You’re really excited about your new relationship and can’t wait to spend every minute with that special someone - and that’s great! You should want to spend a lot of time with them - otherwise, it’d be a crazy reason to even start dating! I’ve seen relationships that seem to be successful, but in reality they are desperately missing something that is crucial in all relationships -friends.
You’d be shocked to see the impact that your friends can have on you. In my personal relationship, my fiancee and I make sure that we always spend a lot of time with our friends. To illustrate this point, the two of us did not have a single meal alone for an entire week once we got back to college. That’s right - a week! Why is this? Because we value our relationships with all of our friends and love spending time with them. Don’t get me wrong, we still find times to be alone to simply be together, but the majority of the time (probably around 85%) we are together we spend with our friends.
Perhaps you’ve seen couples that have great friends before they start dating and then apparently only have each other to talk to six months into their relationship. They feel that they have to put all their time and energy into their relationship and thus don’t have time for friends. If you believe that spending all your time with your boyfriend/girlfriend is a great idea, ask yourself what will happen if the two of you break up? Will you have no friends and have to start all over in the social world?
I cannot stress the importance of friends in relationships. A great purpose that your friends have is that they can give you a “reality check.” As a youth director, kids constantly come running up to me telling me that they have started a new relationship. Usually the next sentence that comes out of their mouth is that “we think we are going to get married.” Are you kidding me?! Married?! You have been dating for a whopping 7 minutes at this point! Chances are that if a kid believes that the two of them are going to get married they have unrealistic expectations and typically are disappointed in a few months when they break up. In most of these situations (there are exceptions - I have friends who started dating in high school and are now happily married), it’s great to have friends in your life to ensure that the two of you stay realistic.
In terms of Christian dating, friends are a GREAT way to keep the two of you accountable. If you are a guy, try and get another guy in a Christian relationship and keep each other accountable. The same goes for a girl - get a girl who you feel comfortable talking to. Join Bible studies with other couples and then talk about what you thought of the discussion after the meeting.
Along with keeping you and your boyfriend/girlfriend accountable, having friends around can decrease sexual temptation immensely. If you are constantly around friends, it will be much harder to commit sexual sin as a general rule. Satan has a way to throw temptation at you when you least expect it so make sure that you have friends around you!
Another great reason for your friends to be close to you is so you can retain your intersts outside of your relationship. I have a huge interest in the area of finance while my fiancee does not care much for financial concepts such as opportunity cost and P/E ratios. Before we started dating, I had a great set of friends that also had a strong interest in the study of finance. I am currently in a great situation that allows my friends and I to meet twice a week for lunch to talk about the “business world” and other topics regarding finance. Likewise, my fiancee meets with her friends to discuss whatever it is women find to talk about for hours on end.
Finally, make sure you don’t “ditch your friends” when you start dating simply because your relationship will be more fun. My fiancee and I LOVE playing board games with our friends and typically end up crying because we are laughing so hard! You can always invite your friends to go to dinner with you or even just to come over and watch a movie!
Bottom line - don’t ditch your friends! You’ll be glad you didn’t when you want to do something that your boyfriend/girlfriend has no interest in or just want a group of friends to spend time with!
