You Can't Force Romance Onto Platonic Friendships

As a child and adolescent, I didn’t spend much time cultivating relationships with others. But, since leaving my hometown after high school to explore the world without the security of family, I’ve learned how much good relationships mean to me. My friends are important because it’s how I’m able to survive. I cherish the people I can be vulnerable with, learn from, and have space to make mistakes with. Building these types of relationships isn’t contingent on gender because there is a need for both male and female friendships in my life.

I truly believe guys and girls can have totally platonic relationships that are meaningful, healthy, and equally beneficial. I’ve been fortunate enough to experience these friendships throughout my life as I am sure most people reading this have. So, it always surprises me when someone insists that I turn my platonic friendships into romantic ones.

I always find this input from usually well-meaning people, to be a microaggression toward my singleness. When people see my singleness as a problem to be solved they attempt to “fix it” by trying to make any guy I have a good relationship with, fit like a jigsaw puzzle. We’ve all played with puzzles as a child so you know what it’s like to try to force a piece into a position that it doesn’t belong. And when it doesn’t work out, we move on to a new piece that “looks like it might fit.”

But, my life and more importantly, my love life isn’t for others to try to force options that don’t fit. Again, my singleness isn’t a problem… at least not for me. However, it disappoints me when others see it that way and are so set on changing it.

Why are people so wrapped up in other people’s singleness? Why does singleness make people so uncomfortable?

I get it, we see it in movies, hear it from “relationship gurus,” and are even taught in church that there is a much more important emphasis on romantic love than platonic love. Even our friends and family insist that, if you are friends with someone long enough, that at some point, it should evolve into something more.

We say friendships are important but, culturally we diminish their worth and sadly, it leaves no room for single people to live full lives while making genuine connections with others of the opposite sex.

But, also this kind of pressure leads to unhealthy ways of how people learn to have “platonic” relationships.

I’ve felt this pressure in my own life as my casual social media updates about a male neighbor piqued the interest of my well-meaning Facebook friends who quickly turned our day- to- day interactions into a hypothetical love story and married us off despite my objections and his obvious unavailability. I insist that we truly are “just friends.” I am a believer that people enter our lives to help us along our journeys, and though our bond may only be seasonal, it’s a relationship I am grateful to have at this moment in my life.

I understand the lighthearted fascination surrounding my #NeighoborNews stories because they tend to show consistent compassion, support, and humor between a male and female. However, for someone who may not feel as though their worth is valid during their single season, this kind of persistent reinforcement can have dangerous consequences.

I know because I’ve been there before. Looking back, my most toxic relationship, filled with emotional and verbal abuse, happened as a result of the pressures from my close friends at the time.

My ex and I’s relationship began as friends among a group of mutual friends who liked to have fun and party together. But, because we vibed so well during social interactions over time, we obliged when our friends encouraged us to take things further. In my heart, I knew it wasn’t what I wanted but after some persistent “he’s good for you,” and “don’t miss your blessing” from my girls, I ignored my intuition because I believed maybe they saw something I didn’t.

I allowed friends who were not comfortable in their single season to project their desires onto me. That, along with my own insecurities made me believe that moments of fun, humor, drinks, and nice gestures equated to a need to be romantically attached to the wrong person. I found myself staying in a relationship with a man who publicly humiliated (in the presence of those same friends) me, berated me, and disrespected me only to prove to myself and our friends that they were right about us.

I learned a lot about myself and relationships during that period of my life and since then, I’ve had to do a lot of unlearning and I think there is some unlearning that we need to do socially.

In the meantime, I hope you are more conscious of the messages you are sending your single friends.

And remember, sometimes he really is just a friend and that’s ok.