Have you ever found yourself after a breakup, crying and Instagram stalking your ex, still hanging out at that park you knew they liked in something of a forlorn hope of bumping into each other; all the while observing how everyone else appears to be bouncing back beautifully? Asking for a friend of course. Breakups can be incredibly hard sometimes, but it is very important to remember that we do not always carry the entire blame for the struggle that follows. Love should be taught more by our culture, perhaps experiencing a breakup would not seem so grizzly if we had resources to learn what love really is.
I was in my early twenties when I had to cope with a break up and, oh man, did I wallow! Every thought about the ex seemed to haunt me and I just would not stop crying - even when trying to move on with someone new. I would go to the gym and hop on the elliptical, only letting my brain become emptied of everything else happening around me. I felt totally worthless, as my self-worth solely relied on whether I had someone to date for a few months - even though it barely was considered a "real" relationship. Worse yet, without a romantic partner I constructed my own value lacking. I was definitely still trying to make it through my post-breakup grief, but I had hoped I can take some solace in the fact that I managed at least one good thing during this difficult time. I suggested to my friend Heather one evening at the bar, maybe we could start a wellness group with our friends. We could meet up and do things together to help elevate our well-being - meditation, cooking, yoga - something which I thought would be great for me personally following my break-up. Heather, to my surprise, had a positive agreement when I suggested starting a wellness group. That was the beginning of a life-altering experience for me! Every week we convened and the featured activity of the week rotated among us. I took a mindfulness walk, while one friend hosted snacks, another had us do yoga, and still another led us in vision board construction. Ultimately, through our collective wellbeing group, we sought to heal me among ourselves. Reliable friendship such as ours has proven to be the most therapeutic cure for my personal breakup, more so than any of the other things I thought might be beneficial such as meditation, yoga, or cooking. Weekly meet-ups with people whom I cared about and who also cared for me gave me peace and joy that no other techniques could provide.
Questioning all I had been taught about love, I found myself feeling unworthy and lacking without a romantic partner, when in reality every week I encountered evidence of my worth and value through the friendship and support from my wellness group. Still, how could and why should finding a spouse be considered more valuable than the love and affection of good friends? Without romantic love, my work was based solely on the prospect of finding a special someone. For me, finding that passionate and ideal companionship meant everything - there was no other form of love without it. We are all taught that romantic love is the highest form of love, needing one person to complete us. However, what has been neglected is platonic love – a type of bond not taken seriously and overlooked in the gap between leaving behind nuclear families and finding new ones. Questioning my experiences, I started to wonder: what is the source of this story and what effect does it have on us?
Years later, I had achieved my PhD in Counseling Psychology and I began writing a book on how to make and keep friends. As I delved into the research and historical text, I grew to gain better insight into the steady devaluation of friendship Western culture has experienced due to its favoritism towards romance. Love was arguably not a part of marriage before the 1800s. Instead, family members chose a spouse based on what resources they could bring or gain through uniting families. Honor was also taken into consideration when selecting the perfect match. At the core of these agreements and collaborations was not love, but it was indeed practicality. It was once an unimaginable concept that people would seek a love-based relationship when making choices regarding their partner; but as history has progressed, it was this romantic rationale that has taken precedence. Stephanie Coons, the historian, succinctly summarizes this evolution. Marriage and friendship were two different things, but they often intersected due to love. Although this emotion was not always a necessary component of matrimony, it could still prove to be a crucial part of many close relationships. At the time, friends would engage in activities such as holding hands, crafting love letters, and etching their names on trees - all of which was commonplace. Nowadays though, attending to these romantic gestures is no longer the norm. I cannot explain it, but I should know the awkwardness of loving my friends personally. I have always had a deep bond with my best friend; one that feels like we have known each other in many lives and always will. So on her birthday, I wrote her a greeting card expressing my love and this special connection. As I contemplated the card, and about loving my friend too deeply, I felt a deep sense of shame. Not wanting to allow her to know how much I really cared for her, I placed the item in my basket and suppressed any idea of giving it to her.
We get far less permission now to openly express our love and affection to our friends compared to how we are encouraged to do so with our spouses. But the rise of homophobia as we know it today can be attributed to the societal frameworks we now live in. These frameworks help to foster a climate where oppressive attitudes, actions, and messages are represented more freely than ever before. Before 1867, no idea of "straight" or "gay" had yet come into existence. People who had sex with someone of the same sex were stigmatized, but did not suffer discrimination for actually or even allegedly being gay. Given their platonic relationship, friends were able to express affection for each other in a variety of ways, such as holding hands, cuddling, and writing love letters without any actual sexual activity, implied or otherwise. Richard von Kraft Ebbing and Sigmund Freud are two prominent psychiatrists responsible for causing modern disruption in friendships and much of psychology, as both argue that same-sex love is a form of sexual disorders. Moreover, these two men also proposed that sexual orientation was actually a form of identity, made up of certain experiences and livelihoods. Being open and honest about our affection for those we care about has been difficult ever since; we fear that expressing too much love may be misinterpreted as a romantic interest. Hence, the relationship dynamics between friends has shifted to an undercurrent of apprehension and mistrust. We still heavily cherish our friends despite the inability to conceptualize romantic idealization present in them; consequently, resulting in an intense longing with whom we would want to spend all of our time. Still, sometimes it can be difficult for us to talk about our emotions openly with one another, however we feel as though it is important to simply share how we feel for one another.
