Expressing love platonically is severely underrated. It doesn’t make sense to me that love is seen as normal and inherent when people are dating but not when they’re friends. I would argue that love between close friends is just as strong and meaningful as love between romantic partners.
I’m currently taking a writing class — Introduction to Nonfiction — that’s been having us write about people we love. As someone who has never dated anyone in their almost 20 years of life, I originally thought I would have less material to write about than the people in my class who have significant others, but this hasn’t been the case. I know plenty about love because I love my friends, and those relationships are neither less significant nor less important than a romantic relationship.
In Introduction to Nonfiction, one of the prompts we were given was to write about things that “say love.” The structure was based on an essay we read where the author describes little things his family members do that make him feel loved, and we were told to think of a person or people we love and do the same thing.
I thought of the people I live with — Cam, Eva and Kiana — and found many things to write about that, to me, say love. Kiana complaining about how I drive while also trying to give me directions says love. Eva sitting on the balcony and reading me a poem she’s been thinking about says love. Cam setting up their projector for us all to watch a movie says love.
I’m not anti-dating, but I do think platonic love is often overlooked. Especially with Valentine’s Day coming up, I hear so much talk about what a shame it is to be single, and as much as I understand that, I have a hard time seeing it as a bad thing. I’m glad to be single right now; it means I have time to show my friends I love them, and that brings me joy.
When I show my friends I love them, I can honestly get pretty corny. In middle and high school, I used to stay up late on the eve of Thanksgiving so I could send texts at midnight telling my friends I was thankful to have them in my life. I love hand-writing letters to friends, making them gifts and sending them songs and poems that remind me of them, and I don’t really care if it makes me seem sappy.
The way I see it, life’s too short to love someone and not express it to them. I would always rather make a fool out of myself than let someone I love go without knowing it, especially in a world that’s so uncertain.
Maybe the point I want to make is that there’s no hierarchy of love. Nothing makes the love someone and their partner have for each other inherently greater than the love between two friends. The bottom line is that we need to express the love we feel, regardless of whether it’s romantic or platonic.