Friendship vs Romance

shout out to all the women out there who like men! me too!

Women use friendships as a placeholder for romantic relationships.

Over a year ago, I stumbled upon a tweet claiming that women often use their friendships as substitutes for romantic relationships. Initially, I was deeply unsettled by this notion, prompting me to draft an essay-length response in Google Docs.

The notion that women might replace romantic intimacy with friendships, only to vanish into relationships, struck me as silly. Surely, this couldn't apply universally, and certainly not to me.

I pride myself on investing wholeheartedly in my friendships, cherishing their significance. Many people have told me that they couldn't imagine me in a relationship (a backhanded compliment that inadvertently calls into question my worth. While well-meaning, such comments only ever feel belittling, moreover, considering I'm a Black woman, these ideas seem particularly harsh.) because I would be taking care of my friends for my entire life.

I take great pleasure in my own company. From a young age, I learned to be perfectly content with solitude. Despite not being an only child and never being entirely alone, I've always been good at entertaining myself without needing external interaction. Perhaps this self-sufficiency is why others struggle to envision me in a relationship.

In my nineteen years, I've only harboured one serious crush—spanning six years of hesitant, undefined friendship. Oddly, I consistently claimed that I didn't want a romantic relationship; if he asked me to be his girlfriend, I would have declined. I couldn't explain why; it was just how I felt. I cherished our friendship and the freedom to like him without constraints. Looking back, I am grateful for the friendship we shared.

Reflecting further on that tweet, I wrote in this essay lengthened Word Document:

But as I thought about it more, as I thought of myself more, the way I craved being in a relationship, and how that yearning never truly left me, no matter how often I’d dispute it, I realised that I could quickly become that person. I love my friends and I care for them more than anything in the world, however, it’s always felt as though something was missing, as if that wasn’t enough, as if I wasn’t enough. I’ve never had a best friend, I’ve never had someone call me their best friend, but I’ve wanted many people to be my best friend, I’ve wanted so many people to look at me and say “Yes, her right there that is my favourite person, my best friend. The person I’d run to first, the person I’d tell anything. My number one.” For years all I’ve ever wanted was to have a friend who was my number one and I was theirs, and for years I’ve had a number one but none of them have ever reciprocated that and I just never understood why. Was my care, my love, just not enough? Was I just not the kind of person you ran to when something was wrong? I didn’t want to be told something second all the time, to not be included in the inside jokes, to not have people look at us and be like “Yes, those two are attached at the hip, they are best friends.”

For years, I struggled in many of my friendships. As I've grown from a tween to a teenager and now a young adult, those feelings have eased, but I've come to accept that I can never truly gauge how someone feels about me, and friendships shouldn't be ranked. My friends care for me, and that should be enough. Yet, occasionally, a pang of possessiveness and sadness flares up when I make a new friend, realising I may never be as close to them as I hope because they already have strong connections with others. In those moments, I tend to withdraw.

Last year at university, I befriended two wonderful girls I'm grateful to have met; they made my first year less lonely. They already knew each other before we met, which was fine initially because they weren't close before university. We formed a little trio, spending as much time together as possible before and after classes. However, earlier this year, when we went out together, I realised that what I thought was a trio was actually a duo. I felt like a third wheel the entire time—they shared inside jokes and had codenames I didn't understand. It stung, leaving me feeling more alone than ever.

Deciding that making a fuss over their friendship made less sense than distancing myself, I chose to create some space between us—a step I hadn't taken in years.

Some time ago, I realised a tendency in my friendships: when I feel less important to someone than they are to me, I tend to self-sabotage. I withdraw, isolate myself, and try to sort through my emotions alone. I piece together my thoughts and feelings and then reappear as if nothing happened. I'm not sure why I do this; I hadn't acted that way in years, but I suppose old habits die hard.

I've always yearned for a close friend more than I've ever desired a relationship or a boyfriend. However, there was a recent week or two when I debated with myself about downloading a dating app. I used to judge people who used them during their teens, largely because I've always believed, and still do believe, that university provides ample opportunities to meet people naturally, without needing to resort to dating apps. Yet, there I was, weighing whether or not to download Hinge until I finally mustered the courage to ask a friend for her opinion. She said this:

(as a self-proclaimed perpetual virgin that scared the ever-loving crap out of me LOL)

And that promptly snapped me out of whatever daydreaming I was doing because she was probably right. 

