“Love” does not mean “romance.”

By Gracelyn Skilling ’26

We place a huge importance on romance.

We have a whole holiday for it. We have over a thousand apps that help you find it. It’s the highest-grossing genre in literature year after year (Wyatt). Even our laws have a soft spot for it: over a thousand federal benefits and protections apply exclusively to married couples (“Defense of Marriage”). Our movies, too, tell us that there’s nothing true love can’t do: whether it’s resurrecting Snow White, breaking the infinite time loop in Groundhog’s Day, or letting Neo control the Matrix. Basically, in the words of the Beatles, “All you need is love.”

That’s all well and dandy—except, in all this hullabaloo about falling in love, we seem to have forgotten about another, equally important kind of relationship: friendship. 

You’ve probably heard of the so-called “loneliness epidemic,” declared by the US Surgeon General in 2023. A poll from the American Psychiatric Association found that 1 in 3 Americans feel lonely at least weekly, and 1 in 10 experience loneliness every day—numbers that only continue to grow (“New APA Poll”). As of a 2021 survey, the percentage of US adults without close friends has quadrupled since 1990, reaching  12% (Cox). Part of the reason for this issue is American culture’s ever-growing devaluation of platonic relationships—friendship—in favor of romantic ones.

Types of relationships are often viewed hierarchically, with significant others at the top and friends below that. As a result, common phrases such as “just friends,” or conversely, “more than friends,” treat these connections as something of lesser value than romantic partners. However, there’s really no reason to suggest that platonic relationships should be any less important than romantic ones—rather, we tend to expect them to be so and accordingly neglect them.

Interestingly, that hasn’t always been the case. Between the 18th and early 20th centuries, intimate friendships were more common in the Western world—a period author Rhiana Cohen refers to as “the heyday of passionate, devoted same-sex friendships” (Cohen). This came to be for a number of likely reasons: for one thing, back then, marriage arrangements were often a matter of practicality, not love; and there’s also the fact that men and women existed in distinct and separate social spheres, making same-sex friendships more accessible and expected. These bygone friendships also looked different: according to author Marisa Franco, activities we now associate exclusively with romantic relationships—cuddling, hand-holding, addressing letters with “my love”—were perfectly normal among platonic relationships (Cohen). Even rings were exchanged between friends—such ‘friendship rings’ were popularized during the Victorian era among well-to-do women and men alike (Cardin). As historian Richard Godbeer notes, “Americans then did not assume—as they now do—that people who are in love with one another must want to have sex.” 

It was around the turn of the 20th century that intimate friendships “lost their innocence”; among other sociocultural factors, intimacy between friends became taboo for fear of portraying homoerotic desire, a sentiment that more or less lingers today. Which, as psychologist Marisa G. Franco, PhD, proposes, is a loss: “When we view behaviors that create intimacy—being vulnerable, buying gifts, taking someone out on a date—as only appropriate for a romantic relationship, we end up limiting the potential of our friendships. Many of us could really benefit from blurring the lines between the two” (Abrams). The past “heyday” of passionate friendships—as well as the many people that exist today who have built their lives around friendships rather than a marriage—shows us the potential of non-romantic relationships, if only we’re willing to broaden our gaze beyond our tunnel vision on romance. Who’s to say that wanting to kiss someone is the prerequisite that decides the capacity of your love for that person? 

Friendship is more important than you might think. Research from around the world has shown that friendships and social connections in general are one of the most reliable predictors of mental and physical well-being. A meta-analysis of over 308,000 people found that having no friends or poor-quality friendships makes you twice as likely to die prematurely, a risk factor greater than smoking 20 cigarettes a day (Abrams). 

Importantly, romantic relationships are not a replacement for friendships, despite the apocryphal hierarchy we tend to put them in. In fact, lacking friends is actually detrimental to one’s relationship, as it places a disproportionate amount of pressure on it. As psychotherapist Esther Perel writes, “When we channel all our intimate needs into one person, we actually stand to make the relationship more vulnerable” (Cohen). Realistically, a single person can’t provide everything one needs—emotional support, advice, self-discovery, shared interests, etc.—yet, this is what we’ve come to expect. 

We expect romantic love to be the be-all, end-all of life itself—the pinnacle of human experience, the ultimate achievement of human emotion. Love has become so inextricably intertwined with romance that we’ve come to think of the words as one and the same. Love is kissing; love is roses; love is marriage. But in reality, these are only a few forms that love can take. In an age of increasing loneliness, it would do us good to recognize friendship for what it is: a separate, equally important form of love.

Works Cited

Abrams, Zara. “The science of why friendships keep us healthy.” American Psychological Association, 1 Jun. 2023, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/06/cover-story-science-friendship. 

Cardin, Dinah. “Reproducing 19th-century friendship rings from PEM’s collection.” Peabody Essex Museum, 9 Dec. 2025, https://www.pem.org/blog/reproducing-19th-century-friendship-rings-from-pems-collection-available-for-the-holidays. 

Cohen, Rhaina. “What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?” The Atlantic, 20 Oct. 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/10/people-who-prioritize-friendship-over-romance/616779/. 

Cox, Daniel A. “The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss.” Survey Center on American Life, 8 Jun. 2021, https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-american-friendship-change-challenges-and-loss/. 

“Defense of Marriage Act: Update to Prior Report.” U.S. Government Accountability Office, 23 Jan. 2004, https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-04-353r. 

“New APA Poll: One in Three Americans Feels Lonely Every Week.” American Psychiatric Association, 30 Jan. 2024, https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/news-releases/new-apa-poll-one-in-three-americans-feels-lonely-e. 

Wyatt, Leslie J. “The Billion-Dollar Genre: Why Romance Writing Matters.”Writer’s Digest, 11 Aug. 2025, https://www.writersdigest.com/the-billion-dollar-genre-why-romance-writing-matters. 

Image credit: Farzin Yarahmadi