Should I make a move on a friend who’s in the same friend group as me?

Thank you to the person who suggested this article topic. I appreciate it. To add some more context, the individual texted me — they’re in a friend group with both female and male friends, and they’re wondering if they should ask a friend within the group on a date who they’re beginning to really like.

However, they’re worried about the ramifications and whether it’ll make things awkward in the group. They don’t want to ruin the friend group dynamic.

This is a tough predicament.

My stance on this: yes, you should make a move. There’s several reasons why:

1. From a pure relationship standpoint, in my opinion, I think it’s easy to make the transition from friend to relationship because so much of being in a relationship is interpersonal relationship/communication.

Thus, if you already have good interpersonal communication, I think all your adding is the commitment aspect and all the things that come from the dating aspect.

I don’t know what percentage of relationships/marriages were friends first before they started dating, but it’s pretty common and I think there’s a reason a lot of them last as I said above, because so much of being in a relationship is maintaining friendship.

2. From the aspect of your life, I also think it makes sense — because you only have one life and you want to live regret-free.

In emotional situations like loving someone, I always think you’ll regret not trying more than you’ll regret if it doesn’t work out.

A tell tale sign that you’ll regret is: imagine you saw your friend get in a relationship with someone else, would you have a tinge of jealousy?

I think if the answer is yes, then you clearly would regret not trying to ask him/her out yourself first.

You don’t want to live with regret of what if I had asked him/her out, would we have been in a relationship? Rejection sucks, but regret is worse.

3. In terms of the friend group, you can do it in a way that it doesn’t affect the friend group.

People are afraid of ruining friendship dynamics and drama being created, but if things are handled in a mature

First off, you don’t know if the person will say yes or no.

So I think, ask the person to hang out with you 1 on 1 and just bring the topic up. “I’m good as friends, but I’d love to explore if we could be more than that.”

I don’t think, with most mature people, they’re going to be like “Oh man, now the whole friend group is ruined” because they asked me out. I think they’ll either be like “Yeah, I’m down to explore or I think we’re better off as friends.”

If the person says, no, you can ask them to keep things private so others in the friend group don’t know and it doesn’t become a big deal. Not sure if the person will agree, but it’s worth a shot.

Also, in terms of the individual’s reaction, I don’t think the individual’s personal reaction would be anger or madness. What are they going to be mad at — you liking them as a friend and finding them attractive in looks and personality to want to see if you can be more than friends? I doubt that would be their reaction.

Certainly, in some ways, if the person says no, obviously the two of you — it might be more awkward initially, but after some time, you should be able to go back to the old dynamic that you two had.

I think we have a tendency as humans to focus on the negative potential outcomes (like the friend group having drama), but it could also have positive potential outcomes (like you guys ending up being in a long-term relationship/getting married).

The other thing is even if you guys do get into a long-term relationship and you break up, you can still remain friends afterwards. Before going into the relationship, you can promise yourselves, no matter what happens, you’ll remain friends.

4. Understand friend groups change over time.

I don’t say this is a cynical way. I just say it as reality. I know, for you, right now, you feel like the friend group being together is huge, but never know what will happen.

People think they’re high school or college friends will always be their friend group for life, but things evolve and change over time.

People move to different geographical locations, people have less time, sometimes other drama (non-relationship related might lead to people not seeing certain people) or people just drift apart.

After you graduate high school and/or college, you’ll realize sometimes meetups, as a whole group, might only happen once or twice a year depending on where people live geographically.

All in all, I think all signs point to making a move. It’s risky, but nothing in life happens without risk. To get married, usually one person had to ask the other person out at some point in time.

I think, if people handle things in mature ways, the friend group won’t be affected either way.