If two people aren’t romantically involved, then they’re not friends—they’re just friends. If they want to become romantic, they’ll say, “Let’s be more than friends.” People with friendship at the center of their relationships are unfairly cast as lonely, unappealing, or unfulfilled, spinsters with a choir of cats, or bachelors who never quite matured. This happens when, all the while, research finds that friendship is what gives romantic love its strength and endurance, rather than the other way around.