But why is it so embarrassing to actively seek out a romantic connection? Why is it considered embarrassing to admit, "Yes, I want to be in a relationship"? Whether it's using dating apps, joining clubs, or simply expressing this desire to others, it all feels tinged with embarrassment. But why? Why is there shame in wanting to be loved? Why do people in relationships dismiss it as not worth pursuing, claiming you're not missing out, while single individuals advocate for self-love? I already value myself, yet self-love alone doesn't extinguish the longing for companionship. It simply can't. You cannot self-love yourself into not wanting companionship.

In the past week and a half, my yearning has intensified, fuelled by multiple dreams of being in loving, secure, and comforting relationships. I wake up genuinely distraught because that reality isn't mine.

I had been feeling lonely, not because of a lack of friends in my life for once, but because I didn't have a boyfriend.

Two years ago, when I was going through a bout of loneliness that felt all-encompassing, caused by a lack of company, I said this,

"I can understand now why girls sometimes drift from their friends. If they experience the loneliness I feel at times, if they wake up realising that no one will ever know them as deeply as they know others, that no one will ever come close to touching their soul, then I understand why once they find that romantic relationship, that person they can call their own, they're not as present with their friends anymore. I fucking get it.

I truly understand. When you find that one person who doesn't have a thousand other people competing for their attention, other friends they talk to, or new friends vying for their place, I get it. I really do."

Dramatic much?

But you have to understand, that in grade ten when I told my friend she was my best friend and she said I wasn't hers, I was heartbroken. It felt like my entire world was falling apart. I'd always feared that I was looking for too much in my friendships. I yearned for a parabatai¹, a soulmate, a twin flame, a best friend, and it occurred to me that either I was falling short in my friendships, or maybe, just maybe, you could only find what I was looking for in a romantic partner. That thought is terrifying.

Let’s talk about it.

A few days ago, while scrolling through TikTok, I stumbled upon a post by one of my favourite TikTokers, Soleil. She's recently entered a relationship and posted a TikTok where she expressed how much she misses her boyfriend, which was endearing and harmless. However, as I scrolled through the comments, I came across this:

I felt deeply hurt when I read that, and I couldn't understand why. It wasn't because I considered Soleil a close friend—this wasn't some weird parasocial relationship thing. It was because her words made me wonder if any of my friends had ever felt the same way. At that moment, Soleil seemed to speak for all my friends in relationships, and it left me feeling disappointed.

Is this how people feel when they enter relationships? Like their friends are present but somehow not quite enough, overshadowed by the presence of their significant other?

People often argue whether relationships and friendships are alike or not. Personally, I struggle when I take the stance that they are not. It makes me feel guilty to suggest that friendships and romantic relationships aren't interchangeable. It begs the question: is one inherently more fulfilling and significant than the other? Are friendships somehow inadequate when it comes to fulfilling our need for companionship?

There are three primary types of love: Platonic, Romantic, and Familial. I believe that familial and romantic relationships possess qualities that platonic relationships, such as friendships, do not. Recently, I came across a TikTok clip featuring a heated argument between the main characters of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." They exchanged hurtful words that clearly crossed the line, words that, if said to a friend, would likely end the friendship altogether. Even in a romantic relationship, such words might seem irreparable, but somehow, people often find ways to reconcile and mend those relationships (romantic).

From observing romantic relationships, one crucial lesson stands out: the lengths people will go to keep someone in their lives. This might stem from the similarities between familial and romantic bonds — you typically have just one family and one significant other (in monogamous relationships; the same might apply to ethically non-monogamous ones, but I'm not an expert on that). In contrast, friendships are often more plentiful. You might have a best friend, close friends, and others, providing a safety net if one friendship falters. There's always another friend to turn to if one is unavailable. But with family and a romantic partner, there's a clear line delineating these relationships. Your partner has a designated role and title, and with family, well, they're your family.

There are distinct expectations you hold for your family and your romantic partner that you can't necessarily impose on your friends. It's a harsh reality that friendships are excluded from these specific expectations. You have unique standards for your family that differ from what you expect from your friends, but which you can indeed expect from your romantic partner.

I often find myself discussing friendships and relationships, advocating that they are similar, but even I recognise that we hold our friends and partners to different standards. That's why you often hear people say their friends give their boyfriends more leeway, like giving that guy who cheated on her, embarrassed her, and consistently made her feel awful another chance, but not me? Good grief. It reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend about the guy she's dating. While I couldn't personally relate to her reasons for staying with him, I could empathise. In a sense, I understood it. Security.

When my friend and the guy she's dating argue or have disagreements, she doesn't have that instinctual fear of being cut off, which she often feels with friends during conflicts. She knows he won't cut her off; he'll work towards a solution and hear her out before making judgments or considering abandonment. That kind of reassurance isn't always present in friendships. There's security in knowing that you can show your worst side, mess up, stumble, and fall flat on your face, yet there will still be someone there to support you. Someone who won't walk away if you say the wrong thing or use minor grievances as a reason to end a friendship.

