Would you date someone who's in your circle of friends?

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There was a lot of intragroup dating among my circle of friends. I’m probably the only one who didn’t. A couple of the couples got married. Everyone still gets along.
 
In terms of dating at work…the organization I work for now is astonishingly full of husbands/wives/boyfriends/girlfriends/ex-husbands/ex-wives/former lovers/in-laws…
 
It really depends on your personality and the personality of the person you are dating. I have dated a friend and we weren’t friends after the breakup. My personality can’t handle it. 😊

My husband and I weren’t friends when we started dating, I knew some of his fraternity brothers and he knew some of my sisters, but we didn’t know each other. We dated/hung out for a few months before we became exclusive and we built a friendship.
 
on_the_hill said:
In terms of dating at work…the organization I work for now is astonishingly full of husbands/wives/boyfriends/girlfriends/ex-husbands/ex-wives/former lovers/in-laws…
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My husband and I met at work. We have been married for over 20 years.

At the same company, there are about 10 couples that met there, and they are all still married. (Or were the last time I heard anything about them.)
 
AllSeasons said:
This is just one guy’s perspective, so take it with a grain of salt. To me, it’s all about ROI (return on investment). What are the investment and risks? The investment is of course time, money, resources, feelings, etc. **The risks are possibly losing your friends, getting hurt, etc. ** Now, what are the returns? The return is the possibility of finding the woman you’re to spend the rest of your life with. If the investment/risks outweigh the returns, then the guy is likely not going to pursue the relationship. On the other hand, if the returns outweigh the investment/risks, then he’s more likely to pursue the relationship.

So what I’m trying to say is that it’s very possible that the guy was just feeling lukewarm about you, and didn’t want to risk losing his friends over it, but didn’t want to hurt your feelings or damage the friendship and make things awkward. If the guy was really crazy about you, he wouldn’t care about stuff like that. Make sense?

As for dating someone at work, that’s a lot more complicated, because you could potentially both end up losing your jobs, if it’s against company policy. There’re also all kinds of legal issues involved, as well. So unless there’re direct signs from God, I’d recommend against dating your coworkers.

Hope this helps.
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People could get hurt whether they are dating their friend or someone else.

It is hard for me to see how dating a friend could make you lose your other friends. Let’s say A, B, C and D are all friends. A tries to date B and whether it works out or not, how would that affect A’s friendship with C & D? 🤷

I don’t see much difference between dating a co-worker and dating a fellow parishioner, a group member or a classmate.
 
kelvinf said:
People could get hurt whether they are dating their friend or someone else.

It is hard for me to see how dating a friend could make you lose your other friends. Let’s say A, B, C and D are all friends. A tries to date B and whether it works out or not, how would that affect A’s friendship with C & D? 🤷

I don’t see much difference between dating a co-worker and dating a fellow parishioner, a group member or a classmate.
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Some friends pick sides, especially if A or B did something wrong in the relationship.
 
AllSeasons said:
Basically, the drawback is that if things don’t work out, and you have the same friends, it’d get kind of awkward. It’ll be like one of those sitcoms, where your friends will have to pick with one of you to stay friends with. Worth it or no?
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I would hesitate unless this person seems remarkable and you know them really well. I’ve been in that senario before and never found it to work out and then it turns awkward. I’ve seen it time and time again with others as well.
 
Xantippe said:
If you care enough about this person that you are willing to make a completely new life for yourself if the relationship doesn’t work out, go ahead. If you are just mildly interested, don’t bother.

This is actually somewhat similar to the question of whether or not one should take the risks involved with marrying somebody (which are like the OP’s question, except 10X bigger). If you are lukewarm about the person you are thinking of marrying, I don’t think you should.
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Yeah, a shallow, fleeting interest can wreck a good friendship. It’s kinda like with cousins: you can marry one, but your life can become pretty miserable if it doesn’t get to the point of marrying when you go through the ‘dating’*.
  • Yes, I hate the word. No, I’m not a ‘courtship’ fan, either.
KendraDZ1902 said:
Some friends pick sides, especially if A or B did something wrong in the relationship.
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You can make some rules when: 1) you’re still on good terms, 2) you’re still mostly friends and not acting out of romantic mushiness. This should help you stick with the rules if things go bad. In such situations it’s easier to fall back on rational agreements than to improvise rational solutions. So make a rule you won’t make your friends choose if things go bad. You can also make a rule that you won’t allow things to go bad, allow yourself to harbour resentment without talking about it, play games etc. There are some things lovers (not meaning ‘sexual partners’ here) do to each other that friends don’t. It may be possible to save the friendship by… well, acting on it.
 
chevalier said:
It’s kinda like with cousins: you can marry one, but your life can become pretty miserable if it doesn’t get to the point of marrying when you go through the ‘dating’*.
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Not sure if I’d quite put it like that, but point taken.
 
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