Friendship Can't Replace Romantic Love

A hill I'll die on. Or at least put up a good fight.

Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a healing newsletter for 80s babies by Shani Silver. This newsletter does not publish free content, but if you’d like to read it you can subscribe here. Thank you for enjoying the work of independent writers.

Never a naked wall in New Orleans.

Societal trends change all the time. Not as frequently as the seasons, or as often as opinions on the proper width and rise of our denim, but in a slow and very predictable way, just before we get sick of one thing, another will emerge with a buzz to take its place. For all my exhaustion with the bloated centering of engagements and weddings, somewhere around the pandemic when everyone was suddenly forced to hang out with only their romantic partner, friendship emerged as the relationship that “really mattered.” And I didn’t fall for it.

Yes, friendship is essential to a balanced human existence. I love my friends and I’m very grateful for their company and the fact that they let me text them when a price at the grocery store has leapt three dollars for no reason. At my big age I’ve suddenly found myself with an abundant friend roster that I haven’t enjoyed in my lifetime until now. My living room was bursting at the seams on my birthday and for a minute I thought we were there to celebrate someone else. But if you think that I think these women are enough to replace my genuine, human desire for romantic love with a man, you’re nuts, babe.