"Love is not meant to be hierarchical."
"Love is not meant to be hierarchical."
Why does society prioritize romantic relationships over all others — especially platonic ones?
In Bombay; we call the last two years of high school "junior college" and your degree years "senior/degree college". My MA is when I went to uni. I chose to go to a college across my city (Bombay is HUGE when you really think about it), far away from my home and my school. I had one friend walking in those doors.
Soon, I'd found my people. And I remember, in our second year, we celebrated Friendship Day — we made each other bookmarks, ones I still have to this day. It was incredibly dorky, but I am very fond of that memory because I didn't have much luck making friends in school.
Sometime during my BA, I watched Parks and Recreation. That meant the next time Feb 13 came around, I was gonna make us all celebrate Galentines Day.
Everyone in my group was single then, so we went and got some drinks, cheap Indochinese food that was definitely bad for our health and our gut, but we had a lot of fun. Again, a bit dorky but still a cherished memory.
This year, as Valentine's Day came around, Google Photos reminded me of those memories. Now, most of my friends are in relationships, around the world on different continents, or just plain busy. And it made me think a little more about friendships in adulthood — something our society doesn't seem to value as much as romantic relationships.
Romantic love > Platonic love
From a very early age, we're taught to "settle" in life. Not "settle for someone", but "get settled". That's code for a nice 9-5 job, a life partner, and two kids (preferably one of each gender so you "complete the whole set:).
It's all fun and games until you enter your early 20s, and then suddenly, everyone around you is either coupled up or seeking someone. Not that that isn't okay, but it fascinates me greatly — we put so much importance on finding and nurturing a romantic relationship that often we let go of our friends to cater to the one person who's supposed to be our everything.
How many of us haven't had friends who've gotten into relationships, and suddenly we're seeing less and less of them? It goes from frequent hangouts to maybe once a year or whenever they're in the city. In a way, it makes sense.
Our society teaches us to prioritize romantic relationships over every other kind. If I remember correctly, somewhere in the Bible, they say that you become one — like you're absorbed into each other or something once you marry. I know it means well, but I can't help but think about how that's not really sustainable.
Making one person your everything puts a tremendous amount of pressure on them. They're expected to be your best friend, your partner, your confidant, your go-to for advice on things they may not even know just because our culture treats romantic relationships as number one.
So when we spend all our time building our romantic relationships, investing all our time and energy into this one person (or two or many, polyamory is a thing too), obviously our friendships fall through the cracks.
But who's always there to pick up the pieces of your heart, whether it's a job rejection or a tinder date ghost story? It's probably your friends or your siblings — who are also often mildly tossed aside when you start dating or getting into a long-term relationship.
Why aren’t friendships given more importance in adulthood?
Rationally, we all know the importance of our friends. That's why we went out of our comfort zones in kindergarten, school, college, or at work to befriend them in the first place. They're our anchors when the waters get choppy, and when you need support outside your family. For some (like me), my friends are family — blood doesn't matter where bonds do.
The obvious psychological benefits of nurturing and continuing your friendships in adulthood are immense — they literally help you live longer. A strong social support system can improve your health and reduce your risk of depression and high blood pressure — who knew getting together for coffee had health benefits too?
Friendships in adulthood are really hard sometimes
Sometimes, if you've escaped the convention of prioritizing romantic relationships, you'll still find friendships fading once you enter adulthood. Not turning-18-adulthood, but living-on-your-own-paying-your-bills adulthood.
It’s because we all have a limited number of hours in our day. Unless you're lucky enough to work or live with your friends, the time and energy you have to meet your friends or chat with them decrease the busier you get. The bandwidth we have gets lower and lower every year, as does the amount of free time you have — babies, elderly parents, partners, jobs — so many things dictate our lives now.
"When I was younger, friendship was easy. I wrote letters with colored gel pens to friends sitting right next to me. I made locker collages on birthdays and talked on the phone for hours. Everyone's feelings were carefully, meticulously (if not obsessively) catered to."
Now, as an adult, I have a job and bills and responsibilities outside of the universe of best friendships. Time really does fly, just like my parents said it would. With each minute that gets eaten by adulthood, one more good intention does, too. It is remarkable how quickly it becomes too late to send that card; that text; that wedding, housewarming or baby present. It's terrifying how easy it is not to call or show up to things that matter. — Friendships are hard.
Now, despite all this if you’ve still somehow managed to stay friends you might find that you, your friend or your friendship has changed. You can go from texting someone every day to a text a month. There are many articles, blog posts, and how-tos on getting over breakups, divorces, and whatnot. But there isn't a good guide for accepting that friendships change over time and that you have to move on to the new way of being friends with them.
"I lost my best friend 3 years ago- not lost as in dead but lost as in we only text each other on our birthdays now. Movies and books don't tell you that a friendship dying is like the sinking of a ship, you try to get higher and higher and hold onto the rails and unanswered texts, the captain tries to steer it to safety and salvage pieces of two broken hearts until you're left with memories of what once was.
Movies and books also don't tell you that friendships don't just end after one fight or incident, it's like the rusting of a bridge, the slow decay of flesh and bones and secrets. It took weeks, months- until one day I woke up and I realized I hadn't thought of her in a while." - Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire
So today, two-ish days after Galentines Day and after the global day for love and price-gouging roses and chocolates, I wanted to talk about how important friendships are in our lives.
When I was younger, I had a shitty habit of rating the people closest to me — XYZ as #1, ABC as #2 and so on. After doing some much needed growing up, I realized you can't rank people. You can make your partner your first priority, sure, but you cannot pit them against your friends who you've probably known longer than your partner.
"Many of those who place a friendship at the center of their life find that their most significant relationship is incomprehensible to others. But these friendships can be models for how we as a society might expand our conceptions of intimacy and care."
Everyone has and deserves space in your life — and there is space, just to be clear, no matter what society tells us. Platonic love is just as important as romantic love and it’s important we take efforts to nurture our friendships as we do our romantic relationships.
Call up a friend today. Make your friends a priority too. After all, platonic love is one of the best feelings in the world.
Penny for your thoughts?
Your anonymous feedback helps me improve. TIA!
Reader's Corner:
Here's what Sumedha from The Wordy Habitat had to say about last week’s issue about the way we treat romance readers & writers:
“This was a great read, Nia! I’m a huge romance reader—have been for years—and it took me a long time to own up to reading romance. Like you, I used to give other books’ names as current reads. Last year, when I was posting about my romance and smutty reads, one of my friends from college responded to my IG story and said she hopes she can one day talk as openly as me. She is someone whom I see as bold and confident.
In the grand scheme of this, ridiculing romance books enough that women never say it out loud may not seem huge because we don’t make a big deal out of it. But it impacts just about everybody. When you said that romance books are ridiculed because they’re all about women, you’re so right. Hopefully things get better as more and more of us stop caring about others’ opinions on romance.”
Weekly Faves! 💌
More of the Closeness Lines drawing I shared above — parents, your dog, one night stand, etc.
One more lofi music website to give you company as you work/read/study. (h/t Vidya from The Curious Bunch)
A bunch of creative people exist over on Tumblr. Three of them wrote this absolutely lovely short story (?) about gods & friendship that you need to read today. TY to this redditor for putting it in one piece here.
Is anyone else an overthinker, too? Here's why we overthink.
Here's a list of 14 goal setting and tracking apps that can help you set, visualize, and work towards your goals.
Here's my 2022 vision board that has a bunch of helpful reminders and messages, so choose what you need for this week:
P.S. This is your surprise link of the week!
That’s all for this week — thanks for reading!
If you enjoyed this edition, please give it a like below! 💜