Copyright (c) 2008 Drew Mcpherson
No, absolutely not. I'll tell you why.
Unless you are actually looking for just friends, then you should not come onto a dating site with the intention of finding a partner and claim that you want "friends first". This has very little chance of being productive, and is likely to scare off many potentially compatible people. You might be hoping that it will scare off the people who are just looking for intimate encounters, and it might, but you will also be putting off the people who are really serious about finding a girlfriend / boyfriend / partner.
One of the major problems is that friends tend to be platonic in nature. If you are really looking for someone to eventually become intimate with, platonic is basically going to interfere with that. Platonic is for siblings. Let's face it, you came to the dating site to find dates. If you really didn't come for just friends, then saying that you want "friends first" is actually a little misleading. What you really want is a partner who is friendly, not a friend who you are intimate with.
Furthermore, consider the Maslow hierarchy of needs. It describes a pyramid of human needs, all the way from the basic physical ones like breathing, sleeping and eating up to emotional and higher intellectual and spiritual needs. The purpose is to describe which needs must be satisfied first before considering other ones. For instance, if you cannot breathe, it really doesn't matter that you are intellectually unstimulated until you get some air into your lungs. If a lower need is lacking, all the higher ones get put on hold until the lower one is satisfied. Guess where sex is located in this hierarchy? It sure isn't an intellectual need, and despite what some people think, it isn't even an emotional one. The act of physical intercourse is one of the raw basic primary needs for human existence. The upshot of this is that as required by our biological makeup, sex necessarily MUST come first before friendship. It's not optional. If we are feeling undersexed, then no amount of negotiation or trying is going to be able to put the higher emotional needs above that. How much it takes to satisfy that basic need all depends upon libido. So if you were wondering why most guys seem to be looking for sex first, then a relationship later, the Maslow hierarchy might explain it.
Most people who come to dating sites are serious about dating with the hope of or at least are open to finding someone they can pair up with for at least the medium to long-term. Very few people would turn away their perfect partner if they happened to find him/her even though they may not have been directly seeking that. In fact, that's usually how it happens. Rarely do you hear the story "boy sought out girlfriend, boy found girlfriend". It is usually more along the lines "boy found a hot lay and was totally blindsided when he unexpectedly fell in love". After all, who wouldn't want a hot lay to be a more permanent fixture in their lives? So if you are only looking for friends, you are likely to miss out on that passionate partner that you always wanted. Like I said, friends aren't typically passionate with each other. That goes by definition.
Hardly anyone comes to a dating site GENUINELY only looking for friends, and then ends up finding their life partner. If you were looking for just friends, you wouldn't specify "Dating" or "Long-Term" in your profile. Typically the people who are only looking for friends are those who already have a partner and are not at all open to anything more with someone else. If you start out by misleading someone, even if only slightly, it's generally not a good beginning to a fruitful relationship. So be honest about what you are actually seeking. Be up front from the beginning, and you are likely to find people who are also like that, which is probably what you really want deep down.
A lot of people who use dating sites don't need extra friends, and so by seeking out "friends first" you are automatically eliminating all of the socially healthy people who already have a social circle but just aren't interested in any of them physically. A lot of people come to dating sites because they aren't interested in dating any of their friends. They are interested in branching out and finding someone they are not presently friends with to take on a more intimate role in their lives.
Friendship takes a LONG time to build, at least months, often years for a really good friendship. True friends isn't something that is built in a day, a week or even a month. It is unlikely, especially considering the Maslow hierarchy, that you are willing to wait several months to go on a date. So if you genuinely think you want "friends first", you are fooling yourself. You aren't going to wait half a year, just to go on a date with someone only to find out that they aren't the right person for you physically. Considering that it usually takes hundreds of dates to find the right person, you are likely to keel over before you succeed with that kind of method. You will know fairly quickly whether you want more than just friends with any person you meet. If you are spending all your time nurturing friendships, you won't have much time for finding a partner. There is nothing wrong with that, but it's probably counter-productive to your goal on this site. Besides, if you really have the ulterior motive of finding a compatible partner, you will be sizing up your supposed "friend" from day 1. That is not how friends behave. In fact, that is just downright sneaky and maybe a little creepy.
So if you are one of the hundreds of people who put "friends first" in your profile, think again. Just be honest about what you want. Something along the lines of "Looking for a friendly companion" or "Seeking partner who I can be friends with" might be more appropriate. Your future-oriented thinking does you justice, in that you know you eventually want to satisfy those emotional needs as well as the physical, but most people just aren't that forward-looking. They tend to focus on the immediate needs first and then work from there. Keep this in mind so as to avoid eliminating or scaring off someone who might be just perfect for you on all levels, starting form the basic ones.
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