You are nervous about dating one of your best friends, worried about how it’s going to play out.

Now that it is a romance, how does this affect our friendship?

Were we to break up, what happens to our friendship?

Does a breakup lead to an end to our friendship too?

Relax.

Dating one of your best friends puts you at an advantage.

This is someone you know exceedingly well.

Such a knowledge improves your odds that this transition from friendship to a relationship works.

Unlike people who date who have known each other for a short while, you know this best friend and they know you.

This advantage facilitates in helping you avoid the pitfalls that so many fall into when they date someone they have known for a short while.

Without a sustained knowledge of who their new partner is, they make assumptions of how that partner is, based on the little time they have spent together.

Unfortunately, this leaves them vulnerable to getting hurt upon discovering that this new partner wasn’t everything they thought they were.

This is where you are at a great advantage with your best friend who is now your boyfriend.

You have a solid history with him.

Who he is as a person isn’t a mystery to you.

You have experienced him at his best and worst.

This gives you incredible perspective in terms of what to expect from him.

Thankfully, this knowledge about each other has you two going into this relationship with your eyes wide open.

As opposed to going in with your fingers crossed, you go in knowing what to expect from each other’s personalities.

This leads to a lot less unwanted surprises in the relationship.

Dating one of your best friends sometimes causes confusion in terms of how to approach this new dynamic to your relationship.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your friendship has to drastically change, now that you are romantic partners.

It doesn’t.

You remain best friends.

The best romantic relationships come out of close friendships.

Keep being the best of friends, as lovers.

Being romantic partners doesn’t mean that hanging out together must have romantic connotations each and every time.

You don’t have to have a romantic dinner at a posh restaurant every Friday night, when you much rather grab some fast food from a generic fast food place every now and then, like you did as best friends.

You don’t have to keep attending exotic Broadway shows to see a play, when you much rather attend a local play being conducted in a neighborhood street corner every now and then, like you did as best friends.

The mistake that is made in this transition is that the two either go too far with the romance or don’t go far enough.

Now that you are romantic partners, you need to find a balance between doing romantic activities and keeping up with the activities you did as best friends.

There is nothing wrong with staying in on the weekend and playing board games like you did when you were just best friends.

But, it mustn’t just be this.

Plan to have romantic weekends too.

A good blend of the two is what you need.

When you strictly stick to what you consistently did as best friends, your relationship doesn’t really feel like it has transitioned.

This isn’t good.

It leaves you feeling like you are dating a best friend and yet, an absence of romance has you missing out on a passion you crave.

When you go overboard by doing too much romantically with each other, it leaves you two overwhelmed, and the friendship side of your relationship suffers.

It feels like you are living a lie, forcing too much romance down each other’s throats.

The relationship is like a chore as you bemoan having to go out to do some romantic activity on a Friday night when you are game to just stay home and play board games with your partner.

Have a happy blend of the two lifestyles.

This keeps up the romance in your relationship without making the friendship side suffer.