Friendships don’t always get their due in discussions about the most important human relationships we can form, but they’re definitely up there. And that just might be why friends-to-lovers romances are so compelling: They start with an already intimate relationship that blossoms into even more over time, creating connections practically too powerful to be torn asunder.
The trope has been around for centuries, from Shakespeare’s 17th-century stories of comrades-turned-lovers in plays like Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night to Jane Austen writing about the evolution of Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley’s relationship in Emma circa 1815. And who could forget Louisa May Alcott’s description of Laurie’s less-than-successful attempt to take his friendship with Jo March to another level in Little Women?
