13 Real Life Friends To Lovers Stories That Honestly Give Me Butterflies (2024)

While there are numerous ways for people to get together romantically, there's something incredibly sweet about friends turning into lovers. However, to spice things up, we asked the BuzzFeed Community to share if a hook-up with a friend has ever turned into a relationship, so here's what they had to say below:

1. "My husband and I were close friends, nothing more, for nine years. One night, we were at a group gathering, and I kissed him goodnight on the cheek. I couldn’t stop thinking about how good it felt to hug him close. After that, every time we saw each other, we would hug. The hugs got longer and longer. Our hands would go up and down each other’s backs. More kisses on the cheek. Lol. I don’t know why it took us so long to realize what was happening — we were grown adults in our forties. Hahaha. We’ve been together for twenty years now. It did feel really good to fall in love with a good friend."

Hinterhaus Productions / Getty Images

—Rainy Day

2. "About eight years after moving from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, I got a job where I coincidentally ended up working with the older brother of a guy that my best friend dated in high school. We’ll call him 'M.' We recognized each other right away and thought how wild it was that we both ended up in the same place. M and I developed a great working friendship, being able to reminisce about our hometown and all of the experiences there that we shared (albeit not together). At the time, I had been dating another coworker of ours for four years. We would all frequently hang out after work together, along with several of our other coworkers. My now-ex started to become jealous of M and I’s friendship. He said that it was like we were 'in our own little world' together and that he didn’t want me talking to him as much. I didn’t think that was right, but I tried to keep my distance a bit just to appease him (he was extremely physically and mentally abusive)."

"One day, M asked me to help him with something in one of the supply closets. He pulled me aside and asked if everything was okay because I had been avoiding him. I had previously confided in him about some other personal things with my relationship, and before I knew it, I was in tears telling him how trapped and unsafe I felt.

He gave me a casual hug from the side at one point, and for some reason, I just buried my face in his shoulder and stayed there. He sort of pulled away after a minute and then just went right ahead and kissed me. We ended up hooking up right there in the closet at work.

My ex and I broke up not long afterward, and M and I left the company. We’ve been together ever since, and every single day, I still can’t believe the odds of us finding each other again. He is my best friend; I can tell him anything, and he keeps me safe and grounded. I am the happiest I’ve ever been and regret nothing."

—_d00msauce_

3. "When we very first met, he wasn't my type, so we began as acquaintances. After several years of the occasional drink and catch-up, we became very good friends, with both of us advising each other on our dating lives. Then, one night, a friend of mine asked if he was single, and I realized I didn't want to set him up with anyone; I wanted him myself. He must've realized something had changed because he drunkenly kissed me, and we ended up in bed together at this awful B&B that night. It was strange because at no point did it feel awkward; it just felt right. Then, after six months of being inseparable, we were bullied by friends into making it official. We've now been together for over eight years. He moved across the country for me, and we're about to buy a house together."

4. "At 21, I met the one. She proved love at first sight exists, and I knew I had to be with her for the rest of my life. I courted her for a year and a half to no avail, and during that time, I became best friends with her roommate, with whom I shared my innermost secrets and held nothing back. After a year and a half, the roommate and I looked at each other one day, and despite her being twice my age, literally decided, 'Hey - you’re cute!' and hooked up. She became my wife, and we were together for 29 years until she passed in 2020. A lot of why it worked was that we already knew each other so well, warts and all, that there were no shocks. Incidentally, my original crush and I remain best friends to this day!"

—Quincy, 54, Colorado

5. "We met freshman year of college through our cross-country team and quickly became inseparable. He spent every day at my apartment and too many late nights to count, often skipping class just to talk to me. Despite our friends constantly asking, we always stuck with the 'we’re just best friends' response. One day, I found out he was secretly hooking up with our other teammate (who happened to be my friend, too). He would go on to confide in me about the things she did or said, telling me every last detail of their relationship. Every time he mentioned her name, I started to feel a pit in my stomach and the sudden urge to burst into tears. I think that’s when I knew he was more than my friend. Two months later, we went on an impromptu midnight beach stroll, and I caught him staring at me as we were wading through the water."

6. "I was with my ex (let's call him Kevin) for several years, and the whole time, we were also friends with another guy, Tom. Tom and Kevin were quite close. Kevin and I weren't super compatible in the end; I broke up with him, and he moved away. After the breakup, I found myself with a lot of free time, so I hung out with my friends a lot, including Tom. One night, about three months after the breakup, we got drunk and made out. I wasn't in a place where I wanted a relationship, and I didn't want to hurt Kevin, but I figured if we fooled around just for fun, it wasn't a big deal. We fell in love. The fallout with Kevin was pretty intense, and he didn't talk to us for years. The rest of our friends were unsurprised and pretty supportive. This was years ago. Tom and I are now married with kids, and everyone is still friends!"

