Do the best relationships really begin as friendships?

[love4life]

My supervisor and I were talking about relationships earlier today and I was telling her how this guy I just had a third date with is really holding back with any sort of flirting or physical contact. I'm wondering if he's looking to develop a friendship, first and foremost. And, is that the best way to go? I know my supervisor and her husband of nearly 20 years were good friends at work for 4 months before they became romantically involved.

 

I'm thinking that maybe the "I can't live without yous" and heated, passionate physical attraction from the get-go aren't the recipe for a lasting relationship, and that knowing you have a solid foundation before anything romantic starts is the key to long-term love.

 

Thoughts? What was your experience with your LT partner?

[jettison]

That's how I met my partner of 10 years. We were strictly friends and we both had significant others, although mine was long distance.

 

I didn't even know or at least admit to myself just how much I felt for her until one night we got drunk at a party and slept together. We both knew that we had been in love with each other, and we knew it instantly.

 

I remember her saying, "Oh my God, I've been in total denial."

[Gratsy]

Its something I've been told a lot. All of my relationships started out under a romantic note but my deeper relationships with men have been strictly platonic. I've yearned for men who took the time to develop a friendship with me more than I ever have for men who started out romantically with me. I think its because I know that a friend knows who I am.

 

A friend isn't blinded by lust, they like you for who you are and you like them for who they are. Its a foundation that sexual attraction serves as a nice garnish for, while other relationships make the sexual attraction the crux of the relationship. I can imagine that because they have invested in you over time emotionally, and through other things has to mean something. All of my romantic relationships have fizzled over time and I think its because they were missing that crucial friendship component. Where we appreciated each other solely for the sake of each other first and foremost on a friendship level. I consider myself someone who has a lot of depth and I want someone who will explore me and who I can explore the mysteriies and complexities of. All of my relationships have lacked the deep quality because I think it was based on solely physical attraction...or some concieved symbolic idea of the who the person is. In friendships, you know the good and the bad and you still like the person. In my relationships, they were either evil or perfect because I never knew them and visa versa. Its kind of like that concept where people say, "Oh i liked the idea of him,".

 

I'm not sure about the question...but I'd sure like to know about the answer. I've seen a lot of beautiful relationships that really started after they were friends for about a year or so.

Sometimes I think I was in love with a friend who didn't love me but did enjoy me deeply as a friend. Perhaps I have also been in denial. In any case, we weren't right for each other, and its no use. Don't know why I told you that though.

[shoegal21]

Me and my boyfriend were close friends for about 6 months before we even thought about getting together. Never in my wildest dreams did I think about getting w/him, it hadn't even crossed my mind. But one night it happened and here we are now

 

I believe that we have a wonderful relationship. Is it because we were friends first? I don't know!

[RayKay]

I have had different "starts". I don't think any is "better" than the other, I think it all depends on the people involved, as with anything else.

 

I don't think it really matters, because I think you can start off a relationship with that "passion" and still have a healthy, long lasting relationship if you can also develop the friendship along the way.

 

Friendship is a very important component for a healthy partnership, but it does not HAVE to come before you date either if it comes along with the passion.

 

I have seen it go many ways. Friends become more than friends, then find out it won't work and part ways - often finding the friendship is lost too. I have seen people meet, go into it in a flurry of passion, and burn out. I have seen that happen and they just become friends. I have seen it go from meeting to romantic, to developing as friends along the way too and finding long term healthy relationships. And I have seen friends become more than friends, and also have long term healthy relationships.

[jettison]

It's terrifying to take an emotional risk like that with a close friend. I have a friend like that right now. We digg each other. She's in a serious a semi-serious relationship though. I'm not remotely jealous. We've even talked about being together in the past. We've been so close sometimes that I've openly said, "No matter what, we are NOT sleeping together. It would mess everything up, and we'd lose our friendship."

 

Apparently though, one night we got reaaaallly drunk together. I don't know what we were talking about, but I said "We shouldn't ever sleep together unless we're sure that we're in love... or else maybe if we just get too drunk."

 

Apparently, she thought that was hilarious. She put it on her blog the next day followed by my initials.

[Gratsy]

Me and my boyfriend were close friends for about 6 months before we even thought about getting together. Never in my wildest dreams did I think about getting w/him, it hadn't even crossed my mind. But one night it happened and here we are now

 

I believe that we have a wonderful relationship. Is it because we were friends first? I don't know!

 

That seems to be another thing. Why does it seem like women were so unaware of their attraction and then bam suddenly they realize its the person right there in front of them.

 

Understanding this, I look around for whose right in front of me that I might not see, except, I know its no one.

[Atticus90]

Sometimes.

 

 

Sometimes people can be friends for so long that they only see them as friends. They call eachother brother and sister and think ( hmm wouldn't date my sister eh? )

 

But it can certainly happen. I think it'd be much better to if it started out as friends.

[flower99]

I don't know if they are 'better' relationship, but I do think that a friendship foundation is important. (smart guy with great self control you're dating )

 

My husband & I were acquantices,casual friends, for over a year & than became best friends for 7 months before anything physically happened...I think that has helped us a great deal in our relationship. Cause when problems arise and we don't 'feel in love' we have our friendship to fall back on, where everything began.

