I treat my friends like romantic partners and I recommend you do too (2024)

Pulling the final stitch through the hand painted fabric, I felt a sense of pride.

This project – a handmade 30th birthday book – had occupied my every spare minute for the last three weeks, and rightly so.

I’d wanted every page to read: ‘I love you’ in a hundred different ways.

Wanted my recipient to know that they were cherished, important, adored and it had been my honour to witness life by their side.

You might imagine this romantic gesture was for a lover or a traditional romantic partner, but it wasn’t. It was actually for a best friend.

It seems to me that society places far too much emphasis on the importance of sexual-romantic partners. That somehow these relationships are more legitimate, valuable, and worthy of ongoing sustained effort than friendships.

But in my experience that just isn’t true.

My friendships have continually sustained me. They’ve been with me through every demise of a traditionally romantic relationship, through broken legs, prepping me for PhD viva, and on and on.

I first started to take a more critical view of the inherited belief that traditional romantic partners were more important than friendships in my early twenties.

I was studying my joint honours degree in anthropology and sociology and had begun to notice how obsessed Western culture was with ‘being in a relationship’.

Every film, every series, every magazine, every novel, comic, advert, billboard was fixated on the notion.

Apart from being an utterly boring trope, it was also exhausting having the same tired saga of ‘find monogamous sexual love and be satisfied forever’ shoved down my throat at every moment.

What was also becoming apparent was how much of my pain, disappointment, and general ‘meh’ experiences were located in my romantic partnerships. I’d been on more lacklustre dates with one sided conversations than I cared to count.

In contrast, my friendships brought me endless joy, laughter, companionship, and deep love.

At this time in my life, walking to and from my lectures with my friend Rosa became my favourite part of the day. Nobody could make me laugh like them. Our friendship was full of romance– we would paint each other little pictures and prepare picnics for each other.

My friendships therefore became the highest level of priority in my life. And, I’m pleased to say, this reciprocal, platonic romance has continually shown up in my life in a thousand treasured ways.

In 2019 I was hungover at home – thanks to my own idiotic choices – and one of my best friends of 29 years walked over to my house with a homemade curry and a bunch of flowers and a handmade card telling me that I’m a ‘prat’.

For another friend, who was robbed of her graduation ceremony thanks to the pandemic, I organised an entire graduation ceremony in my home. It took weeks to plan and execute.

I handmade her a mortar board cap out of a cereal box and some black fabric, I made her a gown from a bedsheet, and I commissioned a special graduation cake for her. I got her family and friends to record congratulation videos for her and we even had speeches at a lectern, a red carpet, balloons, and a fine buffet.

She told me that nobody had ever done anything so thoughtful for her in her whole life. It was as clear a gesture of love as I could offer.

These are the levels of effort and care that makes me think twice about how I would answer the question: ‘Do you have a partner?’

I am single in the way that this question probably means, but, looking at the rich evidence of my life, I would prefer to answer: ‘Yes, I have at least 10.’

None of this is to say that I haven’t and don’t have traditional partners – when I do, I romance them just the same. This is not an either or dynamic.

But while experiencing a loving connection with a committed sexual partner is awesome, it does not mean it has ‘completed me’ or some such nonsense.

Having a partner in that sense only adds to a life that is already rich with love, connection, witnessing, cheerleading, and solidarity. They will not be the main provider of those life sustaining resources.

Perhaps I am just very comfortably nestled in my own echo chamber, but this cultural ideal of the married monogamous couple – which is deeply rooted in Western notions of family, normalcy, and social worth – does appear to be shifting.

More and more people are awakening to the shortfalls of traditional family dynamics and are becoming inured to the siren call of marriage and respectability. And if you ask me, it’s about time.

My sister and I have talked at length about inventing a ‘marry your mates’ ceremony that ritualises commitment in a public and venerated way just like for regular weddings, but for friends.

I hope for a future not too far away where such things will be commonplace.

Until then I will go on building a future that centres my friendships as the greatest romances in my life.

In fact, myself and two of my best friends (one of whom received the book) are currently making plans for buying a place in the next five to 10 years so we can all live together as we ripen into our 40s and 50s.

We have known each other for over a decade now and are deliberately making committed plans together as life partners, with all of the attendant cherishing and hopes for a long life together.

I’m so grateful that my sense of meaning, deep connection, and being genuinely known is not tied up in one person, a romantic partner, but is instead spread abundantly throughout my circle of close, beloved friends.

It gives me a sense of unshakable power, security, and love and surely that is exactly what everyone deserves.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.

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