Friendship Is the Foundation of Lasting Relationships, So Why Has the Talking Stage Become the New Norm?

Now that the trending cheating and marriage scandal has gone down, can we talk about how relationships have lost their true value in this generation?

These days, you meet someone you like, you exchange numbers, you start talking, and suddenly you are in the “talking stage.” You talk every day, sometimes from morning until night. You know what they ate for breakfast, what their favourite song is, where they went to school, what they want to do with their life and probably what their ex did to them. You start calling each other pet names, you get used to their good morning texts, you become emotionally attached, and before you know it, you are calling this person your partner. From there, marriage is sometimes the next conversation.

And somehow, in all of this talking, we have forgotten to actually become friends.

That is what bothers me about the way we approach relationships today. We are so eager to find someone to love that we rarely take the time to find out whether we actually know the person we are falling in love with. We have made the talking stage such a normal part of dating that we hardly question what it really means. Two people are attracted to each other, they start talking with romantic intentions, and the entire relationship begins from that point. But if you genuinely want something that could last for years, something that could eventually become marriage, shouldn’t there be a stage where you simply get to know the person without the pressure of romance hanging over everything?

Because you cannot love who you don’t know.

I really believe that.

You can be attracted to someone you don’t know. You can desire someone you don’t know. You can become obsessed with someone you don’t know. You can even convince yourself that you love someone you don’t know. But real love requires knowledge. How can you truly say you love someone when you have only experienced the version of them that they chose to present to you?

The Problem With the Talking Stage

The talking stage has become this strange period where two people are essentially auditioning for each other.

Everybody is on their best behaviour.

You are trying to impress me, and I am trying to impress you. You are showing me the parts of yourself you think I will like, and I am doing the same. You are looking good, smelling good, choosing your words carefully, replying quickly, planning thoughtful dates and trying not to show me too much of the complicated parts of your personality too early.

And I am doing exactly the same thing.

Nobody enters a talking stage saying, “Let me show this person all my worst qualities so they can decide whether they can tolerate me.” Of course not. We want to be liked. We want to be chosen. We want the relationship to work. So naturally, we present the best version of ourselves.

That is not necessarily deception. It is simply human nature.

But it becomes a problem when that carefully presented version of someone becomes the basis for a lifelong decision.

Because you can talk to someone for six months and still not know them.

You may know their favourite food, but you don’t know how they behave when they are angry. You may know their love language, but you don’t know how they handle responsibility. You may know their childhood stories, but you don’t know how they treat people when they have nothing to gain from them. You may know how romantic they are when they are trying to win you over, but you don’t know how they behave when they are frustrated with you.

And those things matter far more when you are thinking about marriage.

Your Friend Has Seen the Real You

Think about your closest friends for a moment.

Your friend has probably seen you in ways the person you are trying to impress has not.

Your friend has seen you looking terrible on a random Tuesday. Your friend has heard you complain about the same problem ten times. Your friend knows when you are being unreasonable. They have seen you angry, emotional, broke, excited, jealous, confused and completely unserious. They have seen you make mistakes. They have probably heard you say things you would never say on a first date.

And somehow, the friendship survives.

That is the beauty of friendship.

There is less performance involved.

You are not constantly thinking, “If this person sees this side of me, will they still like me?” because the relationship isn’t built entirely around being desirable to each other. You get to be human.

And that is exactly why friendship can tell you so much about a person.

When you are friends with someone, you see them when they are not trying to get anything from you. You see how they speak to waiters, how they treat their siblings, how they react when plans change, how they behave when they are jealous, how they handle disappointment, how they talk about people who are not in the room, how they respond when someone tells them “no,” and whether they take responsibility when they are wrong.

You get to see the parts that don’t usually make it into the talking stage.

You get to see the person.

This Is Why Friendship Matters Before Marriage

Marriage is not going to be exciting every single day.

There will be days when the two of you are exhausted. There will be bills. There will be family problems. There will be disagreements about money, children, work, responsibilities and decisions. There will be seasons where one person is struggling and the other has to carry more of the weight. There will be days when romance is not the first thing on either person’s mind.

And when those moments come, what are you left with?

Your friend.

That is why I don’t understand why friendship is treated like some optional extra in a relationship. We talk about chemistry, sexual compatibility, physical attraction, financial stability and love languages, and all of those things have their place. But sometimes the most important question is much simpler:

Do I actually like this person as a human being?

If the attraction disappeared for a moment, would you still enjoy sitting with them?

If there was no sex, would you still want their company?

If you weren’t calling each other “baby,” would you still choose to have a conversation with them?

If the excitement of a new relationship disappeared, would there still be something between you?

That is where friendship becomes important.

Because eventually, every relationship has to come down from the high of new love and live in ordinary life.

And ordinary life needs friendship.

