How We Went From Just Friends to Lovers — 4 Real Stories

Everyone tells you love finds you when you least expect it. But nobody tells you it might find you in a person who’s already seen you at your worst. 

The one who has comforted you through all your failed relationships, situationships, and talking stages, who knows your meal order based on your mood, and who’s heard every story and still laughs without judging you. 

It doesn’t happen all at once. There is a before, and there is an after, and in between both is the eternal question: how the heck did it happen? 

To give you a sense of what this electric trope feels like or take you down memory lane, we asked around, and everyone had a story. 

Our love story actually grew out of a difficult moment, though it wasn’t trauma bonding. After I lost my mum, school resumed, but I stayed home for a while to grieve. During that time, she kept checking in, asking when I’d be back. 

When I finally returned, I made it a point to go and see her, and that visit changed everything. I realised how good she made me feel, how being around her made everything else fade into the background.

That was the moment I knew it wasn’t just friendship anymore. And about four months after that moment, we officially became a couple.

Read Next: 12 Green Flags in a Relationship That Mean You’ve Found a Good One.

Initially, I feared I’d lose her in any capacity. Whether as a friend, a confidant, or anything at all. She always felt like home, and she still does. At some point, my friends joked that she was “snatching me away” from them.

I loved that we were friends first. It made the love deeper and gave us something real outside of the romance. There was a foundation, a familiarity, a comfort that made everything feel more grounded.

The hardest part of ending the relationship is knowing that nothing else would probably come close. When you’ve loved with that level of familiarity and depth, the idea of anything after it feels almost impossible to match.

Read Next: How Long Should a Talking Stage Last?

My ex (we are no longer together, oops) and I had a love-hate dynamic before we got close, and what changed that to the point of us dating was how she treated me. She became warmer and friendlier towards me. 

It was on a Sunday, and I was surprised to get a text from her complimenting how I looked… and everything just clicked from there.

Read Next: Love or Liability? 9 Financial Red Flags That Can Ruin Your Marriage (Even Before It Starts)

We were childhood sweethearts, so we had more time to ourselves, from walking together to her place after midweek service to seeing each other on the street…blissful moments.  

At some point, I wished we had remained friends instead, but it was a short-lived wish, as her circle began to change and I became the one who had to keep up. 

I believe it went exactly the way it was supposed to. Twenty friends can’t play forever, but the separation hit really hard. 

Read Next: How to Revive a Dying Friendship When Life Gets in the Way.

Sincerely, if anyone said I’d date this person, I would laugh it up and tell them, “you gats be kidding, bruh.” Guess what? We never dated! 

But somewhere along the line, I sort of fell in love with him. He seems to get me more than most people; our conversation flows naturally, and we can talk for hours about our future, past, present and everything that's going on in our lives.

It was like a safe place, a happy place, and I subconsciously found myself always in his space. I mean, that's where I want to be, and, someway, somehow, he started looking attractive to me.

Read Next: Friendship Breakups: Why they hurt more than romantic ones.

I’d like to assume he loves me too, but with boys, you never can tell how they truly feel. It all started when I fell asleep in his room one afternoon while he was working on something on his laptop. I woke up to him smiling down at me and telling me, “Welcome to the land of the living." 

The sight was beautiful, and I was grinning like an idiot. Then we started talking about something while maintaining eye contact, of course. You know that situation in movies where you both are suddenly staring at each other.

You hold the gaze for a longer time than necessary, short of words, with obvious desires in your eyes... That's when it hit me... That I want to kiss this boy... then I shook my head and told him I'm going home. 

Read Next: Get Kissable Lips with this Lip Care Routine.

The second instance was when he told me he asked a girl out, his course mate... it was heartbreaking.

I told him I love him, but he said he’s at a point in his life where he can't keep a serious relationship, and I'm not someone he’d like to pass time with. Anyway, I’m way over it but it was fun while the mushy feeling lasted.

Read Next: How to Get Over Someone, When That Someone Was Your Best Friend.

I’d call him ‘R’. ‘R’ has always mentioned he initially didn’t like my guts for doing something I still deny to date because I don’t recall doing it. But he has always watched my stories, and somehow, we got talking.

From talking, we became friends. He was present. He listened and studied me like an exam expo. It felt good to have someone know every aspect of you: the good, the bad and the silly. I started liking him way before I confronted and acknowledged my feelings. 

Read Next: How to move on from a toxic friendship that's draining you.

He sent me a picture of a poem his lover at the time wrote him. I felt a twinge of jealousy; my heart dropped, but I didn’t think too much of it at this time because I was in a messy situation myself. 

Eventually, we found our way together, and it was a beautiful experience, with not-so-nice moments, but beautiful still. Even after it ended, I’d always find myself associating him with the feeling of love because he, in his own way, taught the truest form of love. He was selfless and did everything in his power to make my life easier. 

Read Next: What It Really Means If Your Love Language is Acts of Service.

I believe he was able to do this because we started as friends, and he already knew me to the core. I didn’t think of what I’d lose if it didn’t work out. I don’t give much thought to emotional matters. If I want it, I get it, and when I get it, I hold on to it, period. 

I’m glad we didn’t stay friends, because how could I have experienced something that good if I didn’t date him? The only hard part about going from friends to lovers is that it becomes hard to leave when the relationship no longer serves you. 

There were too many good memories, and as an emotional hoarder, it was hard to leave the relationship when it no longer served us both.  And even when I left, it was a vicious, toxic cycle of trying to make it work, which affected our chances of remaining platonic friends. 

Read Next: How to Get Over Someone, When That Someone Was Your Best Friend.

Maybe it’s because the dating pool has gotten messier, or because friendship is the last place we let ourselves be real. But, in a world that has become more performative than real, friendship is where we drop the act. 

We say the embarrassing thing. We show up without makeup, without pretence, without the curated version of who we think we’re supposed to be. And in that kind of safety, something deeper can quietly grow. 

Not the cinematic kind of love with swelling music and grand declarations, but the slow, terrifying realisation that the person who’s seen you unfiltered is the one you actually want to keep seeing you. Over and over again. And maybe that’s the safest and surest way to have your forever person.