Dating With Kids

I was talking with my boyfriend the other day and he brought up an interesting point. He was saying how all good dating relationships start out as great friends. This thought kind of caught me off guard. I know that we were not friends before we started dating. Many people have skipped the friendship stage and moved directly into dating. So my thought was, is this really a need of all dating relationships?

I do believe that you need to feel like the person that you are dating is your best friend for the relationship to be long lasting. I am not sure if this feeling must come first when it comes to dating. For me, I have often not seen how close of a friend a guy has become until much farther into a dating relationship. What about you? Do you become friends with the people that you want to date first?