—Anonymous, 40, Canada

7. "My colleague and I became really good friends quite quickly. We were texting and joking all day, every day. This went on for about six months. One day, at an office party, we both had way too much to drink, and I went home with him. It turned out to be a pretty good decision. We’ve been together for over seven years, married for three, and have a 1-year-old son."

8. "We met in high school in the mid-'90s when he was dating a good friend of mine. About ten years later, we drunkenly hooked up a few times when he and his baby mama were on a break. They got back together and had another kid. Another ten years flew by before he asked me for my lawyer's info the week of my divorce because they were breaking up for good, and he didn't want to get screwed. Eight years later, we've broken up twice, but we're slowly moving in together, and we're getting our first pet together this week."

—Cookie, 43, Texas

9. "We met when we were 13 and became best friends at 15. Life took us to different places, with me studying in a different city and living abroad for a few years and him working on the other side of the country. Still, we never truly lost contact, even FaceTiming from time to time on different continents. We told each other everything, even talked about our partners at the time, because we really trusted each other. When I graduated from college and he returned from working abroad, we finally lived in the same city again. Both single, we became friends with benefits, but the lines got blurred, and suddenly, we were calling each other pet names and going to family functions together. After a year or so, we realized we were in love and had been dating for five years, with plans of marriage and kids."

10. "I had a fairly decent friend that I met freshman year of college. We hung in the same group and ended up getting super close. By our junior year, he and I were spending most of our free time on campus (I was a commuter kid) together with his best friend. Schedules changed for the next semester, and suddenly, his bestie didn’t have the same breaks. So it was just us. He had an apartment right off campus, so it was walkable. Soon, we were spending ALL our free time together. It was just easier to crash there during finals. I always slept on the couch, even though I knew he’d let me take the bed if I asked. One morning, I woke up in his bed. Oops."

"The sleepovers got more frequent. The lines blurred way too much. The sex was amazing. A year’s worth of tension makes for a good time. We would host parties for our friend group at his place (all the bars were down the street), and by the end of the night, I’d be right back in his bed, even though I’d tell my friends that I had just gotten home.

One day, he texted me and asked me, 'What the hell are we doing?' I told him I thought we were just having fun (can’t admit you have feelings for the guy. That’s so lame).

Fast forward 12 years, we’ve been married seven years and have two kids. He’s my partner and my best friend."

—Anonymous, 34, Louisiana

11. "I was in a relationship for two years when a new guy started in my company. He was not my usual type, and I always told myself that I would never date a younger guy. But for some reason, I always wanted to be near him in social events. During lunch breaks, I would always laugh with him or smile when he looked at me. At some point during a work party, he kissed another co-worker, and I was really jealous about it. But why? When I broke up with my ex-boyfriend, I decided to make a move on my co-worker (desperate time = desperate measures to feel better). It turns out that my co-worker had a crush on me for a really long time. Almost a year later, I am in the happiest and healthiest relationship that I have ever been in. Now I really know what 'if he really wanted to, he would' means."

12. "My soon-to-be husband and I have known each other our entire lives. Our families are super close. They were so close that our mothers set up him and my older sister, and they dated for a bit. She broke up with him (thanks, sis), and a few years after that, we did some light talking, but he lived in a different state — so with the distance, nothing came to fruition. Fast forward many, many years later — enough for me to get married, have a kid, and get divorced — he moved home during COVID, and I decided to shoot my shot, but he was already introduced to another girl. Ultimately, we connected as friends while he was talking to this girl. They never were in a committed relationship, just talking and casually dating. But we ended up hooking up a bit at the same time. He ultimately ended things with her, and we started dating, and now we’re getting married. It’s crazy how life works out."

—Anonymous, 32

13. "Well, we’ve been married for three years now, but we met when we were 19 at college. I started dating his roommate at first, and all three of us would hang out all the time. He became one of my best friends. Then, his roommate and I broke up, and we stopped hanging out as much. I realized that I honestly missed spending time with him (my now-husband) more than my ex. One night, after spending the whole day together and getting locked out of my own apartment, he drove me back to his place and let me sleep in his bed while he offered to take the couch. But he did not take the couch because I had made my move. I kissed him, and I hadn’t looked back. It’s been almost ten years."

Have you ever hooked up with a friend that turned into a relationship? Tell us what happened in the comments below: