Do you think that most relationships really start as friendships?

wtknight · 2021-03-29T17:50:31+00:00

A lot of relationships start out as "flirty friendships," but there is usually some sexual tension that is always there. It is rare for a relationship to go from no initial sexual tension and for it then to suddenly appear out of nowhere. I suppose it could happen if a guy friend does something really cool that impresses a woman and shows her that he has qualities that she didn't previously know were there.

Creation_Soul · 2021-03-29T17:45:15+00:00

"Friends" would probably be too strong of a word, but most people in my social circle are in relationship with people they already knew in one way or another for at least a few weeks or months.

So basically, relationships started while the people were still in the initial phase of forming their friendship.

Severe-Pirate · 2021-03-29T17:36:22+00:00

Depends on the location and culture. Recent data is showing that most relationships in the US start online rather than through personal contacts.

https://news.stanford.edu/2019/08/21/online-dating-popular-way-u-s-couples-meet/

Flightlessbirbz · 2021-03-29T18:55:41+00:00

I think most start as acquaintances, friends of friends, or online dating. Sometimes they’ll be friends for a short time before things progress. But I don’t think it’s common for friendships with no underlying sexual tension to become relationships. If you’ve been good friends a while and one or both people have never had those feelings, it probably won’t happen.

Mustbeaight · 2021-03-29T19:45:29+00:00

The friend zone is a thing for a reason.. most of the guys I knew who got into relationships with close female friends already had a very obvious romantic tension between them.. ain’t no graduating from the friend zone lol

Mimoxs · 2021-03-29T18:27:49+00:00

All of my relationships began as platonic friendships for at least one year before dating. I can't really imagine going straight to dating someone... Like you don't really even know them until you've hung out a lot and I don't wanna date someone I don't know

Tons of my friends date or married dudes that began as friends, of people they've known their whole life thru church

flapperfemmefatale · 2021-03-29T17:33:42+00:00

I'm not sure I would call all of them friendships. What I can say is that I've never dated a person who was a stranger to me prior to the date.

WestsideMoonWalker · 2021-03-29T17:46:14+00:00

Acquaintances, friends, and other social circles are the way that most relationships start. Whether they are nominally friends or not is a minor distinction at most.

DetectivePure503 · 2021-03-29T18:34:47+00:00

In the teenage years they can start as actual friendships, but later in the twenties it’s more likely to find a partner at work, the university, gym or even online. And at this stage men start to be more straight forward and being more aware of what they want from women. I think it’s less likely then to develop a LTR or anything sexual from a plain and simple friendship that‘s about to collapse from sexual tensions from one party, often the man. And unless you want to fly in some girls orbit and end in the everlasting friendzone, a man with selfrespect and goals will move on and shoot his shot another time with another woman.

Sage_Planter · 2021-03-29T17:52:52+00:00

Many relationships start as friendships, but I'd wouldn't say most relationships start as friendships. My relationships mostly were with acquaintances. They were men I casually knew through friends or work or fitness classes, but I wasn't friends with them. I wasn't keeping them at an arm's length - we just didn't really connect previously.

As online dating becomes more popular, less relationships as starting off as either acquaintances or friends, though.

SaBahRub · 2021-03-29T18:51:55+00:00

Most relationships start as “not strangers”

And all studies point to online apps as being responsible for the most marriages, although not the majority

skystar86 · 2021-03-29T19:10:38+00:00

Does the party girl or a " one of the boys" girls a guy hangs out at the bar sometimes count as a friend?

Hoopy223 · 2021-03-29T19:22:28+00:00

Seems like its hookup first and relationship second. Flirt, go out once or twice, have sex and then try to form a relationship out if it. Sometimes I’ve been with a girl who is a friend or casual acquaintance that has the hots for me sort of thing but never the other way around.

The being “friends first” or taking it slow has never worked for me lol.

MasterTeacher123 · 2021-03-29T19:38:34+00:00

Acquaintances(at best)but not friends

colgateexpert · 2021-03-29T19:53:32+00:00

No, they start off as acquaintances

Greedy_D · 2021-03-29T19:53:49+00:00

Every woman i ever tried to make friends with got a crush on me. They still do. I made two a month ago. Now they send me hearts and shit and give me compliments on my looks etc. idk, Women are simps, they just think they're better than most men.

Shadowgirl7 · 2021-03-29T21:30:15+00:00

If I am friends with a guy it means I don't feel attracted to him otherwise. If I did, I'd try to hangout with him romantically and then two things could happen: 1) he'd date me so we would no longer be friends, but in a relationship and 2) he'd reject me and I'd move on but I am not a clown so I don't stay on friendzone and thus don't remain friend with someone I had feelings for to ear about his romantic stories with others.

