Devil's Advocate: Is it wise to be friends before dating?

Yes: Stella Pak-Guénette

What should come first: the date or the friendship? The answer seems obvious to me: friendship. And yet, somehow, this is treated like a wild proposition. The modern attitude toward relationships seems to treat friendship as optional or something to be tacked on later. If you can get past the awkward small talk and enough of your personality is obscured by dim lighting and flattery, you’re halfway there. Only later do people realise that being able to talk to someone for more than an hour without wanting to leave is rather important. 

There is nothing especially radical about suggesting that you should probably be friends with someone before you date them, or at least to consider it first. To me, it's one of the few self-evident truths about relationships. The qualities we want in a romantic partner — trust, support, and the ability to be present without constantly checking our phones — are exactly what we’d expect from any friend. Yet, somehow, when romance enters the picture, these essential traits are treated as bonuses or ‘green flags’ rather than basic prerequisites.

There’s probably a reason why every first coffee date I’ve been on has completely failed to show my actual personality. First dates — especially with strangers, or at best a mutual friend — are awkward by default. You don’t know the person, so you end up stuck in this loop of stiff, interview-style questions about hobbies, favourite films, and semi-uncomfortable small talk. I could easily talk for hours about music — new bands, old genres, pretty much anything. Yet, when someone once asked me about my favourite artists over coffee, I panicked and said Taylor Swift — which is both untrue and slightly embarrassing. 

This is why friendship is the best testing-ground. It reveals the qualities that would otherwise potentially take months of dating to uncover. You get to see if you truly enjoy their company beyond the superficial charm they might only be able to maintain over a single dinner date. 

Of course, the friend-first approach can complicate romance. The better you know someone platonically, the harder it can be to imagine — or risk — changing the relationship. The more you consider them as something more, the more it feels like crossing into forbidden territory. No one wants to jeopardise a friendship or ruin what’s already good by introducing the vulnerability of romance. If it doesn’t work out, it’s almost guaranteed to be awkward.

None of this is to say that every relationship needs to begin with a decade-long friendship or that spontaneous attraction is inherently suspect. If you wouldn't hang out with someone as just friends, throwing romance into the mix probably isn't going to work out any better.

In short, I think friendship is more of a foundation in a relationship rather than just a helpful bonus. It might not be exciting enough to inspire any corny novels or films, but it does tend to make for fewer catastrophes. Which, frankly, seems like a reasonable trade-off to me.

No: Alex McQuibban

Many swear by the fact that good friends make for good partners. After all, a platonic friendship seems but one step removed from a romantic relationship. You already like your closest friend. You share the same interests, you feel comfortable around each other — hell, you’d be lying if you said you weren’t somewhat attracted to their personality. So, if you were also attracted to your closest friend physically, what could possibly go wrong in getting just that little bit closer? I mean, what is a girlfriend if not a ‘girl friend’ with a little space removed? 

Not so fast, reader! If you are genuinely attracted to this person, can ‘feel that spark’, and do really want to give it a go, I won’t stop you, but, I would be severely remiss if I did not at least present the following advisory warning on desiring, expecting or — God forbid — attempting to live your ‘friends-to-lovers’ fantasy.

The drawbacks of dating friends might seem obvious. Mutual friends might find the new dynamic difficult to adjust to, as will you and your now decidedly not so ‘friendly’ girl- or boyfriend. Then there’s the possibility you will break up. Not only do you lose a good friend, you also risk being stuck in a pseudo-custody battle over your other friends. Think deciding who keeps the goldfish is tough? Try deciding who goes to the next pub quiz with the ‘gang’.

It is not these clichéd drawbacks, however, that I think constitute the real trouble with the friends-to-lovers fantasy. It is precisely the fantasy element. If you had a genuine romantic connection capable of blossoming into a long and healthy relationship, you wouldn’t be realising it years into knowing a person. It’s more likely that one of you is significantly more interested in the other, and that it is only the realisation that this interest is there which prompts the other person to ‘give it a go’. Worse yet, both of you may, in fact, be deluded — perhaps out of familiarity or utter desperation — into thinking that each other’s likeable personality and half-decent looks are enough to carry a relationship. The slow-burn friends-to-lovers fantasy of two ‘besties’ coming to realise that they've always been meant for each other is just that — a fantasy.

Even then, if such a ‘relationship’ does develop, it isn’t always rosy either: dating a friend often means dating someone with whom you didn’t have enough of a mutual spark to generate a proper romantic relationship much earlier and with whom you probably never will. Now, I’m not saying you should enter into a serious relationship the first day you meet someone. But, if from that first day you can already sense that warm and tingly amorous feeling develop, it is a much better sign you’ll be able to sustain a proper romantic relationship. While great friends do not always make for great partners, great strangers make for great dates, which make for great partners, which make for best friends.

Illustration by Janya Malkani