I can speak from experience; if you don't marry your best friend, you probably effed it up. Marriage is a lifetime legal and social commitment, it's just bonkers to enter into it in the first place unless it's with the one person you'd most rather spend time with in the whole world, since they're the one you're going to be seeing the most of for the rest of your life. My wife and I never dated, we were just friends until we were best friends until we were superbesties until we both realized whoops— guess we're in love now; all of my married (and might-as-well-be) geek friends were the same way.Look at it like this— if you look for a romantic partner by being friends first, even if the romance angle doesn't stick, you still win because you have an awesome friend, and every friend you make is practice for the next friend you make.