Define "romance" when between platonic friends

In My Humble Opinion
1

I just got a note from my best friend with a comment in it that got me to thinking.

He’s coing to visit me in October, and said (paraphrasing) that “… I can’t wait to see you and spend time with someone special, even if it won’t involve romance :-)”

My best friend is a straight boy and I’m not. We’ve been roommates in our past and we’ve been friends for almost 25 years now.

I think you could say that we love each other - like brothers at least. We’ve shared a lot of intense emotional experiences together and know just about every single possible thing about each other that you can know about another person. We’ve seen each other naked in the shower, we’ve each caught the other “coupled” with a bedmate, we’ve each told the other our deepest, darkest secrets and so on.

So, getting back to the idea of the post here - I feel that it’s possible to have “romantic” experiences with a very close friend that never involve sex, physicality or anything else that might be considered to fit the definition if it were to go on between “lovers” or in a “couple” etc.

For instance, my friend an I once spent almost an entire afternoon just sitting on the rocks next to the ocean and alternately talking and just staring at the water and the sky. It was one of those times that you both feel very, very close to each other and are in that place where you are the most comfortable that you can be with someone. I think that’s very romantic.

What do you think? Can you be “romantic” with a platonic friend - or is it just that you’re really, really good friends.

2

I think in a situation like that, “romance” isn’t what was going on, at least in his mind. Whereas, yes, it does seem like a romantic situation, and would very much be so if it was with someone you were romantically involved with, in a scenario like this, I’m pretty sure it was more one of those “Zen moments.”

I’m one of those who believes that there’s no such thing as a “plutonic” relationship between a man and a woman, simple because at some point in time, one or the other is going to develope some level of attraction for the other. Whether they act on it or not is irrelivent, the fact it occurs is undeniable. I’ve never really thought about it between two men, though. I guess it’s possible I’ve shared a few “romantic” moments with some of my gay friends, but to me, it never occurred to me to be romantic, just two guys hanging out (I’m straight, by the way).

I do have one friend who had a really close friend who was gay and totally in love with him. My friend “Stewart” and his buddy would often do things other found rather, well, romantic…like cuddle and stuff. In Stewarts mind, these occassions often happened whenever his friend was going through hard times and was incredible vulnerable, so to him, he was simply being a comforting friend. He didn’t see any romance in it. His friend, on the other hand, was madly in love with him, so for him, it was something more. It’s all a matter of perspective.

If you’re thinking that this visit is going to turn up being a romantic getaway, I would ward off that idea. Some people are very good at ignoring romantic feelings and situations, and I feel if you end up in one, you’re friend isn’t going to have the same idea. If you’re not and just asking ideas about plutonic friends, then I appologise for jumping the gun with that advice, and hope you two have a great visit. Good friends, especially long term friends like that, are a true blessing. Congratulations.

3

I have a friend with whom I’ve had a deeply romantic relationship with in the past, although sex never once came into it for either of us. I’ve known her for 15 years - we’ve slept naked together in the same bed wrapped around each other tight, for comfort. We’ve stayed out all night too often, walking home hand in hand as the sun rises. We’ve kissed often, touching foreheads together with our legs entwined. She sits in my lap when we’re watching tv, and I’d recognise her scent anywhere. I saw her every single day of my life for probably 9 years and when I moved away, it took her over a year to forgive me for deserting her.

Now, we don’t speak more than two or three times a year when we actually manage to visit. The phone or email isn’t enough, but when we do see each other, it all just clicks right back in as if we’d never been apart. I’ve booted lovers out of the apartment just so she can sleep in my arms when visiting. I don’t miss her because I know she’ll always be there. Luckily, I was great friends with her last boyfriend who she was with 12 years, but the new one resents me totally and I can hardly blame him as we know a part of each other that a lover cannot be party to. She is not my best friend but she is the woman I love most in the world. She’s the one who can occasionally make me wish I liked women and wish she liked skinny boys - if desire was there, we’d be perfect. But it’s not and never will be, and it’s wonderful knowing there is someone, somewhere in the world, who will always be as excited to be in my company as I am in theirs.

4

I think you’re intimate with your friend, in that you open yourselves totally to each other, but it isn’t romantic. Romance is a couple. You are two guys who know, like, and trust each other as well as a couple may, but you are still seperate. It’s nice, admirable, but not quite the same. IMO