Two-thirds of couples start out as friends, research finds
When Harry first met Sally, he asserted men and women could not be friends because the “sex part always gets in the way”.
But new research suggests roughly two-thirds of couples start out as friends and maintain a platonic relationship for long periods before sparking a romance.
While the coming together of two strangers – whether through sideways glances at a coffee shop or a swipe of a dating app – is well chronicled in film and the focus of much sociological research, not as much is known about choosing a partner that is going to work for you, said Danu Anthony Stinson, an associate professor in the department of psychology at the University of Victoria, Canada.
Stinson and her co-authors investigated the experience of nearly 1,900 university students and crowdsourced adults (including 677 who were married or in a common law partnership), all of whom were asked whether they were friends with their current romantic partner before they became romantically involved.
Most participants (68%) reported that their current or most recent romantic relationship began as a friendship, regardless of gender, age, education levels or ethnic groups. The rate of friends-first initiation was even higher among 20-somethings and within LGBTQ+ communities, with 85% of such couples saying their romance began as a friendship.
How does a platonic relationship turn romantic and what really is the distinction between friends and lovers is a question that is still being unpicked, Stinson said.
