Diamonds are Forever, right?

I've actually wanted to write on this subject numerous times, but never actually had the time or the zeal to do it. First off, let me hit a few disclaimers:

Disclaimer 1: I am not currently in love with a friend
Disclaimer 2: I am single, hence all of my relationship musings and/or advice are highly suspect
Disclaimer 3: Names have been changed to protect the innocent

Hypothesis: If friendship is the most basic level of relationship, trust, and accountability, then people who fall in love with friends have a better chance of romantic survival than those who fall in love with non-friends.

How shall I prove my hypothesis? With supposition and phoo-phoo girl nonsense psychology...what else?

Ahem...anyway, you know how comfortable you are with friends versus how frantic/panicked/flat-out psycho you are with that hottie you met in the church lobby or at that work training? We like to attribute that "comfort" to lack of attraction, but I think it may be more advantageous for that attraction to come later, and hit you like a ton of bricks.

There are men and women in our lives who we have assessed and relegated to the dreaded (dun dun dun) Friend Box. We have packaged them up in airtight boxes and shipped them to a platonic place in our hearts. But then they do/say something that has you fantasizing about box cutters...and when you slice them out of the box, it's EASY and awesome, and RIGHT. Has anyone ever experienced this?

Sigh...

I have an analogy about falling in love with a friend verses the alternative. It's called:

Digging for Coal vs. Digging for Diamonds

Disclaimer 4: This is pretty rough, but go with it!

When you're digging for coal, the stakes are a little lower. What do I mean? Umm hello...have you SEEN Blood Diamond?! But all jokes aside, coal is a commodity. You can find it anywhere. No one really cares enough about one lump of coal to attempt to differentiate it from another lump of coal. We don't perceive coal as special. But a diamond? Man, the cut, the color, the clarity, the carat...different from diamond to diamond. They're beautiful, they sparkle, and nearly every girl wants one.

Knowledge Check 1: Did you know that prior to 1939 diamonds had little use, and that society's current obsession with diamonds is the result of a marketing campaign by DeBeers to protect shrinking profit margins?

A little gem of a question: Who told you that you needed a diamond?

If I thought there was coal in my backyard, I would go out there with a shovel, and leisurely dig it up, thinking: BBQ? No pressure. If I thought there were diamonds in my backyard, I'd be frantic, panicked, clawing at the ground with my fingernails! Why? Because someone told me that diamonds were worth SO MUCH. Diamonds are precious, valuable...a diamond could make me rich! Lumps of coal, however, are placed in the Christmas stockings of the naughty. Therefore, coal can't be anything nice.

In this analogy the friend is the coal, and that ever illusive Mr./Ms. Perfect is the diamond. (duh)

Knowledge Check 2: Did you know that diamonds and coal consist of the same basic carbon compounds?

Why do we go through all the pain and drama of searching for a diamond, when--in fact--in the field of life we turn up far more coal than diamonds?

I've researched online, and there are sites that say at extremely high temperatures the atoms of coal can be re-ordered so that it is a diamond. On other sites it'll say that coal can never be a diamond. However, in all cases I've found that all agree that diamond can never be coal. At high temps diamond sublimes into a gas and floats out the window.

Another little gem of a question - When life turns up the heat, which carbon compound do you want in your possession?

When we simplify down to the most basic essence of what we need and WANT out of our relationships, we have to ask ourselves, which is of more use? The diamond or the coal?

The passion, and the initial spark of romance (the diamond) is great, but if you want to keep the fire burning, you'd better throw in a piece of coal.

What am I trying to say?

Do you agree/disagree with what you think I'm trying to say?

Thoughts?