A client of mine said that he had a crush on someone from his tennis class and asked me if he should be “friends first” with her before asking her out. This got me wondering.

Should you be “friends first” before trying to pursue someone romantically?

I searched around for an answer and got a lot of good points for both sides. Some good arguments in favor of being “friends first” are:

• Being friends means you already have a great foundation for a relationship
• Women often say that guys are interested in “one thing” so being her friend first proves that you’re not just trying to get into her pants
• She says she wants to be friends first before dating
• Everyone wants a significant other that you can also be best friends with

There were also some good arguments against being friends first, such as:

• You put your friendship in jeopardy if the relationship doesn’t work out
• Someone might swoop in and steal her if you spend too much time being friends
• She might feel duped if you express romantic feelings and she thought you just wanted to be friends

Perhaps the best and most famous summarization of the debate comes from the sitcom Friends:

Fun fact: this is actually the origin of the term “friend zone”

By being friends first, are you laying the foundation for a relationship? Or to priesthood?

Well, it depends on what we mean by “friend”.

What do you suppose a “friend” is?

In the film Thor: Ragnarok, the titular character Thor is cast into an arena on the planet Sakaar and is told that he has to fight a death match against their resident champion. Thor dons his weapon, shield, and armor as he prepares to do battle against his opponent.

The gate on the other side of the arena begins to open as an ominous growl and thunderous footsteps can be heard approaching. The resident champion grows impatient and smashes open the gate, revealing himself as none other than…

…The Incredible Hulk?!

Thor elatedly lowers his weapon and exclaims one of the film’s many famous lines:

This is just one example of what a “friend” might be. To answer that age-old question on whether you should be “friends first” with someone that you’re romantically interested in, we need to be clear on what we mean by a “friend”.

Are we talking about:

• A friend-of-a-friend?
• A friend from work, or a classmate?
• A close friend?

The answer to the “friends first” question is going to depend on which of these friends we are talking about.

A friend-of-a-friend

This is the way that my wife and I originally met – through a mutual friend.

I look like the center of attention in this picture, right? Actually, I really only know one other person in this picture – the guy on the right with the yellow turban, Gurpreet. He’s a close friend who I met in a post graduate class.

Everyone else might be described as an “acquaintance” or a “friend-of-a-friend”. Like, we’ll say hi to each other if we bump into one another outside but Gurpreet was one of my closest friends.

Turns out, Gurpreet was also in the same class with a girl named Mia. So, Mia and I were in the same social circle even if we hadn’t really interacted yet. One day I asked her out…

…and the rest was history.

So, if by “friend” you mean a “friend-of-a-friend” then by all means go for it!

A friend from work/class

A “friend” could also mean someone you work with or go to class with. There’s a certain degree of warmth and familiarity because you see each other every day!

So, each of my classmates here could be described as a “friend” in the same way that an “acquaintance” or a “friend-of-a-friend” might be. We might say hi or trade stories if we bump into one another outside of school, but there’s really only two or three other people that I’ve become “close friends” with.

Now, I highly recommend classes as a great place to meet women. One question that I often get asked is, “How do you meet women after you’ve graduated school?”

And my answer…

“Well, why not go back to school?”

It doesn’t have to be a postgraduate class either!

Cooking classes, dancing classes, computer class…anything you feel like learning in a group environment works great!!

Even tennis lessons like my client was asking.

So, to answer his question – should he be “friends first” with that girl from tennis class? He should be “friends” enough so there’s that warmth and familiarity between them. And that happens naturally over time.

Give it a few lessons and then try asking her out!

Just don’t wait too long that you become super “close friends” like I’ve described above. You might think this improves your chances, but it does the opposite.

A close friend

Back when my wife and I were in our 20’s…and before I had gray hairs, forehead wrinkles, and achy muscles…we used to go traveling with our close-knit group of friends all the time. My wife is the person dressed in blue and I was the one taking their picture, but everyone else in this photo was single at the time:

Elen, Mia, and I would always “ship” Eric and Elaine together in our minds.

After all, meeting a significant other is the third most popular way for couples to meet, only behind bars/restaurants and online dating. The five of us traveled together constantly, knew what each other’s pajamas looked like, and even shared the same sleeping quarters on our adventures.

You’d think two close friends hooking up with each other would be the natural next step, right?

That’s what we thought.

It never panned out though. What we learned is that…

Close friends to lovers typically does not happen

Over the years, I have fallen in love with close friends and I have had friends fall for me.

But never at the same time, though. There’s a reason for that.

When we mentally place someone in that “close friends” category – and they stay there for an extended period of time – our brain settles on that conclusion.

In those camping pictures above, the five of us show a high degree of familiarity with one another. It took us years to get to that point. But it also means we’ve mentally shuffled each other into a “platonic” category where we’ve been sitting for years.

I’ve written self-depreciating posts about how friends have fallen for me and how I’ve failed to notice. A female friend of mine once invited me to her apartment, cooked dinner, whipped out Scrabble and spelled “W-A-N-T S-E-X” during our game.

I didn’t get the hint. I used to just chalk it up to me being a dense person.

But here’s the thing: I had mentally thought about her for years as a “close friend” and nothing more. And getting each other to see us romantically would require reversing years of thinking about each other a certain way.

In psychology, this is called “confirmation bias” which means that we naturally tend to keep doing what we have always been doing. Overcoming this means running afoul of something else called the “backfire effect” and that wasn’t about to happen in a single night. There’s a wonderful comic by The Oatmeal which does a better job of explaining it than I can.

That begs the question, though…

Why did she suddenly change her opinion of me?

Close friends falling for one another typically requires a significant event that shakes up their beliefs.

My female friend who played Scrabble with me had previously been in a relationship for five years. When you’re with someone for that long, you start to think that you’ll spend the rest of your lives together. So when that relationship ended, it forced her to rethink the entire direction her life was headed.

If two close friends were to independently experience significant life events that shook their worldviews at approximately the same time, then they might see each other differently. Maybe if I were also coming out of a similarly bad breakup then I might have seen my Scrabble friend the same way.

But that’s not how it plays out most of the time.

The natural next step of two single “close friends” of opposite gender isn’t to fall for one another romantically. It is to simply continue doing what they’ve always been doing – being friends.

Should you be “friends first” before trying to pursue someone romantically?

Should you be friends first? It all depends on what you mean by a “friend”. You want to have some degree of familiarity before asking her out on a date.

I mean, we can all agree that going up to a random stranger you’ve never seen before and asking them out in the very first sentence is weird, right? So, you need to be familiar enough, but not too much that she already thinks of you in a platonic way.

In most cases, if we’re talking about a “friend from work”, a “friend from class”, or even a “friend-of-a-friend” then there’s already a warm connection and you should be OK to ask them out!

But if she wants to “be friends first” or if you’re already close friends with her then that’s not likely going to change.

Don’t be her friend because you’re trying to prove that you’re a “good guy” or to lay the foundation of a relationship later. It doesn’t work that way. You’re – not – being noble. You are just digging yourself into the “platonic” category and you’re unlikely to ever climb back out.

So if you’re reading this and you do already have someone in mind, then go for it! Chances are there’s enough familiarity between the two of you right now that she’ll consider saying yes!! Don’t wait until she mentally shuffles you into the dreaded “friend zone”…or worse yet, until some other schmuck asks her out first.

Go for it!!