Dating can be a tricky minefield for everyone. Dates aren't guaranteed successes, and having perfect or even just good chemistry with anyone you meet is a rarity. It's easy to be attracted to someone or to like some superficial personality traits of theirs, like their love of dogs or how much they can quote "The Office." But, when it comes down to it, these qualities only go so far--a lot of people love dogs and there are only so many funny lines from the employees of Dunder Mufflin. Finding someone who you genuinely connect with and can be around a lot isn't easy, which is why it's important to establish a sound basis, that I would argue is a friendship, before diving into a relationship you might possibly regret or be stuck in.
Before I got into my current relationship, we made it a point to be friends first and foremost before even slightly considering a romantic relationship, despite how much we liked each other. A lot of this is owed to the fact that we go to colleges hundreds of miles away from each other. However, I owe a lot of what makes our relationship work to that "getting to know you" phase. Before my boyfriend was ever my boyfriend, he was my friend. I learned to love him as a friend first, not a potential boyfriend, and from that, was a trust that is hard to establish when you're dating someone.
When you jump headfirst into the idea of a romantic relationship, you want to hide away everything bad about yourself until much later when they're already stuck with you.
The friendship phase gave us time to get to know one another, to get to know the bad and be able to decide if a relationship is still a good idea.
We knew we liked each other, and it would have been so easy to instantly start dating, but I think that taking that time gave us the time to truly understand if what we were feeling was just a crush or superficial interest or the real thing. Taking that time to get to know not just the other person, but also the true motivations behind your own feelings, I would say is the most healthy way to approach a possible new relationship both for yourself and the other person.
Another key aspect of being friends first is the amount of trust and openness it brings into your relationship from the get-go. Outside of my family, I don't find it easy to trust people, but I found myself opening up during our friendship in ways that only my best friend of eight years and my family knew. Having that kind of a connection with a person so easily and having him open up in return made me realize my feelings ran deeper than just a "he's cute and funny" kind of way. That openness and frankness didn't disappear when we started dating, and I owe a lot of our honest communication to the fact that we already trusted each other with a lot of things only a select few know about us. When one of us messes up, the other lets them know, and not having to hide when you're upset or angry dissipates a lot of the common problems and issues people have in their romantic relationships.
Even if my boyfriend wasn't my boyfriend, if we would've opted to just stay friends, I know we would be as close as we are now. Especially in the crazy period of life that is college and beyond, where people can drop out of your life as quickly as they entered, I know I have another constant alongside my best friend and my family who will always be there. No relationship is easy, and I can say with 100% certainty that my boyfriend and I will never be perfect. However, I still owe a lot of what makes us really great to the fact that he's not just my boyfriend, but also my best friend.
So, to the people who don't believe you should be friends with your SO, I would strongly disagree. I feel free to tell my boyfriend anything, we are constantly having fun when we're around each other, and even when we fight, I still feel able to tell him exactly what I'm feeling or thinking, and I owe that to our foundation of friendship. Not every relationship is perfect or works out, but getting to truly a person before even considering them a possible SO saves so much time and possible heartbreak, and in turn, also allows for you to truly get to understand yourself and what it is you want from a relationship.
