what if romance is just friendship persevering

and you're the only one who thinks it

The Embrace (1917) by Egon Schiele

In adulthood, one of the first and hardest pills I’ve had to swallow is that undeniably and inevitably, friendships will drift apart. It’s true. I’ve had it happen. It’s a slow process—almost like torture. It always starts with the excitement of the first spark. It builds up in the getting-to-know-each-other stage. You exchange things about yourself, your current self, that you hope will connect with your target audience. What kind of music do you like, for example. Have you listened to this artist? It reminded me of you. There are daily conversations about the littlest of things. A random Facebook article. A TikTok. A heated Twitter debate. Have you heard what happened to that actor? / Let’s buy matching jackets— / Let’s go to this cafe when we can!

The spark bubbles up into something tangible, something that used to be formless shaping into a one-syllable word. If you open your mouth wide enough, you’d be able to call yourself friends.

Yet, eventually, as a matter of course, its lifespan shrinks. It’s the lessening urge to share things you used to. The lack of knowing what they’re up to. The gap between outings growing slowly, like the drip of the faucet, until it peters out—to never happen again.

And then you’re left with this weird, tangible thing that might, at any moment, disintegrate back into the nothingness it spawned from. And you’ll disintegrate with it too.

Stare into a fire for more than a minute and it’s clear we humans are ridiculous for thinking we’re solid. We are built from nothing, collapsible in an instant. We’re elements arranged, empty atoms ricocheting, atoms coming and going. We think we’re these tangible things, but really we’re just ghosts walking, dust waiting. Our insides are made of flickered, fickle light.

— How It Feels to Float, Helena Fox

I’ve always considered myself somewhat too attached to my friends, though I might not show it. It’s a deep-seated trepidation that they might leave me behind. Maybe my clinginess is a direct result of my fear of it all ending. Maybe it’s me grieving the end of the friendship that has yet to come to light. Maybe it’s me holding on too tight.

For some reason, I have always romanticized the idea of having a friend group in college so close that we do anything and everything together, no matter the activity. Studying at the library, going out for lunch, doing random errands together, going to different cafes on campus to the point that we know all the best spots. All the best coffee. We say hi to the cashier and she knows our names.

Half of the blame might fall on all the sports anime I’ve consumed in the past decade—one of the reasons why I always cry whenever the third-year graduation scene comes on. In truth, I’ve always craved the kind of community teams like Seidou, Karasuno, and Seirin provide—going through tough times together, always being there for each other, knowing each other at such a base level they will always want to be around one another. I read an article, once, about a loneliness epidemic, and how friendships are made by continuous unplanned interactions and shared vulnerability. In the anime Diamond no Ace, the team lives in close quarters and lives and breathes every day together. Through trials and tribulations, funnily enough, their shared vulnerability connects them to one another. A friendship, in fiction, that will never break. It’s so perfect. What screams baseball more than luck and trust?

Diamond no Ace (2015), In Pursuit, Season 1 Episode 75

I don’t have a sport, so I won’t ever experience a baseball friendship. Neither will I experience a friendship so attached to the hip, because at twenty-one, I’ve realized that everyone is living such different lives. I’m not quite yet used to people moving forward ahead of me, not needing me, working through their own things with only the people they care about the most.

Maybe it says something about me that I have such amazing friends who know me so well and yet I mourn the “what-could-have-been”s—the kinds of friendships where you do everything together. The ones where they take you on such amazing adventures—you start to run out of things to do together.

Some people might call this yearning as my want to have a romantic partner.

---

Today I recall a conversation I had with my friends four years ago when I was talking about how I couldn’t understand the difference between romantic and platonic relationships.

“I really don’t think romantic feelings exist. Love, exists, definitely, but maybe the word ‘romantic’ doesn’t stand on its own. When people talk about romance, isn’t that just the butterflies you get when you become close to someone you really want to become friends with? After being in the relationship for a while, the honeymoon phase wears away, and at the base of it all, it’s your friendship with that person holding it all up. Doesn’t that mean romance is just platonic, loving feelings with a different name?

Barring the acts of intimacy, if you took the engagement in sexual relations out of the equation, what are the considerations you have to make to officially realize you romantically like someone? Is it the level of how much you like them as a person? Because if so, isn't that just the love you have for a friend, but expanded twofold?”

— a paraphrased text I sent to our group chat in 2021

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve never been in a relationship before that I don’t get it, but with many of my friends, I have wanted to do everything together. I want to eat at restaurants. I want to tell them all about the mundane things. I want to hug them and never let go. And—when I find a group of friends I really like, I don’t feel the need to find anyone else to fill that gap. Because I thought we were complete. I know you. You know me. I like how it is. I don’t want to add anyone else to the equation.

This line of thinking is flawed because inescapably, people don’t think of friendship like I do. It’s a common good. You can find it anywhere. There are so many kinds of friendships, so many levels of it, that you can never quite figure out if someone is on the same wavelength as you.

The same article I read on the loneliness epidemic said that as we grow older, the harder and harder it gets to maintain strong relationships the farther we get from childhood. Part of that is that people grow up, have less time for outings, and want more time for their families. Part of it is that eventually, people will pair up into relationships and it’ll feel like you’ve been left behind, all because you thought: We were complete. I know you. You know me. I like how it is.

For them, we weren’t. They will always find something more, something stronger, something rare. When for you it’s always been just this. I like how it is. And then you’re left wondering, will you ever find that strong companionship you’ve always craved for?