Friendship and Romance 111in which to fulfill their needs. For instance, a romantic relationship is typically tasked
with the needs for companionship and sexual contact, but absent such a situation,
individuals may turn to a friendship for the fulfillment of these needs (i.e., friends
with benefits relationships; VanderDrift, Lehmiller, & Kelly, 2012). The typical sub-
optimal outcomes in such relationships relative to romantic relationships suggests
that they are ill- equipped to meet these needs long- term (Lehmiller, VanderDrift, &
Kelly, 2014), but from an interdependence perspective, the fact that they can meet
the needs at all is informative as to the fundamental nature of the needs and individu-
als’ selection into situations that have the potential to fulfill them.
The Impact of Friendship External to the Romantic Dyad
Prior to discussing the importance of friendship need fulfillment between romantic
partners, it is important to discuss the fact that many individuals meet their friend-
ship needs in nonromantic friendships. The majority of this volume characterizes
the myriad positive outcomes of nonromantic friendships on individuals, and pro-
vides rich detail as to how those relationships form and are maintained over time,
so we opt not to review those in any more depth here. However, the importance of
nonromantic friends extends to romantic outcomes, as well. Throughout the dura-
tion of a romance, traces of friends’ influence can be found (Agnew, 2014). In the
formation stage of the romantic union through maintenance stages of the romantic
bond between the partners (Sprecher, Felmlee, Orbuch, & Willetts, 2002), friends
external to the romance, knowingly or not, exert great influence on the romance. In
this section, we review that influence, for the purpose of establishing the central-
ity and importance of friendship needs, regardless of their source of fulfillment, on
romantic relationship outcomes.
When two individuals have overlapping friendship networks (i.e., they have
friends in common), the chances that they will meet increases (e.g., Parks & Eggert,
1991). Additionally, involvement in each other’s networks leads to greater access
to information about each other (e.g., Parks & Adelman, 1983), and support from
friends for the idea that the two should “couple” (e.g., Parks, Stan, & Eggert, 1983).
Each of these are advantageous in terms of the development of a romantic relation-
ship, and together greatly increase the odds a romance will begin. These advantages
highlight how important friendship is as a foundation for romance, but also suggest
that friends are highly influential in individuals’ choices regarding their romances.
More overtly, friends exert their influence on romantic partners via subjective
norms. Subjective norms, referring to our beliefs about whether our friends approve
of our romance (i.e., normative beliefs) weighted by how motivated we are to com-
ply with these beliefs, have been shown to predict relationship commitment and
stability (Etcheverry & Agnew, 2004). The more approval individuals perceive from
their friends’ regarding their romance, the more motivation they experience regard-
ing their romance, and commitment to the romance increases.