There are plenty of things that, if said to a friend instead of a partner, would likely end the friendship in an instant. Before you or I could even blink, the friendship breakup text would probably already be sent.

Eventually, you want your significant other to become part of your family, to build a life together, with or without children. The end goal in relationships often includes marriage or long-term companionship until death. In contrast, friendships lack a definitive end goal. While there are expectations—like kindness and decency—sometimes even those can be overlooked. For instance, on holidays such as Christmas (for those who celebrate), there's no expectation for friends to exchange gifts. But if you tell your friends that your boyfriend didn't get you a Christmas gift, hell will have to freeze over before they ever change their negative view of him because of that. 

When you argue with your partner and they say hurtful things, from my perspective as someone who has never been in a relationship, it might seem too easy to say, "I would never tolerate that." However, I understand that without firsthand experience, it's harder to empathise fully or truly grasp why someone might accept such behaviour.

Think about it: you wouldn't tolerate that same kind of disrespect from your friends as you might from your family—parents or siblings. Rarely would anyone accept a friend speaking to them in the same manner as family members might. Yet, for some reason, we grant leeway for our significant others and family to be repeatedly cruel to us, and we just have to endure it.

Interestingly, there's a moral high ground in friendships where ethics are held in high regard. Your friends are expected to align with your values, yet if your boyfriend turns out to be racist or uses slurs, it often remains hidden until after the breakup. Friendships are perceived as less significant, while paradoxically, friends are often held to higher standards than partners.

Unlike family or romantic relationships, where there's often an expectation of enduring commitment, friendships can vary widely in duration and intensity. Friends aren't obligated to tolerate the same behaviour that might be accepted within family or romantic dynamics.

It's all different kinds of love, but the love that parallels familial and romantic bonds is unique.

While watching that TikTok clip of the couple arguing, my thoughts were conflicted. On one hand, witnessing such behaviour in a friendship would likely provoke strong feelings of betrayal and doubt. I'd question how can I forgive you, why would I forgive you and what do I gain from forgiving you? 

What do you gain from forgiving a significant other? Lifelong companionship lol! Someone who loves you, and all those other benefits that come with being in a romantic relationship (sex if you do that, physical intimacy, commitment, blah blah blah mushy stuff, a soulmate).

And your family? They're your stability. They're your rocks. You don’t choose that.

You'd think friendships and relationships would be handled with the same weight, considering that, unlike your family, you can choose your friends and your significant other. However, it's the opposite. Romantic relationships and family are handled with the same care. You’re with your family until you die; you carry the name your parents gave you and your last name forever. Similarly, you're with your significant other until you die, holding yourself to your vows and the name you share. You may have children together, an even bigger commitment. This person, if you’re lucky, is in your life forever. Even if they leave as a romantic partner, if you have children, you’ll forever share DNA. For goodness' sake, they've been inside you, or you inside them. As my family friend said, you’ve shared pheromones.

Is that why people abandon their friends?

Which brings me to the tweet: Do women use their friends as placeholders for romantic relationships? I can't speak for every woman, only for myself and my relationships. A lot of my friends have boyfriends, and I've never felt pushed aside for a man or like I was holding a place for some imaginary partner yet to come. Maybe I'm just lucky because I know many women who have been sidelined by a friend who is in a relationship.

When I had a crush on the guy I liked for six years, I wanted him. It wasn’t because my friends weren’t important to me; in fact, they were more important to me than he was. But the feelings were different. The yearning was different. When I liked (briefly, barely) a guy nearly two years ago, and we weren't speaking because I’d asked for space (rocky friendship), I still had other friends to talk to—friends who were better to me than he was—but I missed him. I missed the person. I had other friends, but they weren't him. It wasn’t because I valued my friends any less; it was because of the romantic feelings I had for him that I didn’t have for my friends.

As I’ve said multiple times now, I love my friends—more than anything, more than words can express. I grieve my friendships when they end; it feels like losing a limb. But I still want to be in a relationship, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

I know my time will come; I’ve heard it all. "It happens when you least expect it." "It’s all about timing," blah blah blah. I know that. But what happens when I’m always expecting it? When every second person I come across could be the one? What then?

