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.