The average duration of a friendship before the relationship becomes sentimental is 22 months.
- France has 29.2 million households.
- In 2016, 20% of French people over the age of 15 lived alone, compared to 13% in 1990.
- In 2016, 20% of French people over the age of 15 lived alone, compared to 13% in 1990.
For those despairing of being in the friendzone, good news. New research, published in Social Psychological and Personality Scienceindicates that about two-thirds of couples start out as friends before becoming romantically involved.
68% of love stories start with friendship
“If the coming together of two strangers – whether through eye contact in a café or a dating application – is well described in films and is the subject of much sociological research”, little is known about people who already know each other, said Danu Anthony Stinson, professor of psychology at the University of Victoria, Canada.
Danu Anthony Stinson and his colleagues therefore studied the love stories of nearly 1,900 people. Bottom line: Most participants (68%) said their current or most recent romantic relationship started as a friendship, regardless of gender, education level or ethnicity. The rate of prior friendship stories was even higher among 20-year-olds and in LGBTQ+ communities, as 85% of couples in these sociological categories said their romantic relationship started with a friendship. “The line between friendship and romance is blurred.” noted the authors of the study.
Friendship as popular as dating sites
As part of the research, participants were also asked how long their “friendship phase” lasted and whether they would rather be friends before moving on to romance. On average, those surveyed remained friends for almost 22 months before the relationship became romantic. In addition, almost half of the cohort said they prefer to start a love story with friendship, rather than at a party or on a dating site.
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