We collect all kinds of friends as we move through this crazy thing called life. Childhood friends who no longer fit but you can’t walk away from, and those who know everything about you but stand by you anyway. There are good friends, so-so friends and those you’ll know and love for a season, such as those from a particular job or mothers’ group.
Then, if you’re lucky enough, you’ll come across one who makes you feel (to borrow a phrase from my 13-year-old daughter) “like a poached egg that’s been stabbed with a fork and oozing love”. It’s a colourful way of describing that friend who makes you feel utterly lovesick.
I do not remember the specifics of the first time I met my friend; I couldn’t tell you what we spoke about, what we wore or who else was at the table. I only remember a feeling of looking into her face as she spoke and feeling an all-consuming sense of knowing, of understanding that she was my person. I oozed like that aforementioned poached egg, and in the days and weeks thereafter, my heart raced anytime she called or emailed.
“You’re acting like you’ve fallen in love,” my husband quipped some weeks later when he caught me squealing (I never squeal) at a text from my new friend. I thought it over for a moment. “Well, I guess in a way I have. I think I’m in platonic love.”
In our society, when we talk about falling in love, we only ever seem to talk about falling in romantic love. Not to mention the conventional markers that put these experiences into neat, marketable boxes. In a movie, for example, there will commonly be a meet-cute (a scene in which the two people destined to be together meet for the first time, often under funny or cute circumstances), the excited flutters in the stomach, the agonising reflection that goes along with wondering, “Do they love me too?” and the all-important search for The One.
Hardly anyone ever sings (or writes a screenplay) about falling in platonic love with a friend. There doesn’t even seem to be a word for it (let’s face it, platonic love not only sounds odd, it raises a million questions).
For the record, nope, I’m not attracted to my friend in a romantic way – although I can imagine living together with our cats and a crapload of sewing patterns long after our respective husbands have shuffled off this mortal coil, I just hope we’d be in separate bedrooms. The beauty of falling in platonic love with your friend is that it’s free of attraction, lust and anything else complicated – it feels pure, free and joyful.
When she says, “I love you”, my imaginary tail wags like that of an over-excited cocker spaniel and I can’t respond quickly enough
I value my friend’s kindness, intelligence, empathy and tireless championing of others. When she says, “I love you” (and she says it often because that’s the kind of person she is), my imaginary tail wags like that of an over-excited cocker spaniel and I can’t respond quickly enough.
The signs of falling in platonic love are the same as falling in romantic love, minus the physical attraction. The best way I can describe it is: a deep longing to be in their orbit until the end of days.
My daughters are at an age now where they’re learning for themselves what a good – and what a toxic – friend looks like, and I showcase my own special friendship as the perfect specimen of the former. “See this?” I’ll shout whenever I get an especially lovely text from my friend. “This is what a good friend looks like.”
“Find someone who leaves you with a spring in your step every time you see them,” I’ll say after I come home, beaming, from a dinner or a dance-off with my friend.
“Wow, you two really love each other,” my 13-year-old responds, shaking her head at the intensity of our love-fest. She doesn’t think it strange, but lovely; she covets the same for herself.
When I think about the journey my girls have ahead of them, like any good mother I wish for them to have health, happiness, success and love. More than anything, I want them to find the kind of friend who makes them want to shout about their love from the rooftops (or on a very public forum such as this one). In a world fraught with difficulties and complications, it’s the least we deserve.
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