There Is a Difference Between Knowing Someone and Knowing About Someone

One of the biggest mistakes we make is confusing information with intimacy.

You can know a lot about somebody without actually knowing them.

You can know where they were born, where they went to school, their favourite football club, their favourite meal, their birthday, their relationship history and even their five-year plan. You can have hundreds of pictures together and thousands of messages between you.

But none of that automatically means you know their character.

Knowing someone means knowing how they behave when they are disappointed. It means knowing what happens when they don’t get their way. It means knowing how they apologise, whether they keep promises, how they deal with pressure, whether they can communicate when they are angry, whether they respect boundaries and whether their actions match the things they say.

Friendship gives you time to discover these things.

And time is important because people reveal themselves in seasons.

You cannot know somebody properly from a handful of romantic dates where both of you are consciously trying to make a good impression. Sometimes you need to see them around their friends. You need to see them around family. You need to see them have a bad day. You need to disagree with them. You need to watch how they handle inconvenience. You need to see what they are like when they are not getting what they want.

That is when the polished version starts to disappear.

And that is when you begin to know the person you may eventually be giving your life to.

Maybe the Talking Stage Is Not for Everybody

I think the talking stage makes sense when two people are simply exploring attraction and figuring out whether they want to take things further. There is nothing wrong with that. Not every connection is supposed to become marriage.

But I think we have started treating the talking stage as the default route to serious relationships, even when what we claim to want is something much deeper.

If someone is looking for casual companionship, sex, or a relationship with no serious long-term intention, then that is a different conversation. The important thing is honesty about what both people are looking for.

But if you are looking at someone and thinking, “I could marry this person,” then maybe the relationship deserves more than attraction and constant texting.

Maybe you should actually know them first.

Maybe you should be friends.

Not fake friendship where both of you are secretly waiting for the other person to ask you out. I mean genuine friendship where you get to experience each other as human beings before deciding that this person should become your partner for life.

Because there is a difference between wanting someone and knowing someone.

And sometimes we mistake the first one for the second.

You Cannot Love Who You Don’t Know

This is the part I would put in bold if I could say it loud enough:

You cannot love who you don’t know.

You can love an image.You can love potential.You can love attention.You can love the way somebody makes you feel.You can love the version of them you created in your head.

But you cannot genuinely understand what it means to love a person if you have never taken the time to know who they are.

And knowing someone doesn’t mean discovering that they are perfect. In fact, it is the opposite.Friendship allows you to discover the imperfections too.

You get to realise that this person can be incredibly kind but sometimes stubborn. They can be generous but terrible with money. They can be loving but need a lot of space. They can be ambitious but sometimes neglect other things. They can have a temper. They can be sensitive. They can be difficult. They can have habits that annoy you.

And then you get to make an informed decision about whether those things are things you can live with.

That is far healthier than discovering everything after marriage, when there is already a wedding, a home, children, shared finances and years of emotional investment attached to the relationship.

Maybe This Is Part of What We Are Missing

I would never say the absence of friendship is the single reason relationships fail or marriages end. Human relationships are far too complicated for one explanation. People separate for many reasons, including incompatibility, infidelity, financial problems, communication issues, abuse, changing circumstances and many others.

But I do think it is worth asking whether we have become too comfortable committing to people before we have really had the opportunity to know them.

Because we live in a time where relationships can move incredibly quickly.

Talking today.

Exclusive tomorrow.

Relationship next month.

Engagement next year.

Marriage after that.

And everybody is congratulating you because, from the outside, everything looks perfect.

But somewhere underneath all of it is a question that should have been asked much earlier:

Who exactly did I marry?

Not their Instagram version.

Not the person they were when they were trying to win you.

Not the person you imagined they would become.

Who are they really?

That is why I believe friendship deserves a bigger place in the conversation about love and marriage.

Friendship gives you a front-row seat to the person behind the romance. It gives you the opportunity to see the beautiful parts and the frustrating parts, the mature parts and the childish parts, the strengths and the weaknesses. It lets you discover whether you genuinely enjoy the person you are thinking about spending your life with.

Because one day, the butterflies will settle.

One day, the honeymoon will end.

One day, there will be an ordinary Tuesday when neither of you looks particularly attractive, nobody has planned anything romantic, there are bills to pay and both of you are tired.

And on that Tuesday, you will still have to live with the person you chose.

Wouldn’t it be better to know that person before you choose them?

Maybe we need to stop being so afraid of taking our time.

Maybe we need to stop thinking that friendship is a detour on the way to love.

Maybe friendship is actually the road.

Because if you intend to love someone for a lifetime, you should probably take the time to know them first.

And if you truly know them, accept them, enjoy them, respect them and still choose them, then perhaps you are no longer just falling in love with someone.

You are choosing your friend.