aporia

The terms “platonic” and “polyamorous” have been used to describe complex relationships between people before any of us were alive. They’re not new terms at all. The individual here is simply taking existing concepts to describe their ideal relationship. I don’t know why that’s so disturbing or depressing to you. 

For many people, friendship is defined as two individuals spending quality time with one another. That could involve going out for drinks on the weekend, but rarely involves a long term commitment as described above. Friendships often become secondary to romantic commitments and/or marriages. 

The majority of my friends are in committed romantic relationships and/or they are married. They feel obligated to their partners first and foremost, as is their right to be. In addition, our society puts an incredible value on heterosexual partnerships between two individuals above any kind of friendship. 

The individual above is describing a commitment between multiple individuals to a platonic relationship. By commitment, they are referring to taking on some of the same responsibilities as one would in a marriage or long term partnership. That is not the same thing as being in a “friend group.”

I continue to have “friend groups” in and outside of work and school. We may be there for each other when we need to be. We may have a lot of fun together. We care about each other. However, we don’t live our lives like a marriage. We are not always together, either – and that’s okay.   

That’s not what the individual above is describing, though. They are using existing terminology which encapsulate very specific experiences in order to express a desire for a specific type of relationship that cannot otherwise be explained using your preferred terminology… (i.e. “friend group”)

…because what you are describing has little to do with their conceptualization of a platonic polyamorous relationship. You are describing expectations you have in a friendship. They are describing a committed relationship wherein resources are shared between multiple individuals. 

You might own or rent housing with a friend, but you might not be committed to doing so forever. You might make decisions and share resources with a friend. You might be there for a friend in desperate times. That doesn’t mean you are committing to them as a partner. 

…and if it comes to a point where you and a friend or friends are involved long term in each other’s lives to the point where you desire to commit yourselves to one another, then that’s perfectly fine – you may choose to still call it a friendship, but you may also want to call it something more fitting. 

Given the societal perception on what a friendship should entail, people might need a term that goes beyond “friendship” to describe their relationship(s) but that does not fall under sexual or romantic labels. Otherwise, “friendship” can be interpreted as “a person I go out and get drinks with on the weekend”

And that’s it. 

For those in committed platonic relationships, polyamorous or not, they might not be content with people thinking that about them. They may also want to differentiate between friendships and committed relationships. It’s their personal business, and it’s not sad that they’d want to do this.

I care about my friends, but I do not have a platonic polyamorous relationship with any of my friend groups. That’s not what we have and it’s not sad that our friendship doesn’t look like that, because a platonic polyamorous relationship doesn’t hold the same exact meaning as “friendship.”

Stop freaking out over it and let people live.

I have friends. And I am in a committed platonic relationship. 

They are not the same thing. 

My friends and I see each other when we can. Sometimes it’s virtual. Sometimes it’s in person (more so before this whole quarantine thing but even then it wasn’t always frequent–sometimes we’d go weeks or even months between visits because that’s how adult life works). 

On the other hand, my partner and I own a house, a car, and six cats together. We’ve lived together for over 11 years. At one point we were engaged, more because it felt expected of us than because it felt right (largely because of pedantic people like the ones in this thread who insist that you’re either romantically involved or you’re “just friends” but that there’s no in-between). 

But there is an in between. We live there. We exist in a perfectly lovely, perfectly valid in-between that is no more or less than friendship or romance, but that does not fit neatly into either one, and you know what? I’m tired of people deciding that just because it doesn’t make sense to them that it must not be “real” or we must be just “special snowflakes” because we can’t just call what we have “just friendship.”

We don’t call it that because that’s not what it is, at least not the way you want it to be. It’s not romantic either, though, and that’s also fine.