Now that I'm able to say I'm content with my friendships and no longer seeking a mystical person to complete a friendship that doesn’t exist, I know for a fact that I don’t and won’t use my friends as placeholders. People who feel the way I did might, and that's okay, but they might spend a lifetime searching for what they think is missing before realising all they need are a few good friends and stability within themselves. If they never come to that realisation and find what they're looking for in a boyfriend, good for them—as long as they don't forget their friends.

Ultimately, some women may unintentionally use their friends as placeholders for romantic relationships. I don't think it's right, and I condemn it. However, I also think there's more to it than that.

Men are often bewildered by the dynamics of our relationships and quick to assert their loyalty because they don't "cycle through friends every other day." The American dream, this Western ideal, prioritises having a partner—ideally a cisgender heterosexual white man, but any partner that is a cisgender heterosexual man fits the mould. It's about a man and a woman in a committed relationship; friendship doesn't even factor into this dream, let alone relationship dynamics and gender identities that "stray" from the "social norm."

Although friendships with other women (friendships with anyone!) can be hard to navigate, they are often beautiful. Many people, including myself, long for close female friends—a comfortable place where they can be themselves without judgment. I feel that we, as women, often give up too easily on our relationships with each other. When you're younger, you frequently hear girls say it's easier being friends with guys or that boys are less drama. I don’t think that's the case.

Navigating the world as a woman, when it feels like the odds are against you and everyone has something to say about your femininity, whether right or wrong, can be tough. When boys suddenly become important and you're called names behind whispered hands, made fun of for liking a boy band, or questioned about your knowledge of Weezer or Nirvana when you try to be different, it’s easy to take out your frustrations on other women. To blame them for your nonconformity. (Hello internalised misogyny!)

A family friend recently shared with me that her romantic relationship has helped her understand and improve her relationships with her girlfriends. She's learned to extend the same grace she gives her boyfriend during arguments with her friends. Now, she approaches conflicts with her friends by addressing the situation rather than the person, just like she does with her boyfriend. They handle things as a team. I’ve always said that if being right becomes more important than being friends, then that friendship is doomed. Many people like my family friend apply this principle to their romantic relationships, reminding themselves that they’re fighting the problem, not their partner. But they often fail to extend the same attitude to their friendships.

So no, not all women use their romantic relationships as substitutes for their friendships. I know this for a fact. I have amazing friends in relationships, and I've never felt neglected by any of them.

The relationships I have with other women form the backbone of my life—from my mother and closest friend to the sisters I've chosen, not bound by blood.

I believe these women who forsake sisterhood simply yearn for love, taught that this is the sole route to seek it: abandon everyone and channel all energy into a man. For them, maintaining a relationship with a boyfriend feels simpler than with a friend. A boyfriend always listens without judgment, and consistently makes time for them—it's addictive to feel deeply desired, to hold someone's undivided 24/7 attention, knowing it's exclusively yours.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with acknowledging that your significant other and your friends make you feel different things. They are two completely different relationships, but people often misunderstand this. Just as you have issues with your friends, you will have issues with your partner. While the issues might not be the same, you should still afford your friends the same grace you give your partner when the problem is trivial.

I understand that my friends' relationships with their boyfriends are different from their relationships with me. I’ve had crushes before; I know that can’t compare to the companionship of a significant other. But I would never ditch my friend for a crush, and I’d never ditch my friend for a boyfriend.

But I pity my sisters who do, so this is all said in defence of women who love men. This is me trying to understand where they’re coming from, judgment-free.

I think once people understand that you can have both a friend and a boyfriend, a lot more friendships will survive their mates getting into relationships. I’m not going to throw a fit if my friend spends more time with her boyfriend than with me. I won’t fault her for that. All I ask is that she doesn’t forget she has a friend in me and that friendships require nourishment, just like her relationship with her boyfriend.

That’s it from me! This is a bit all over the place, but please feel free to share your thoughts on this topic, I would love to hear them! :)

I think this post is a lot longer than my usual ones, but I just had so much to say on this topic, and so much more that I didn’t even get to articulate. Also, a big shout out to Soleil for being down bad for her boyfriend, I wouldn’t have finished this piece (which I’ve been writing for nearly three years!!!) without her TikTok. And thank you, Wilhelmina, for reviewing this and providing me with such valuable insights.

I've shared a lot of my personal feelings in this piece because I wanted to make it personable to people who may have felt like me at any point in their lives!

Men are not the end-all-be-all. Love is. All forms of it!

Also, alsooooo here’s something that Wilhelmina said that nearly made me cry and kinda opened my third eye LOL:

1. https://shadowhunterstv.fandom.com/wiki/Parabatai#:~:text=A%20parabatai%20is%20a%20pair,few%20choose%20to%20have%20one.