These romances aren’t just the stuff of fiction, either. Though less common perhaps than the more typical “tear our clothes off” dating trajectory, slow burn love stories are played out in real life every day.
We spoke to Refinery29 readers who experienced a new romantic connection in this way, leading onto long-term relationships. Read and weep — we did — as these people go to show that sometimes things do end up being worth the wait, and there is no need to rush.
If you have a slow-burn love story you wish to share, please email tanyel.mustafa@refinery29.com.
Yasmin, 29, Kent
My other half and I met when we were 15 as we became part of the same friendship group in a joint unit from different schools. We were always friends and had the kind of friendship where it’s so easy to pick up where you left off from the last conversation. We had very similar senses of humour and our interests were the same so it felt like we never ran out of conversation. This led us to keeping in touch even as we moved away from each other and life took different directions, other romances, life decisions and big moments.
It wasn’t until we both found ourselves back in each other’s circle location-wise that we could convert our friendship into regular meetups and deeper chats about life late at night. It was actually him that confessed his feelings first and it just made sense: Someone I already admired, felt close to, had a lot of history with and I felt like I wanted him to be a part of my big moments in life. The fact he’d had interesting life experiences without me made me respect him even more because he had never once made me feel like his only interest in me was for romance’s sake, but instead it was about sharing his journey with me as a trusted person. He’s also gorgeous, so very easy to fall in love with once I did see him in that way!
Our slow realisation into a relationship became an engagement, and we’ve been married for nearly four years. I’m a strong believer in rare connections that feel like soulmates, but I think these come in forms of friends, family members and romances. I feel blessed that now he is all three.
Genevieve Wheeler, 31, London, UK
We matched on Hinge in September of 2020, between COVID-19 lockdowns in the UK. So it took us seven months of courtship to actually meet! We discussed going on a masked walking date, but one of us would be exposed to someone with COVID-19, then the other would be — the timing just never aligned, then I spent time in the US with family.
I felt an instant connection texting him — something about our conversation made me want to keep going. I remember joking with a few friends that I was either never going to meet this guy or we’d get married — there was no in-between. I think we were both chatting with other people here and there, but neither of us was actively dating anyone else.
We hadn’t done any video or phone calls — we’d only texted — so meeting in person was a nerve-wracking experience. I remember trying on multiple outfits for my flatmates. But just as I’d felt an instant connection with him in our text conversations, I felt an immediate ease being with him in real life. Months before meeting, we’d joked about “Icing each other” (presenting each other with Smirnoff Ices) on our first date, and we both turned up to that first meeting in Green Park with bottles. We ended up spending about eight or nine hours together.
Things moved pretty quickly once we did meet — partly because we were both quite keen on each other, and partly because, two weeks after we met, I found out I had to leave the UK due to visa issues. That put our relationship in a metaphorical pressure cooker of sorts, forcing us to decide whether or not we were serious about each other and subsequently willing to have a long-distance relationship. Fortunately, we both were, and have been together for nearly three years now.
Spoiler alert: We got engaged last November.
Thubelihle Chance Ntombela, 24, Johannesburg, South Africa
I’m a Black transgender man who fell in love with my best friend and, unbeknownst to me, she was also in love with me — but it took us over two years to actually confess our love for each other. Now we’ve been officially together for six years, and have been best friends for eight years.
She attended a different school to me but we had a mutual friend, so she’d come with our friend to my school and we’d study together in 2016. We had our first “friendship” date on 26th September 2016, at the park talking about all things movies and books. We began sharing playlists, going on library dates, and having sleepovers. I couldn’t come out to her and tell her that I’m trans because I thought it’d complicate our friendship, plus she was in a relationship with a woman at that point in her life. We both didn’t fully understand our sexuality and identity at the time.
After high school, we were pen pals writing to each other almost daily, as we lived in different provinces. I ended up switching courses and ended up at her university, and we began doing everything we used to do together again. I also wrote a compilation of letters addressed to her online and although she saw them, we never spoke about it. Eventually I confessed my love to her when we were having a lazy Sunday movie date. We always said it playfully that we love each other but on that day, in that moment, we both knew. I decided it was time to tell her as I got diagnosed with severe visceral myopathy, and I didn’t want to die without her knowing.
Nuala, 29, London
I met my partner at university. He was the first friend I made there, and we got on like a house on fire despite both getting each other’s names completely wrong that first night. He called me Loo-Lah and I was convinced his name was Jamie — he’s saved on my phone as his name, followed by “Jamie” to this day.
We were in the same friendship group and lived together. There were a couple of very drunken kisses during our time as students, but nothing romantic ever happened. After university, we kept in touch, both in other relationships, but had naturally drifted. He moved down to London and I moved home to Yorkshire. One evening I FaceTimed him and after that first call, the conversation just rolled over. The odd text evolved into flowing WhatsApp conversations and regular FaceTimes a couple of nights a week.
By February 2022, I was using dating apps and excitedly let him know I’d got a date coming up. He replied saying that hearing I was going on a date had made him realise he had feelings for me, and that while he was happy for me that I was excited about being back in the dating world, he needed some space to think about how he was feeling. We didn’t speak for a couple of days, but I was due to come back to London to visit him and we missed each other.
I came down to London and he’d organised the most amazing weekend for us. We brunched, we explored, we drank and caught up with friends. On the first night, after a lot of liquid courage, we had the conversation. I voiced my concerns about losing the friendship. He came back with something I couldn’t really argue with: “What if the reward outweighs the risk?” And with that, we kissed, and we’ve been together ever since — two years on, and 11 years into knowing him.
Ellie Turner, 32, Surrey
My husband and I actually met before we were born — our mums met at antenatal class and became friends. Now we have our own child!
Our parents would take us for day trips together when we were little. But during our teenage years, we only saw each other occasionally and only thought of each other as friends. It wasn’t until we were both 23 and reconnected at a party that that slowly changed. We started chatting and so began hanging out, still as friends, and he visited me in London. On this trip to London we realised we both liked each other — after that slow start, we moved in together fairly quickly. He moved down to London and we got our first flat together, and got engaged a year after that, we then got married two and a half years later and have now been married for over five years.
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