They met while he was working. Throughout her teenage years, she had the biggest crush on him. When they finally started dating, they clicked. Senior Ashley Uhl and her best friend/boyfriend will celebrate their four year anniversary this April.

“We have had our hard times, but I wouldn’t change anything in the relationship,” Uhl said. “Times were tough and life wasn’t easy, but it’s the hard times that prove just how strong your relationship is.”

Junior Brooke Belbot and her boyfriend also met at work,  and though they have had difficulties in the past, they now describe their current relationship as great.

“I feel 100 percent myself around him because we were such good friends before we were ever in a serious relationship,” Belbot said. “The only challenges I think we have is that we are so much alike that it sometimes frustrates us. We are both pretty indecisive, so it’s sometimes hard to come to decisions about certain things. Other than that, I think we complement each other well.”

For these two Oakland University students, their best friends turned into the loves of their lives. But that isn’t the case for everyone.

“One of my friends started dating her best friend after over a year of him being madly in love with her,” said Lisa Coppola, a junior majoring in mathematics. “They weren’t even in a relationship for a year and just broke up last week. It was terrible. They don’t even talk anymore and I’m just thrown in the middle of it.”

According to Dr. Terri Orbuch, professor of sociology and “The Love Doctor” on Fox News every Saturday, having a relationship with a best friend is difficult and often impossible.

When sex is thrown in to the mix, like in the upcoming Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman movie, “No Strings Attatched,” she said that it can sometimes mean more for one person than the other.

“I think that what is important is that both people need to sit down ahead of time and talk, so one person doesn’t get the wrong idea,” Orbuch said. “It will also ensure that one person doesn’t have the wrong expectations. It’s very important if that’s what the two people want.”

Orbuch said that the difference between a friendship and a romantic relationship is a different set of rules for each type of relationship.

“Love is a more intense feeling,” Orbuch said. “Two people that are in a romantic relationship spend more time with each other and when the boundaries are blurred, some rules get confusing. Friends don’t know if they should feel jealous of other people or if they’re supposed to run to the other one for support. Sometimes adding sex to a previous friendship can break it up, which happens a lot, unfortunately.”

Orbuch’s list says that friends are less exclusive and do not feel the need to get jealous of other relationships or if they’re supposed to be on call for support. Love is also more intense and those two people spend most of their time together.

Though Orbuch argues that men are more likely to have sex to gain emotional commitment or closeness and women need emotional commitment or closeness to have sex, there are various other factors that play in the decision-making, she said.

“It’s more likely to be a cohort difference rather than an age difference,” Orbuch said. “When you’re raised, your standards of sex, what the media was like and what was okay and not is different. College also influences people to have much more of a ‘now’ situation.”

Although voyaging into a deeper relationship may be a troubling idea for some people, others like Uhl wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I wouldn’t change anything in our relationship,” Uhl said. “Dating your best friend can be a double-edge sword, but it will work out for you if it’s meant to be.”

Though dating your best friend might be a challenge, some couples are finding it entirely possible.