Friends first before love interest? or the other way around?

All signs feel free to chyme in, in your experience do you think people become friends and then subtly develop feelings for one another? Or do you find that you are initially attracted to someone and form a romantic relationship out of that, skipping the friends part all together?

I found the latter to happen most often in my younger early 20's. In my experience any time I was really into someone, and wanted them to become my boyfriend, it never turned out that way. Looking back now, it was big muscles and lust i was interested in.

However my longest relationships were with someone I had minimal interest became friendly with, and then boom... I got to know them and suddenly they appeared to be hotter to me and something I wanted.

Posted by the_sunflower
friends, if my love interest is a friend..even better

hey sunflower, would you change the way you acted around them to pursue your romantic feelings?

Posted by Shadowcat
I was against dating friends for the longest time. But my current relationship is with a friend

I can understand the hesitation on dating friends, its messy as hell. How did you change your mind though?

Personally, I have friends I never develop feelings for.

I have to be attracted to someone to have a relationship, BUT.. I do not like to jump in to the boyfriend/girlfriend relationship.

I have little time to go out with friends so if I'm attracted to a person I use some of that time to spend with them, get to know them, sometimes there is sex involved because of the attraction, but I won't start a relationship until I know that person enough.

At my age, I don't like having many boyfriends or the whole breaking up thing. I'd rather build a friendship, trust, familiarity, and if we are comfortable with each other then have a relationship.

I've only had one official boyfriend and it lasted 12 years.

Everyone else has been "meh" except for this Cap I've been seeing for 6 months now.. looks promising 🙂

I dont believe people still get together...such a shitty world...if l divorce l'll be lost...

Astrology aside, it all boils down to maturity. If you truly want a long term commitment, then you'd date a close friend. All of the people that I know that are married(and happy) married their close friends.

I'll be honest here and I'm not trying to offend anyone, the people that I see that are serious about commitment usually date their friends. The ones that don't only say they're serious(but go for the "connection") in order to appear socially acceptable. While I believe in spiritual cinnections, if you're used to only wanting superficial things, then you wouldn't date a friend. We often convince ourselves(consciously or subconsciously) that somehow because we have an instant attraction etc that it's meant to be while deep down because we're really afraid of or don't want a long term commitment at the time, we know that it won't last...and will self sabotage the relationship. Hence dating bad boys/girls etc. Developing a solid friendship with someone lays the foundation for long term commitment because you need more than just love...you also need trust. You have to build trust and that comes with communication, honesty, loyalty etc...being together through hard times...confiding in each other. A fleeting affair never provides that and what's sad is so many people trick themselves into thinking it dies because they can't see past what they want.