 

My best friend just got engaged to her best friend...they were friends for 8 years & have an awesome relationship.

[tiredofvampires]

I am very much with Gratsy. Her post could have been mine.

 

First of all, the whole "dating" scene and situation is very contrived for me, and always have felt that way. Boy meets girl. They blush and are mutually giddy. Both start to project and project onto the next upcoming date. How fast should they move? How charming to be, how natural, how much information to disclose? Does he like me, am I coming off okay? Am I looking good? Then, if that goes well, more projections are produced -- all the things you want and hope someone will be, and all the negative things or incompatibilities (which are neatly tucked away at this stage), irrelevant to your current state of adoration.

 

I personally have decided that I cannot go this route any more. It's not because I've never done it, but because not only have my most lasting, loving and deep relationship grown out of the foundation of two flawed human beings just freeing themselves to be themselves, but because I cannot find anything to feel the beginnings of "in love with" if I don't take this time. I need to feel that when we become sexual, they know some of the hardest things for me to talk about, and that the sexual and romantic component begins because the mixture of my traits, good and bad, my history, mistakes and strengths, make me attractive to this person. I don't really want my attraction to someone to be based on the fact that I feel I am in a bubble of imagery and illusion.

 

I made the mistake of allowing my last bf to woo me endlessly, soaking it all in because it just felt so good. We were long distance, and wrote a great deal about our innermost thoughts, so I thought this was the cement of the friendship foundation. But nearly from the get-go, it was an adjunct to the "mission" he had of "winning my heart" and so really, the "friendship" was riding on the back of the romantic zeal that intoxicated me.

 

A moment of truth visited us when he said to me, on our first visit together, "Anyone who tell you that they 'want to be friends first' on a dating site is lying." I told him that's not all they want probably, but the DO want that first, and I feel that way, and I'm not lying!!

 

And look at our histories -- he had many, many relationships that were short-lived, nearly none of which had survived in any way, shape or form. After he was done with them, the point was gone.

 

I realized we were falling apart because of a fundamental schism: I could not imagine friendship being an incidental aspect of this relationship, and what friendship would require of him was his letting down his guard enough to help the relationship flower. He could not do that, and in fact, I realized that he didn't even have a clue what being my friend was about. Being a hot lover and then having pillow talk afterwards is not necessarily being my friend. And really, my SO has to be a BEST friend.

 

For me, I have had a few relationships, and nearly all of them (even lovers who weren't longterm material, who are few and far in between) are still people I cherish in my life, and when we speak or write or contact eachother, I feel glad that I can bare a part of myself with them still, even though we are completely platonic now.

 

That "I will love you forever", "I have never met a woman like you" too soon for me is now not a red flag, but a black flag. I will not start any relationship now UNLESS it is by establishing the freedom to express not just our safe and lovable sides, but also knowing eachother's dark sides and difficult things, and seeing if that really has a chance of working as a couple, as the attraction builds. I will always love the romantic gestures of a lover, but that will be the sweet reward of knowing just exactly who this person really is on many levels, first, and only when you don't have the fear of rejection, and all those projections going on, can you assess that with clear vision.

 

I am not at all ready to start "dating" yet, though I do think about it and how I'll go about it. All the boys I liked in school, I liked because I hung out with them informally and we got to be good friends, then the spark grew. Nothing really is going to change about that. So if I am having to slow down a guy or the relationship too much, if I sense it's moving fast into reach-over-and-kiss me territory without a build-up of a lot of emotional safety and rapport, I would have to probably put an close to that.

 

I think it's a really good sign if a guy doesn't put moves on you right away, but DOES show a gleam in his eye that makes you feel you are interesting and attractive to him. That is all you need for a good long while.

[Hope75]

I don't think it matters how you start, but more where you are now. I met my fiance online on a dating site. We didn't know each other until our first date, apart from talking a few times on the phone and a few times online. Here we are, 5 years later, best of friends, partners and lovers too.

 

I think a solid friendship can grow and establish through mutual love, respect, kindness, and consideration. That can happen if you are dating or if you are friendly before you date.

[yo]

All my ex gfs have been my best friends, but for me, friends and girl friends are two completely different people.

 

I don't think I can ever fall in love with a friend. I stop seeing them as a potential partner as soon as I start seeing them as a friend. So, many of my friends have told me that they have feelings for me. But, I told them that I saw them just as friends and I can't offer them anything more and they were OK with just being friends.

 

With all my gfs, I became friends with them as the relationship matured.

 

Just my two cents.

[Gratsy]

All my ex gfs have been my best friends, but for me, friends and girl friends are two completely different people.

 

I don't think I can ever fall in love with a friend. I stop seeing them as a potential partner as soon as I start seeing them as a friend. So, many of my friends have told me that they have feelings for me. But, I told them that I saw them just as friends and I can't offer them anything more and they were OK with just being friends.

 

With all my gfs, I became friends with them as the relationship matured.

 

Just my two cents.

 

 

But what about the wonderfulness of knowing that this person is your friend not because they were sexually attracted to you...the sexual attraction all of a sudden just occurs to you one day. Then a woman can rest in assurance that he likes her for who she is deep down and not anything else.