary scenarios of their soft, tender kisses rain through my head.”  

So why not avoid the yearn and tell someone you’re interested straight up?  

I’ve tried leaning into the bold side too — sending Post-it notes in the park, dropping hints and winks in conversations. Some land with success, but most lead to maybes and next-times.  

On one occasion, sapphic yearning led me to almost drive four hours to Hawkes Bay for a woman I’d met on Instagram. Long hair, femme-boy-butch type, tattoos that lined the edges of her skin. We spoke on the phone, her voice making the hairs on the back of my neck rise. She was only in the country for a short while, but reason disappeared as I started plotting the drive and ditching a week of responsibilities. 

But not all stories end without commitment. Willow, a photographer based in Auckland, met her girlfriend at a mutual friend’s party last year. From across the room, she was drawn in. 

“We spent the whole night talking, playing cards and absolutely slating each other. I felt like I knew immediately she was my person.” 

When she discovered her crush was already in a relationship, she spent months pining and waiting. She is convincing herself she could be an addition in their open relationship if it came to that. 

Willow says, “I didn’t know the story with the girlfriend, and had no idea if she even liked me back but I felt like I had to see it through and have faith. I believed she was my soulmate for real.” 

The sapphic sphere gives space for feelings to foster and brew. Where intimacy, friendship and sisterhood collide into something greater than romance – holding each other with an endless depth of love and appreciation. 

For me, the stories rarely end so neatly. I tend to fall for women whose futures are reserved for mediocre men. My romances exist in fleeting moments or long-distance drives. Yet, yearning persists. Walking the delicate dance of would-bes, could-bes, and daydreams for the possibility of where the next fragment could one day lead. 

 *Name changed for anonymity.