An existing friendship is a great foundation for a romantic relationship. Joe Pinsker argues. ⁠ ⁠ Jessica Cameron, a psychology professor at the University of Manitoba who has researched the “friends-to-lovers pathway,” suspects that couples who start as friends have, on average, happier and stronger relationships. She’s currently designing a research project to see if that’s true. “The transition from friendship to dating is often framed as a binary—you’re not dating, and then you are—but in my experience, it was more gradual,” writes Pinsker, who first shared his feelings for his now-partner one evening four years after they’d become friends. “By the time one friend feels compelled to bring up the subject, they may not be taking a gamble so much as responding to a dynamic that’s already been building,” he adds. “Dating a friend is also nice from a practical standpoint. It means already knowing what someone is like when they aren’t in courting mode, aiming to impress.”⁠ ⁠ Pinsker also notes, “couples who started as friends have the pleasant knowledge that they originally spent time together simply because they enjoyed each other's company, rather than because of the other, more superficial reasons that some people couple up, such as earning power or physical attractiveness.” “What’s more, relationships that emerge from friendships start from a place of care and warmth—which can mean avoiding the exhausting game-playing that can arise between two dating-weary strangers conditioned to look out for themselves,” Pinsker continues at the link in our bio. Because friends have this history of mutual respect, Cameron hypothesizes that being friends first has the potential to set couples up for a more egalitarian relationship.