I have a hard time getting close to people though so might not represent the whole sample, but I am sure other people are like me.

I think you have to have friendship in a relationship, but friends are friends, people I am romantically attracted to are different.

Yoneda-Lemma · 2021-03-30T06:22:27+00:00

Possibly. Most men are stupid thinking friendship first is a way to a woman’s heart.

Women KNOWS when you want more than friendship. Men who acts like a friend are perceived weak. All these men do is validate the woman for free.

neetykeeno · 2021-03-30T13:33:38+00:00

Most start with two people who are already on friendly terms but not close friends.

Aldabruzzo · 2021-03-29T19:02:53+00:00

Most bad relationships start as friendships. Most relationships where she has lukewarm sexual attraction to him start as friendships. Most relationships that eventually break up start as friendships.

Most good relationships start as romantic/sexual couplings.

2021-03-29T19:44:47+00:00

Only the sexless, dead-bedroom ones.

There comes a point in a woman's life where she has to settle down quick and sometimes it'll be one of her friendzone goons.

geyejoe7 · 2021-03-29T17:54:45+00:00

eveleaf · 2021-03-29T18:52:47+00:00

I bet this varies a lot by personality/attraction type.

All of my relationships began as friendships. I can't really conceive of it going any other way for me personally, because as a demisexual the concept of sexual or romantic attraction before getting to know someone really well just doesn't work the way it does for other people.

ThunderbearIM · 2021-03-29T19:27:26+00:00

Tbh no idea and I'd have to see research. I'd guess they're not above 50%, but I'm not sure how low you're considering a "minority" case either.

I'd say that most men and women in LTRs knew each other in a flirty way prior to going out, but more and more relationships start online, especially now during Covid. How many were platonic friends before? Probably not too many, there's probably in almost all platonic cases been some thoughts of: "Oh xyz is good looking!" at the very least.

I'm the last person to be talking about any kind of dating experience, but I noticed the girls that I attract are almost always people who only know me at an arm's-distance or in an "aquaintance" way.

In my heyday it's been acquaintance, and some kind of simple friendship in the start. Then she comes out to me a few weeks/months later. Happened I guess a total of 3 times? To be fair in all of those cases there weren't flirting going on, so I can't say they were platonic friendships.

Actually platonic friendships for me have usually been when we've mutually not been attracted to each other though. If it was one-sided it was either been cut off by me (When she rejected me) or her (When I rejected her). Sometimes we were okay to stay friends, but then I made up my mind to avoid flirting. These are all years ago though, now all my female friendships are platonic.

reluctantly_red · 2021-03-29T20:48:38+00:00

Every long-term relationship I've ever had started with sex on the first night.

2021-03-29T21:25:00+00:00

No because I don't really think men and women can be friends to begin with. So they start either from being acquaintances or from being in some farce of a relationship.

svstonefree · 2021-03-30T00:15:36+00:00

No. My best relationships have started sexually. I do have relationships that have started as friends though.

LightOverWater · 2021-03-29T18:46:17+00:00

You don't graduate from the friend zone. There's sexual desire.

2021-03-29T18:38:33+00:00

Doesn't compute. Given what I know about most men, why would they want to be friends w women? Most of them just see us as holes and view caring about the person they are fucking as some huge burden.

StrangleDoot · 2021-03-30T22:07:57+00:00

all of my relationships have began as friendships, or at least good acquaintances as a result of mutual fans.

Why would you wanna try to date someone you don't even know?

> Never seen someone get rejected because "We're not close enough friends yet"

I think this is actually the basis of many rejections, just nobody says it like that. I'm sure there are plenty of rejections that wouldn't have happened if they knew each other better, but the rejector didn't want to go straight from being strangers to going on a date.

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TheBookOfSeil · 2021-03-29T18:02:53+00:00

Can't say that "most" do or not.

Logically it should, but I've noticed that the way relationships are often formed are not logical, because relationships are formed out of emotion.

I'd say that people search for compatibility first, then form a relationship around that where they hopefully end up as "friends." Feelings are volatile and they can disappear quickly, so people typically "strike while the iron is hot."

