Why Don't We Fight for Our Friends the Way We Fight for Romantic Partners?

I once went for a walk with a friend who was telling me about tension with someone close to her. At one point, she said, “I’m not going to tell her that. It’s not like we’re in a relationship.” A year later, the same thing happened between us. From one day to the next, she no longer had time to meet. When I asked if something was wrong, she said everything was fine. But it wasn’t. 

Suddenly her words from that walk came back to me, followed by a sad realization—we say we love our friends. We might even claim we couldn’t live without them. But the moment we have to say, “something between us isn’t working, and I care enough to talk about it,” many of us go quiet and let the resentment fester. We’re willing to go to remarkable lengths for romantic love—therapy, self-help books, couple’s psychometric testing, one difficult conversation after another. We care, so we put in the work. But somehow, the love for a friend doesn’t inspire the same level of effort. 

This happens because we don’t consider friendship a “relationship.” But I’m here to say it is. It has all the same ingredients as romantic love—affection, loyalty, history, emotional intimacy. So why is it normal to fight for romantic love, but not for friendship? 

Amatonormativity: Romantic Partnerships as the Default Life Goal

Part of the answer lies in the way, culturally, that we view romantic love. Today, it feels almost self-evident that your partner should be your best friend, your emotional support, your intellectual equal, an adventure companion and the best lover you’ve ever had. We treat that idea as if it were simply human nature. But historically, it’s a fairly recent concept.

Philosopher Alain de Botton traces the shift back to the early 19th century, when Romanticism elevated love to the primary source of meaning in life. Before then, marriage was often practical, while other relational needs were spread across a wider network: community, extended family, religious life, and, notably, friendships. As Esther Perel observes, rising individualism and declining religious influence in Western societies in the 20th century gradually collapsed that network, until we found ourselves expecting one romantic partner to provide what an entire village once did. That's a lot to ask of one person!

This cultural script is called “amatonormativity”—the assumption that romantic love is the most important relationship in adult life and that everyone should organize their lives around finding and keeping a partner. Once you start noticing it, it’s everywhere. Everything we read, listen to, and watch on Netflix is built around it. The institutions too—hospital visits, inheritance laws, bereavement leave—it’s all designed with the romantic partner in mind. A marriage of six months, in the eyes of the law, can carry more importance than a twenty-year friendship.

Isn’t Friendship Supposed to Be Effortless?

It may also be about how we imagine friendship in the first place. We know that relationships require work, but somehow we tend to reserve that truth for romance, not friendship. Friendship, on the other hand, is supposed to be effortless.

When tension appears between friends, many of us interpret it not as a normal moment of friction between two distinct individuals with their own personalities, needs and preferences, but as a sign to withdraw. Instead of realizing that this connection needs attention, we conclude that a friendship is toxic, or that it has run its course. I've lost count of how many times I brought up an issue with a friend only to be called difficult, or “the one who always has a problem with everything.” As if the expectation is to stay quiet and let things slide instead of actually talking them through.

In one of my favorite comedies, Bridesmaids, we watch Annie and Lillian’s lifelong bond nearly unravel for exactly this reason. They’ve been best friends forever, but as Lillian’s life begins to drift toward a wealthier, shinier world, Annie feels increasingly left behind. The friendship no longer feels effortless. Annie struggles with inadequacy and is scared of losing Lillian, but instead of saying so, she buries the feeling, allowing jealousy and resentment to take the wheel. Her unexpressed emotions leak out sideways and nearly destroy the relationship through a series of escalating disasters. It’s “just” a movie, but the logic is painfully familiar: it feels easier to implode than to speak up. 

No Contract, No Expectations

Part of what makes walking away so easy is the structure of friendship itself. Romantic relationships come with built-in anchors—mortgage, kids, family ties, shared accounts, and let’s not forget, societal expectations. Even when things get hard, there are forces in place that encourage us to stay and work things out. Friendship, most of the time, has almost none of that.

And even when friends do share responsibilities, the exit path still somehow feels easier to take. 

Take my friend, let’s call her Anna. She moved in with her bestie of several years, Laura. After just a few months, Laura started disappearing for days, then weeks at a time, subletting her room to strangers. Anna wasn't happy about it but never said anything. Then one day, Laura told her that she didn't want to live together anymore—she'd already found a new apartment and proposed that the guy currently renting her room just stay full-time. And it all happened over WhatsApp! You can picture Anne's reaction. I can't imagine something like that happening in a romantic relationship. These two had been inseparable for years—and then, from one day to the next, poof. Ghosted like a bad Tinder date.

Brutal endings like that are possible because friendship is one of the few adult relationships that is entirely voluntary. There are no contracts, no expectations about how often you should meet or how disagreements should be handled. When a couple is going through a rough patch, the standard is to encourage conflict resolution. But when a friendship is drifting apart, you're lucky if someone says, “what a shame.”

Conscious Friendship for Different Personalities

Everything seems to be pointing to the same underlying issue: we tend to pour our emotional energy into a romantic relationship and let the rest fend for themselves. But that script is starting to crack. More women, in particular, are stepping outside the amatonormative narrative. They are reclaiming the “spinster” or “cat lady” tropes; singlehood is no longer a source of shame, and women’s circles are popping left and right like mushrooms—sisterhood is on the rise while dating apps are in decline.

And yet, while our values are evolving, our friendship skills haven't quite caught up. We're redefining what matters, but still operating with the old habits—avoiding conflict, downplaying needs, and expecting friendship to just flow effortlessly. We're still not intentional about how we show up for our friends. But we could be, through a concept called “conscious relating.”

Conscious relating is a practice of treating all your relationships as something you actively tend to, rather than something that just happens to you. It means becoming aware of your patterns, saying what is actually true instead of what is convenient, and intentionally investing in the people you love. It’s not in the least bit revolutionary—just unfamiliar in friendships.

One simple way to start updating those habits is to get curious about personality: what do you each actually need from a friend, and how do you tend to react when there is tension? Tools like the TypeFinder® personality test, based on Myers–Briggs, can give you language for this, whether you’re the type who wants to talk everything through right away or the one who needs time to think and cool down. And if you're tired of losing friends to silence; if you value your friendships and want to show up in them more authentically—try these:

• Learn your patterns. Take a personality quiz together and compare notes on how each of you tends to handle conflict, closeness and space. Maybe one of you is the “process it out loud now” type while the other will do anything to avoid confrontation; naming that explicitly can prevent a lot of hurt feelings.
• Say the thing. When something feels off, speak up. Seriously, no issue is too small; don’t let resentment pile up. If that feels too difficult, pull up your personality reports together and let them do some of the talking for you.
• Take responsibility. It takes two to tango. If you’re unsatisfied with how things are, you are part of the problem, but you’re also part of the solution. Get curious and ask questions before your mind writes a story about what it means. Notice how your own fears, motivations and personality might be coloring the story, and check it with your friend instead of treating it as fact.
• Be vulnerable. It's hard to talk about your deepest fears and expose yourself to ridicule or rejection, but for a deeply connected, meaningful friendship, it's indispensable.

You probably already have some practice with these in your romantic relationship—at least in theory. All you need now is the awareness and permission to handle your friendships with an equal amount of care.