Recently, I had a long, in-depth conversation with a friend about one of my favorite subjects: romantic friendship, of which platonic partnerships are a subset, in my mind. Much of the conversation was specific to me and my personal desires, but we also spent a good chunk of time discussing the difference, if any, between a platonic partnership and a nonsexual romantic relationship. That very difference is something I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time and brain power attempting to figure out, and I ultimately landed on the conclusion that there is no universal, objective difference. It depends on the person experiencing the relationship in question, how it is emotionally interpreted. A frustrating conclusion to me at the time.
I want to share how I personally conceptualize the difference, but first, I need to say:
- I don’t actually like the word platonic, but I use it when talking about platonic partnerships because it’s the most convenient word available in the English language. Especially if I’m distinguishing a non-romantic primary partnership from a non-sexual romantic relationship.
- I realized, after talking to my friend, that there is a major drawback to using the term romantic friendship, which comes from academia: it could turn people away from that kind of friendship due to false assumptions they make based on the word romantic, even if they are actually open and willing to engage in it otherwise.
So, let me set the term romantic friendship aside for now and just explain how and why I see platonic partnerships and nonsexual romantic relationships as two different kinds of relationship, no matter how similar they can be.
My friend is not the first person I’ve encountered who’s responded to my description of a platonic partnership with: “Well, that basically sounds like your average romantic relationship without any sex.” Thing is, nonsexual romantic relationships do exist. The people in them very clearly consider them romantic in nature and therefore fundamentally different than their friendships, in an emotional sense. They would have a problem if somebody called their romantic relationships platonic based on the absence of sex. I don’t deny that nonsexual romantic relationships are qualitatively romantic, not platonic, for the people in them. Plenty of people out there would say there’s no such thing as nonsexual romantic relationships, that romantic relationships are by definition sexual, but they’re wrong.
That said, I think platonic partnerships are also real and different from nonsexual romantic relationships, even if observers would be unable to tell the difference just by looking at a pair of platonic partners vs. a romantic couple in a nonsexual relationship. I can’t say the possible differences apply across the board to all people capable of, engaged in, or desiring a nonsexual partnership of some kind. They don’t. All I can tell you is how I see the two relationship types as different.
Nonsexual Romantic Relationships vs. Platonic Partnerships
- Physical attraction
This one’s pretty obvious. Romantic relationships begin with or at the very least include physical attraction. Notice I use the word physical here, not sexual. The rest of America often uses the first to mean the second. I don’t. Physical attraction is focused on a person’s appearance, but that doesn’t always mean a desire for sexual intercourse with the other person. You can be uninterested in or repulsed by sex–for any number of reasons–but still feel physically attracted to people. I can’t imagine being in a romantic relationship with someone I wasn’t physically attracted to. (Mind you, I’m not interested in romantic relationships categorically, but I can still say that if I wanted a girlfriend, I’d have to find her attractive, whether we ever had sex or not.)
Physical attraction is irrelevant in platonic partnerships. It is not necessary, and it’s not the reason you eventually end up with your platonic partner. A platonic partnership begins as a friendship, and we don’t become friends with people because of physical attraction. We may recognize our friends are attractive, we might even be attracted to our friends, but we don’t choose to develop a close friendship with someone because of her looks. And if we don’t find a friend physically attractive, that does not limit the amount of closeness, love, emotional chemistry and attachment, etc between us. We don’t love our attractive friends more than our unattractive friends. The friend who emerges as our best friend, if we are so lucky in adulthood to have one, isn’t by default the one we’re most physically attracted to. That’s not how friendship works, so it’s not how platonic partnerships work.
This is why platonic partnerships are possible between people regardless of their sexual orientations and respective biological sex. I’ll use myself as an example. I’m a lesbian, but that doesn’t mean my platonic life partner has to be a woman. It certainly doesn’t mean my platonic life partner has to be a woman I find good-looking. She could be someone I wouldn’t look twice at on a dating app. And the same goes for my partner: he or she might not find me physically attractive at all, which is fine. And because physical attraction doesn’t factor into platonic partnership formation and feelings, this relationship could absolutely spring up between two people contrary to their sexual orientations. My platonic life partner could be a woman who’s heterosexual or asexual. My platonic life partner could be a man, despite the fact I’m a lesbian. And while I’m sure I would come to be fond of my partner’s appearance out of sentimental attachment, I wouldn’t expect to meet this person and notice his or her appearance. Nor would I consider his or her appearance when deciding if I want the person for a life partner.