OXOzymandias · 2021-03-29T18:12:02+00:00

Depends how you date, if you date through OLD, then ig no, if u do it IRL then i guess yes

cowfishAreReal · 2021-03-29T20:32:51+00:00

Most relationships i know started as friendships, but I don't have data on that so I can't confirm. I also think relationships that start as friendships are longer than ones that started out of physical attraction, short term physical attraction matters a lot, but if one person wants to party together and the other one wants to stay home and watch a movie together its probably not going to work out. When you're friends you already know if you have the same idea of what's a fun time, and that matters a lot

Sid_Insidious · 2021-03-29T21:03:33+00:00

Not platonic ones.

throwingwearethrowin · 2021-03-29T21:42:06+00:00

Nope. And I think that is why so many relationship fail. It’s kind of a red flag if a guy cannot be friends with a woman.

singdontcry · 2021-03-29T22:43:51+00:00

I might be in the extreme minority, but all of my relationships, hookups, fwbs have started as friendships.

Edit: I do admit most of them were flirty but platonic before anything official happened.

icebluefrost · 2021-03-30T00:10:04+00:00

It depends. All of my relationships have, and I think the best relationships do. But, most relationships as a whole probably don’t.

CosmicBioHazard · 2021-03-30T00:10:41+00:00

I don’t know about anyone else, but if for some reason I were having sex with a woman who hadn’t first passed the ‘friendship’ threshold that interaction would be relegated to ‘casual sex’ with no hope of escape. In fact, even if I was having regular sex with someone like that, and whatever else you’d describe as ‘relationship stuff’, I’d still tell you I have no girlfriend. If you insisted I did, and I had a good platonic female friend who maybe hugs me every so often, I might confusedly ask if that’s who you mean.

cloudsongs_ · 2021-03-30T02:05:49+00:00

I've never dated anyone I considered a friend first (meaning everyone I have dated was a stranger initially) but that's just me. I have four other friends who also have only dated "strangers" and never friends. I would attribute this to OLD

TrainDrivingGuy · 2021-03-30T03:02:57+00:00

This is how women sidestep the 3 date rule for sex. You go out as friends for a while but it's not dating so those don't count towards the three dates.

Soon-to-be-Catlady · 2021-03-30T09:31:38+00:00

I had 4/5 relationships start as friendships/acquaintances. Most didn't start out flirty. The one that was with a relatively new person was over in a month. The last guy I fell in love with was an acquaintance for several years as well (but he sadly was either not into me or had attachment issues). Much of my attraction to someone comes from feeling comfortable around them and knowing I am able to trust them. We are getting along great, get a little closer, and one night we are drunk making out boom relationship.

Head-Language-2977 · 2021-03-30T19:45:30+00:00

The only relationships I’ve seen that started as platonic friendships were ones where one or both of them were in an LTR when they first met and were thus unavailable at that time. Even then, I suspect (but can’t prove) that the sexual attraction was present from day one.

JediGuitarist · 2021-03-30T21:03:23+00:00

I think it varies by region. I grew up on the east coast and eventually moved west, and my experiences were so radically different that for the longest time I felt like there was "normal dating" and "California dating".

Normal dating: you see a person you like, you chat them up, you ask them out. You don't do "friends first" because that just leads to "I can't date you, it would ruin our friendship."

California dating: you see a person you like. You do absolutely nothing about it, unless you're in the same social circle at the same social events because otherwise you're a creep and the only reason you're talking to her is because you're shallow and don't know what she's like as a person. So you hope they turn up at the same events as you and you wind up socializing because said social event involves things where you have to socialize, and afterwards you do absolutely nothing and simply hope they turn up at the next event, and then eventually - without any creepy stalkery shit like actually asking them out OMG - if you're lucky, you become a couple with absolutely no effort or declaration on your part. It Just Happens.
Fucked up? Yeah. But people swore up and down to me that this was how it worked and I was the one in the wrong for wanting to actually meet people.

TodTheRod01 · 2021-03-31T06:19:20+00:00

No.
Unless you're a guy who hit on a woman got friendzoned, but stuck around hoping to "convince" her and she waited and waited and waited and settled on him...which is rare.

If a guy is attracted to a woman, unless he's a simp/beta, he will shoot his shot with that woman...why would a guy want to be friends only if he's attracted? Its not like she got attractive all of a sudden....

AbilityCommercial408 · 2021-04-02T09:05:46+00:00

Every significant relationship in my life started off as a friend. Friend is great place to start, because I am not particularly suave or traditionally attractive. But, building a friendship gives you time to show your better traits. And then, one day, you notice that they're looking at you differently, calling or texting more often, and spending more time with you....

Title	Do you think that most relationships really start as friendships?
Author	Spread-Em-Plz
Upvotes	23
Comments	74
Date	March 29, 2021 5:31 PM UTC (5 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/mfursn/do_you_think_that_most_relationships_really_start/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/do-you-think-that-most-relationships-really-start.1187224 https://theredarchive.com/post/1187224

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