Jokes aside, this quote is how the researchers kick off an exploration of the under-researched concept of “friends to partners” with a call to social researchers to reframe their (apparently exclusive) focus on “dating” as the sole initiating event of romantic relationships. It’s actually a very interesting paper; apparently social scientists and pop culture focus their attention on the process of “dating”, a frankly heteronormative lens that insists on very specific behaviours and scenarios, in which single people market themselves to each other at bars. Meanwhile, in the actual people surveyed in the study, it appears far more common for people to prefer “friends to lovers” as a relationship pathway.
“Our research reveals that relationship initiation studies published in popular journals (Study 1) and cited in popular textbooks (Study 2) overwhelmingly focus on romance that sparks between strangers and largely overlook romance that develops between friends. This limited focus might be justified if friends-first initiation was rare or undesirable, but our research reveals the opposite. In a meta-analysis of seven samples of university students and crowdsourced adults (Study 3; N = 1,897), two thirds reported friends-first initiation, and friends-first initiation was the preferred method of initiation among university students (Study 4). These studies affirm that friends-first initiation is a prevalent and preferred method of romantic relationship initiation that has been overlooked by relationship science. We discuss possible reasons for this oversight and consider the implications for dominant theories of relationship initiation.”
Like holy cow did you guys KNOW that relationship science was dominated by studies on dating? A thing that in which good grades are not possible to achieve?
And it’s kind of good for ME to hear as well! As a (weird queer) person, dating always seemed so artificial and undesirable to me, but so important to everyone else, that it was clearly just One Of Those Things that is programmed into the Normal Hetero Brain that folks like me simply miss out on, forever. But possibly not! Possibly “dating” is one of those heavily marketed products that nobody particularly wants. Like the Metaverse. And nobody, until these plucky social scientists, has been brave enough to call it out!!
But yes. At the expense of elodie glass’s dating history being notably sparse (Stinson, 2021).
[id: a screenshot of the linked article. It reads “I have never been on a date and probably never will…I have always done the friends-to-lovers pathway, where you just start sleeping with your best friend and then move in…Sometimes I really regret this, and get jealous of people who get pretty and put on their best selves, and go outside to have adventures with strangers.
—Tumblr user @/elodieunderglass (2017)
According to online blogger, @elodieunderglass, there are at least two ways to initiate a romantic relationship. As she describes in the quote, above, one way involves dating: getting dressed up and having “adventures with strangers.” The other way is a “friends-to-lovers pathway” that involves sleeping with your best friend and then, basically, getting married. Any self-respecting consumer of popular culture or gossip at the local coffee shop will—”]
Thank you for image id! (All the better to roast me with)
Apologies, still processing:
This is like the ultimate reverse uno card to play on a science communicator type person (like me)
You’ve heard of “Would you like to write a blog post about Science?”
Now get ready for “We wrote some Science about your blog post”
