The love journey of a couple is more often than you might imagine on friendships, which gradually evolve into a sentimental relationship. Love at first sight is a reality, of course, but certainly not the norm.
The looks that meet in a restaurant, a dance during a wedding, exchanges on a dating site …: studies on the initiation of a romantic relationship focus massively on the meeting between two people who did not know each other until there. And at the same time, they neglect the development of sentimental bonds between friends. However, this development is much more frequent than love born out of love at first sight.
A romantic relationship after about two years
This is the finding of this Canadian team (University of Victoria), which examined data extracted from seven studies carried out on the subject, concerning adults of all ages, representative of both sexes. The meta-analysis indicates that two-thirds of couples’ relationships begin with a friendship, which turns into a romantic relationship after about two years on average. This progression from friendship to love is even more common among young adults and among LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) people.
In the majority of cases, regardless of gender, ethnicity or socioeconomic status, this development is considered preferable to a “flash” encounter, such as at a party or on a website. As this study did not look at this aspect, it does not say whether the different forms of beginning of a romantic relationship are associated with variables influencing happiness within a couple and its durability.
She also did not discuss the “friend zone” (or friendship zone), this situation where one of the two friends – more often men than women – wishes to have a romantic or sexual relationship, while the other prefers to stick to friendships. And then there are also the “sex friends”, these friends who have sexual relations without romantic ties or married life. The diversity is great, and obviously friendships can develop in very different ways.