Ah yes, Valentine’s Day: a day that people either look forward to or dread because they either have a significant other or they don’t. Although I am in a very happy relationship with my boyfriend of two years, I absolutely love spending time on Valentine’s Day with not only my partner, but with friends as well.
We tend to quite literally romanticize Valentine’s Day, and treat it as a day where only romantic couples get together and spend the day together. But Valentine’s hasn’t always been about romantic relationships, historians suspect (and there are a few stories and legends that may be the true origins of this holiday). I like to think of Valentine’s Day as a way to show my love and appreciation for not just my partner, but also my friends. Platonic relationships have always been precious to me, and I cherish each and every one I have.
According to Sarah Fielding, a freelance writer who focuses on mental health and women’s issues, “a platonic relationship is one without romance but is still loving, loyal, respectful, and honest.” It sounds like platonic relationships are almost the same as romantic relationships except without the romance part, and you’d be right. But there’s more to platonic relationships than just having a close bond with someone, and not having romantic feelings involved. Someone you platonically love will be with you through thick and thin, and support and help you with your struggles. They are someone who cares about you and loves you for who you are. Most importantly, they make you feel like you matter and that you deserve all the love they can give and more. Platonic relationships are valuable, precious, and pure. They allow us to experience life and friendship to the fullest without the pressure of finding romantic love someday (and pressure when you may overthink your partner’s views on you when you first start dating). Platonic relationships provide happiness, comfort, love, understanding and much more.
In my first-year of high school, I had a fateful encounter with someone who later became my best friend for the next five years. Initially, they had introduced themself to me because my mom was their mom’s dentist. But despite that fact, we found we had so much in common and hit it off really well. Throughout our friendship, we’ve held onto the important qualities of a platonic relationship which include honesty, respect, comfort, understanding, loyalty and love overall. My platonic relationship with my best friend is something I hold close to my heart because we’ve been through it all together: crying, ranting, laughing, crushes, school dances, fangirling about our favorite series, and most importantly, being with each other through thick and thin. Sure, both of us are in romantic relationships. But what matters to us is that we’d never grow apart from each other and we’d never give up on each other.
I actually think the strongest romantic relationships start off as platonic ones. I had first met my boyfriend in our first-year of high school, when we ended up in the same Japanese language class. I wasn’t necessarily attracted romantically to him back then, but I was platonically attracted to them. As we got closer over the years, that’s when I realized I was romantically attracted to him. You could say that we practically had the friends-to-lovers trope. In fact, we value our friendship a little more than our romance. We don’t necessarily like to put our romantic relationship on a pedestal and brag to others about it. We bond over our common interests through watching cartoons together, building LEGO sets, visiting art museums, and playing music together (they’re a music composition major and percussionist, and I play piano and sing). We consider each other our best friend and retain those friendship qualities: honesty, respect, comfort, understanding, loyalty, and love. Both platonically and romantically. Because we think of each other as a best friend and not just a romantic partner, we focus more on our friendship dynamic rather than the romance dynamic and that’s what makes our relationship stronger (which is great because we are long-distance after all).
This Valentine’s Day, take the time to greet not only your significant other, but also all your loved ones. Cherish those platonic relationships because, after all, they can provide much happiness, comfort and build a good foundation for a potential romantic relationship.