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Love & Other Friendships


"You can't be in love with someone if they don't love you back."

My friend Jake said those words to me one night in the late '90s. I was at his house and we were, for whatever reason, waxing poetic about love and relationships. Actually, I do know the reason. I was besotted with a guy at the time, and mentioned, in brief passing, that I was in love with him. Jake caught the turn of phrase and felt the need to correct it. He knew the person in question, and knew that the feelings I held were not reciprocated.

Jake didn't explain his comment too deeply (he wasn't really one for such conversations in the first place), but I'll always remember his remark because it stopped me in my tracks. For a time, I'd bristle at the memory of those words but, as the years have gone on, I've come to realize he may have been right. There is, after all, a difference between loving someone, and being in love with them. And love, in and of itself, has many meanings.

And yet, there's a theme I've come across from certain people online, via social media, and typically from younger adults, and that is a disdain for society placing a greater significance on romantic relationships vs platonic ones. On the one hand, this isn't surprising: there's a great desire/push for equality in nearly all aspects of life - why not make love one of them? On the other hand, let's be practical: romantic love is nearly always going to win out.

Aside from rare exceptions, people don't plan their lives around friendships. At least, people who are involved in romantic relationships don't. It's true that some folks who are single may have a greater bond with their other, probably single, friends. But romance will always trump that. When people are romantically involved, they often intertwine their lives in a way that many friendships never do. Couples will move across the country as a joint decision. They will sometimes have kids together. Their priorities as a familial unit take precedence. 

None of this is to diminish friendships. Their importance to human interaction, development and well-being is beyond question. It's just that, well, I'm sorry, but there's no getting away from a ranking scale on this. Romance will often provoke a greater intimacy between two people than will your bog standard friendship. I think is particularly true when it comes to heterosexual males. Granted, much of this is anecdotal, but 1) most conversations I've had with straight men have rarely veered anywhere close to emotions, 2) those that have, concerned the women they've been interested in (and were having problems with), and 3) I've had way more intimate talks with fellow gay men, and they've almost always been about our feelings (not toward each other, but just life in general).

Actual platonic relationships are simply friendships, full stop. I think that some people, and certainly Hollywood, prefer to make it out like platonic affairs are running rampant, that there are simply untold number of people out there with repressed, unspoken romantic feelings for one another, whose love dare not speak its name, if only. But I don't think that's the case, not in a broad sense. Friends are friends, and lovers are lovers.

And, friends can definitely love one another, but only lovers can be in love.




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