the pace of human connection
on romantic friendships
A little over a year ago, I propositioned several friends about trying to live together (or at the very least, near each other). It was a nerve-wracking moment: I’d obsessed over the “right moment” to bring it up for weeks; I rehearsed my talking points with N beforehand.
I settled on inviting them to an event at the New York Public Library, Library After Hours: Uncensored, at which I would be presenting a reading alongside several amazing Substack writers. I put my friends’ names on the guest list, told them they could use the staff entrance instead of the public one. The NYPL played 16mm films; guests danced in a reading room under a gigantic Christmas tree; cocktails and wine flowed. I was really trying to signal that I was a ~cool girl~ with access to ~cool events~ and wouldn’t they want to build a ~cool life~ together??
We’re inundated with dating advice and dating coaches—there are dozens of scripts for how to DTR in dating but far fewer for how to ask for more intimacy from friends. But the feature I want most in life is romance—that feeling of possibility, of adventure, of endless depth—in all my relationships, platonic or otherwise. I don’t need to know exactly where we’re going, but I want to know we’re going somewhere.
This romantic friendship isn’t a myth. Abraham Lincoln wrote to one of his friends, “You know my desire to befriend you is everlasting that I will never cease while I know how to do anything.” Herman Melville claimed Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours.” This wasn’t homoerotic; this was just how men communicated at the time:
Your spouse was the person you built a home with, raised kids with, went out into society with — not necessarily someone you shared your deepest fears, insecurities, desires and dreams with. That’s what your friends were for. They were your soul mates.
As the institution of marriage shifted from economic to romantic motivations, romantic facets of friendship were recategorized as marital duties. Your spouse was now expected to be the sole romantic provider in your life. It became weird to expect—or even want—romance from your friends.
I remember wanting to build a life with a childhood friend but recognizing I could never tell her that. It would be too forward, maybe even too controlling. Besides, what if she misinterpreted it as me being in love with her and freaked out and withdrew from the friendship altogether and then I’d be alone? Better to say nothing, stick to the existing friendship scripts—even though I wanted so much more.
I’ve been watching Adults on FX, a series about five friends in their twenties living together in a house in Queens and navigating adulthood. Adults is the latest fixture in the longstanding genre of “friends in NYC tackle life together,” a Gen Z update on Friends, Girls, How I Met Your Mother, etc. (Was Sex and the City the first of this ilk?) I’ll be the first to admit I’ve watched them all. I am obsessed with the genre, the lifestyle, the vision.
Especially the vision. I didn’t appreciate how visionary these shows were at the time. Back then, my college roommate and I would watch HIMYM on our IKEA couch together every week, and I’d walk ten minutes to another friend’s dorm a few days later to catch up on Gossip Girl. Every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday was spent getting ready fifteen feet away from my roommate doing the same exact thing before a night out. We blasted getting-ready music before GRWM was a widespread acronym. The ease with which our parallel lives intertwined was unparalleled. How could I have known then that it would be the last time I lived the vision I saw on our screens?