Love is something that permeates our past and our present, yet the hierarchical structures surrounding it are weakening and weakening. We, now, find ourselves with a dizzying range of perspective on what it should be or how it should function - leaving us uncertain of where we stand and where we should stand. Romantic love might as well be superior to platonic love in every single way possible; because not only has it been a part of history throughout friendship, but also it has the capacity to invoke much stronger emotions and feelings. Likewise, finding a spouse can be very much more important than finding friends, even when historically we have needed an entire community to feel whole. So, although community was key, companionship with a spouse is vital for personal fulfilment and social satisfaction. Ideally, a spouse should be the person to fulfill us emotionally and provide us with the intimacy and love we need; however, that does not mean that friends cannot play an equally important role in our lives. Even historically friendship has provided an incredibly strong foundation of love and support. Spouses may not necessarily be a source of intense or unwavering intimacy for women, with same-sex best friends often providing stronger feelings in that respect. Even now, even the connection to their same-sex best friends for men provides relaxation and a bond somehow stronger than what they share with their spouses.
Love should take precedence over any hierarchical structure that we have imposed upon it. But what do you think we should about it? Love needs to be conceptualized more than once so that no form is ever deemed inferior or superior to each other again. In other words, differing forms of love should all be regarded equally with the same level of respect and appreciation. I think we need to break down the pre-existing boundaries associated with what we deem to be appropriate forms of love between our spouses and close friends. We should encourage and celebrate a broad range of love in all relationships as a start! Going on a date does not only have to be with a spouse, it can also be done with our friends. So why does not we give that option more thought? Flying has long been considered a great means to travel long distances and visit our friends from afar. So, just like we would be comfortable with going on a trip to visit our romantic partner, we should also feel equally comfortable going on trips specifically for visiting our friends. Marriage can be challenging and conflicts with friends and spouses must be approached in open feelings, rather than avoiding resolution by ghosting over and over again. We should feel safe and secure when expressing our love for our friends. Instead of keeping those emotions tucked away, we ought to at least have the courage to share that love through written forms like letters. Giving ourselves permission to truly express what we truly feel is important and can lead to great rewards within our relationships as well.
Allowing ourselves to make our decisions based on compatibility rather than sexual attraction when choosing a life partner can also help us to level out the hierarchy placed on love. Swedish queer activist Andy Nordgren was the first to propose the concept of relationship anarchy. This concept involves parting from restricting relational conventions and instead, creating our own relationship choices by choosing which relationships we want to prioritize in life. We should carefully select a life partner connected to us in various ways, whether they are a best friend or future spouse. Compatibility is of utmost importance when deciding, allowing us to have a long-lasting relationship. Friends can do normalized things like buy a house and have kids together, further strengthening the bond between them. But before we get those angry tweets from each other and more people, I feel like it is important to clarify the following words of wisdom: I am not suggesting that we do away with marriages or rush into a divorce. What I am really advocating here is giving people the choice to explore other avenues beyond traditional marriage for whom they choose to spend their lives with.
To level the love hierarchical structure even better, recognizing that in some cases platonic love is enough is especially a necessary acknowledgement. Even if your relationship status has changed, such as being single, divorced, or widowed; it does not mean that you somehow have a lesser life or fewer significant relationships in it. Singlehood can be seen not just as a transition to something else, but rather as being an outcome beautiful and meaningful in its own way. It gives many of us the opportunity to enjoy special moments with our friends that we might otherwise not have time for if we were in or striving for relationships. Friendship can often seem insignificant; comparable to art, philosophy and even the universe itself like C.S Lewis suggested. We must deeply consider if platonic love is enough to get us through - because in the end, it may just be.
If I had never honored a ranking system for love, then my life would have likely been remarkably different. All the while I had love, so my worth had never been dependent on my ability to find a romantic partner - thus feeling confidence and independence this way was something that never occurred to me. Without you, my friends, I would never feel such heartbreaking grief or this deep depression when it comes to navigating through romantic relationships. Instead, I would feel whole knowing that I do not have to rely on just "the one", but instead find strength from the many. Thank you for showing me the way!
See also: https://mygodsentangels.com/