Friends to Lovers? Discussion!

[Airborne]

Alot of us have been in the situation where we have found that we have a friend whom we are interested in, and would be interested in having a relationship with. Well this thread is for all those who would be interested in discussing the chance, the benefits and disadvantages of taking your friendship and turning it into a relationship.

Chances:
The way I see it is if you are friends, and have been so for a long period of time then your chances are more than likely going to be fairly slim, the person whom you are interested in probably sees you as a friend, and has done so for a long period of time. So it would be extremely difficult to change this viewpoint because your friend knows you pretty well, and probably would not consider you to be relationship material.

On the otherhand if your friendship has been short, and sparks have flown between you two, then odds are there is a good chance for a relationship there.

If you have been friends for an average amount of time there is a chance that a relationship may develop between you as you begin to find out more about eachother.

Advantages:

If you move from the friendship to relationship stage there is a history between you, a history hopefully of trust and caring. As a result you will know eachother better and be comfortable in eachothers company, your partner would be easy to chat with as common grounds would have been discovered. Further advantages of taking it to the next level are that there is more of a chance of the relationship lasting as you have a history together, so you would know this is a person whom you could have a decent relationship with.

Disadvantages:

There are clearly disadvantages of moving a friendship into a relationship, it can act as a mighty accelerator to destroying what was a good friendship before hand. Not to mention that since you know the other person fairly well it could get boring quickly if you do not learn new things about eachother, also it could be difficult viewing your new partner in this new light as you would need to treat him/her differently.

In conclusion I personally think it is a good idea to start a relationship with someone if sparks fly early-middle in the piece, this is because you get the best of both worlds, you can find out new things about the other person, but you are also begining to establish a history together before hand, and have developed trust and caring for eachother.

Any discussion about this would be great, I know it is quite a popular topic in these forums.

[Tone]

It's worked for me.

[Ellynn]

In a relationship I think you need a level of friendship.... If you don't have that....face it....you fall in and out of love all of the time. A friendship keeps you loyal to each other......

In a relationship you have friendship plus usually a little bit more. I would definately date a friend....as long as there was attraction and the feelings were mutual!

[Shadowfox426]

It has hurt me with a few hopefuls. The "but we are friends" or "I don't want to risk our friendship" have both slapped me across the face a few times now

I have learned even just the act of asking or talking about it in the slightest can make friendships kind of odd and fall apart.

[gHEXjt]

The best relationship I've been in was best friends turned to more. It lasted almost 4 years and was great. The only shitty thing about it was that we became best friends in the 6 months we knew each other before we became a "couple." Now, our relationship has ended and I've lost my best friend. We didn't have big fights or anything, she basically just got bored, and didn't only want to not be a couple anymore, but doesn't even want to be friends. And it hurts like hell since I've lost my very best friend. These situations are a double-edged sword. If you do end up in a relationship with the friend, it could be fantastic and lead to great things. But if things with the relationship don't work out, I'm guessing it's quite likely that the friendship you had before and during the relationship will be gone forever.

I often think about this myself. I wish now that we hadn't gone to the next level because we would probably still be best friends, but if I had it to do all over again, I still would have done the same thing.

[Late_vamp]

yea but if your just friends and decide not to ask her to be MORE than friends for the sake of your friendship ... isnt it gonna bother you seeing her with someone else after and she's gonna be talking to you about him ...your probably gonna regret not going for her ... so in the end ...they can both cause problems ... but also they can both be great

[Only-virgins]

Friends with girls? that exists? why?

[Airborne]

lol, very good point OV, the answer to that simply is there are some girls whom you do not want to go out with, but like them none the less.