is having a boyfriend really all that?

platonic and self love is arguably more important than romantic love

No one ever told me that the best love stories might be the ones that don’t involve boys at all. After all, how many times have you heard a girl talk about their fickle ex-boyfriends, yet they still encompass their consciousness. Why have we allowed these men who treated us horrifically to still be held onto the pedestal we have reserved for ‘love and boyfriends’ in our mind. Women’s views on love and the power of relationships are simply the product of our environments. We’ve grown up being marketed to by society, media, and our peers that we wish for love and marriage. Romance novels have cartoonish covers designed to attract a female eye. Movie trailers use songs that are popular amongst their target audience to draw them in. Has society marketed love to us so well that we’ve forgotten we had a choice in what we wanted?

We are taught from a young age that when you are married and have children you go through a sort of ‘re-birth’. You achieve your happy ever after. This cultural script, deeply entrenched in fairy tales and popular media, teaches us that fulfilment is only really once we become mothers, but what if this narrative is less about empowerment and more about control? Feminist theorists like Betty Friedan have long critiqued how society reduces women to their reproductive roles, framing their highest achievement as producing and nurturing the next generation. This idealisation creates a ‘trap’ – a blueprint that can feel both comforting and confining. It suggests that women’s worth is measured by their relationship status and their ability to conform to domestic expectations, rather than by their individuality, friendships, or self-actualisation.

‘To be love is to be known’. I couldn’t tell you a single occasion however where I’ve felt like a man has understood me more than my female friends. They know me in a way no romance ever could. This platonic love is the closest bond to sisterhood that you can achieve. There’s so much love in our lives that we won’t get to keep forever; our parents die, our boyfriends leave, yet siblings see you from birth to death. If given the chance, platonic soulmates who love you loudly and know you intensely will be there for you for as long as they are permitted to be. Romantic love is fleeting, uncertain – but platonic love can be your life’s most enduring anchor. If we can hold men and boyfriends to such pedestals in our mind, we should hold our female friendships closer and cling on to that encompassing feeling of true understanding and unconditional love.

However, if we can see the importance that both men and women have in changing the outlooks of our lives, why can’t we hold ourselves to such importance in our minds and life. After all, you have been with yourself through everything; you’ve hurt together and healed together. Let yourself be the love of your own life. Why must we wait on a man deemed worthy enough to ‘complete’ us. We give so much of ourselves away in the name of love, yet still convince ourselves that we were not enough. What if love isn’t something to earn, or prove, or chase? What if it’s something you already are? The one person who is always guaranteed to be fighting in your corner is you, so allow yourself the same love and appreciation that you can so easily thrust onto others in your life. Solitude is not lonely. Being comfortable in your own company is one of the greatest things you can learn to do. You can be alone, and never be lonely. You’ve been your own witness through every heartbreak and breakdown, and yet, you’re still here. How could that not be love?

People have said to me that putting myself first and caring about how certain situations affect my wellbeing first is self-absorbed, but I would push back on this and pose the question that if you can’t rely on yourself to defend and fight for you, then how can you guarantee others will? Caring for ourselves shouldn’t be deemed negative. There’s a reason they say on planes ‘put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others’ during those pre-flight security checks. We spend so much of our time being everybody else’s safe space and putting them first, that we forget that we’re allowed to take up space as well.

So, next time someone tells you, ‘The right person will come when you least expect it’, maybe ask: ‘What if I’ve already found them?’.

And if that person is you – whole, steady, growing – then maybe you already have everything you need.

Let me ask you again then; is having a boyfriend really all that? Or have you just not realised how much love is already living inside you?