‘I think the most radical thing you can do right now is to be a good friend’: Dissatisfied with today’s dating climate, young women are opening up about how romantic platonic love can be
This topic reframes romance in a refreshing way by showing that the strongest relationships often grow from genuine friendship. When two people already share trust, humor, emotional safety, and mutual understanding, love becomes more stable and less performative. In many cases, friendship isn’t the opposite of romance it’s the foundation that makes it last.
This was a refreshing read and something I resonate as a young women struggling to form deep, meaningful adult friendships. Maybe the silver lining is now we are recognising this back seat approach to friendship, we can try return to it….
I write about love constantly. Books full of it and what I keep coming back to is that the people who have shown up for me most consistently, most honestly, most fully aren't the people I've dated. They're the ones who've been there through every version of me without needing me to be any particular one.The elaborated love letters. The remembered details. The showing up without being asked. That's not friendship settling for less than romance. That's friendship being the highest form of it. We've spent so long treating romantic love as the only love that counts that we forgot to water everything else.
True love is being accepted as every version of you, even the not so great versions. like you, most of the people in my life who do that are my friends.
Some of the most important relationships in my life are platonic. You learn that they need tending and time just as much as romantic relationships, and are as (if not more) rewarding.
I am not a young woman, but this isn't a gender or age specific topic.
Meaningful relationships are hard to find. Some people who present as "friends" and share warm moments with me still require some transactional reason to connect. Sending an uninvited text is treated unwelcome and weird. Expressing concern is treated as an invasion of the private province between my "friend" and their lover. Any vulnerability is seen as weakness.
Not super supportive, in other words.
To me, someone I can't reach out to just to say "hi" isn't a friend. A transactional relationship is what I have with the dishwasher guy at the big-box store. That's not friendship.
I don't think it's normal. That we're expected to pick our life partners for love instead of economic and dynastic reasons is great. That we're only ever allowed to bond emotionally with our sex partner and expected to treat all other humans as disposable non-entities is tragic.
It's horrible trying to make friends once you're over 22 and out of college.
I know… that is something that I see more and more especially in America. It’s hard to find meaningful relationships… and people have become increasingly unable to tolerate anything. It’s very common for people to pull back at the slightest inconvenience which isn’t what true friendship is at all. Have we become too selfish? Or have we been convinced that we are just workers on an assembly line and everything that gets in the way of our productivity needs to be removed? - We must take a hard look and do something about it. Seeing it and talking about it is a first step.
Wow...this is refreshing but more so, revolutionary. A big severance from "The One and Only Way" that saturates our culture on so many levels. Being able to comfortably "be yourself"--one of the highest forms of "self-love", truly, with your bestie(s)... is also an open invitation for others to do the same--this is world-changing stuff-and literally, just made some of the swirl that surrounds me personally, shift smoothly into place. This will be the start of something wonderful. Thank you for sharing.🙏🦋
Have you seen the show “Dying for Sex“? Finished last night… and OMG. I am still recovering. It was exactly this… the love story between two friends at its most beautiful and eventually devastating. However still inspiring. Please watch it if you haven’t. Profound. It’s with Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate.
I believe that we should pour more into our friendships as women because the beautiful thing about great friendships is that it extends to become family ♥️
This topic reframes romance in a refreshing way by showing that the strongest relationships often grow from genuine friendship. When two people already share trust, humor, emotional safety, and mutual understanding, love becomes more stable and less performative. In many cases, friendship isn’t the opposite of romance it’s the foundation that makes it last.
This was a refreshing read and something I resonate as a young women struggling to form deep, meaningful adult friendships. Maybe the silver lining is now we are recognising this back seat approach to friendship, we can try return to it….
I write about love constantly. Books full of it and what I keep coming back to is that the people who have shown up for me most consistently, most honestly, most fully aren't the people I've dated. They're the ones who've been there through every version of me without needing me to be any particular one.The elaborated love letters. The remembered details. The showing up without being asked. That's not friendship settling for less than romance. That's friendship being the highest form of it. We've spent so long treating romantic love as the only love that counts that we forgot to water everything else.
True love is being accepted as every version of you, even the not so great versions. like you, most of the people in my life who do that are my friends.
Some of the most important relationships in my life are platonic. You learn that they need tending and time just as much as romantic relationships, and are as (if not more) rewarding.
I am not a young woman, but this isn't a gender or age specific topic.
Meaningful relationships are hard to find. Some people who present as "friends" and share warm moments with me still require some transactional reason to connect. Sending an uninvited text is treated unwelcome and weird. Expressing concern is treated as an invasion of the private province between my "friend" and their lover. Any vulnerability is seen as weakness.
Not super supportive, in other words.
To me, someone I can't reach out to just to say "hi" isn't a friend. A transactional relationship is what I have with the dishwasher guy at the big-box store. That's not friendship.
I don't think it's normal. That we're expected to pick our life partners for love instead of economic and dynastic reasons is great. That we're only ever allowed to bond emotionally with our sex partner and expected to treat all other humans as disposable non-entities is tragic.
It's horrible trying to make friends once you're over 22 and out of college.
I know… that is something that I see more and more especially in America. It’s hard to find meaningful relationships… and people have become increasingly unable to tolerate anything. It’s very common for people to pull back at the slightest inconvenience which isn’t what true friendship is at all. Have we become too selfish? Or have we been convinced that we are just workers on an assembly line and everything that gets in the way of our productivity needs to be removed? - We must take a hard look and do something about it. Seeing it and talking about it is a first step.
Wow...this is refreshing but more so, revolutionary. A big severance from "The One and Only Way" that saturates our culture on so many levels. Being able to comfortably "be yourself"--one of the highest forms of "self-love", truly, with your bestie(s)... is also an open invitation for others to do the same--this is world-changing stuff-and literally, just made some of the swirl that surrounds me personally, shift smoothly into place. This will be the start of something wonderful. Thank you for sharing.🙏🦋
Have you seen the show “Dying for Sex“? Finished last night… and OMG. I am still recovering. It was exactly this… the love story between two friends at its most beautiful and eventually devastating. However still inspiring. Please watch it if you haven’t. Profound. It’s with Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate.
🤞🤞🤞
I believe that we should pour more into our friendships as women because the beautiful thing about great friendships is that it extends to become family ♥️
This is an excellent read. Laura Ha!