With the mass uptake of internet dating through apps like Tinder, Bumble and Hinge you would think that lots of successful relationships were being formed thanks to technology. 

But the data seems to imply the opposite.

New research published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science found that two thirds of successful couples started out as friends and maintained a platonic relationship for long periods before sparking a romance.

On average, the “friends first” initiators were friends for nearly 22 months before the relationship turned romantic and almost half of the total sample thought that friends-first initiation was the best way to start a new romantic relationship, versus the other options presented such as meeting at a party or online.

Nanogirl Michelle Dickinson joined Francesca Rudkin to discuss the findings.

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