A bonus of platonic partnerships: there’s no competition to worry about based on physical attraction. (Potential romantic/sexual relationships with third parties do pose a threat to platonic partnerships, but that’s another blog post.) I’m not going to leave my platonic life partner for somebody I find more physically attractive because physical attraction is obviously so unimportant to me that I chose a platonic life partner in the first place, rather than a romantic/sexual partner. If I see a physically attractive woman, cool. There’s no way in hell she would be even a little bit of a threat to my platonic life partnership.
- Speed of development
Romantic relationships, most of which are sexual, move fast. People often go from strangers to a serious, publicly acknowledged couple in the span of weeks or months. They could decide to move in together or get married within a year or two. They often “fall in love” (which is usually just infatuation) without actually knowing each other. They also break up after only a few months, maybe a year or two. People can fall out of romantic love as quickly as they fell into it–and that’s pretty damn fast. There’s no reason this would be any less true of nonsexual romantic relationships than of sexual romance. While some nonsexual romantic relationships do evolve out of friendship, not all of them do. People who go from strangers to a romantic couple who don’t have sex are likely going to do it at about the same speed as their sexually active counterparts: weeks or months, maybe a year tops.
Friendship is slow-moving, by comparison. Even if you luck out and meet someone you’ve got instant emotional chemistry with. We expect it to be slower. We take our time because we’re usually not desperate for a new friend the way so many people are desperate for a lover/spouse. And there is no external pressure of any kind to speed through a friendship to some specific goal, like cohabitation or marriage. Friendship develops more organically than romantic relationships, on average, and without sex or romantic infatuation, the emotional bond takes more time to form, to deepen, and to become strong. The advantage here is that a serious friendship has more staying power than most romantic relationships. Yes, it takes longer to get to a Serious Level, but once you’re there, you’re far more likely to stay.
So it’s safe to say that most platonic life partnerships will blossom out of friendship that’s older than corresponding romantic relationships ending in marriage. It could easily take a few years, if not longer, for two close friends to reach the point where they want to commit to each other as platonic life partners. By then, they know each other well enough to be sure they’ve got enough personal and practical compatibility and love each other genuinely, which I figure makes it more likely the partnership will succeed.
- Level of eroticism
There’s a very clear difference, as far as I’m concerned, between erotic and non-erotic touch. Most of that difference comes down to energy. Women especially can sense when there’s sexual energy in somebody’s touch we’re receiving vs. when there isn’t, and if we’re talking about forms of touch that aren’t sexual–like cuddling or a casual caress or a massage–then energy is pretty much the only thing that will make them erotic. In other words, there’s a wide range of physical affection that could be either romantic or platonic, and it all depends on the feelings and intent of the people engaging in it. The meaning of the touch changes from one context to another. It’s the kind of physical affection that is loving, caring, and even intimate, but not sexually charged.
On the other hand, there are kinds of touch that, while not sexual (if we define sexual as involving genitalia), are definitely erotic. I’m not going into detail about my personal delineation between the erotic and the sexual here, but suffice to say, erotic touch carries a sexual charge even when it happens outside of a sexual encounter. The erotic can lead to sex and often does, but it can also stand alone.
Nonsexual romantic relationships can still potentially involve a level of eroticism in physical interaction that probably won’t exist in a platonic life partnership. Some people out there who don’t want to have sex still enjoy erotically charged touch and physical affection–like open-mouthed kissing, unclothed cuddling, kissing a partner’s neck or back or [insert other body part here], sucking on a partner’s neck, biting, etc. You get the idea. Erotic touch is the kind that you can easily picture happening in the lead-up to sex or during sex, and it’s the kind of touch you would only ever do with somebody you’re physically attracted to, whether you want to have sexual intercourse or not.
Platonic partnerships don’t carry that energy, broadly speaking. No matter how emotionally profound and intense, how deep and intimate, how loving, it’s not the kind of relationship based on physical or sexual attraction. So it’s highly unlikely the two partners would want to engage in erotic touch, even if they’re otherwise physically affectionate.
Those are the only key differences between nonsexual romance and platonic partnership that I’m certain of. Once upon a time, I would’ve included jealousy on this list, with nonsexual romance being more conducive to jealousy than platonic partnership, but I’ve since decided that how jealous platonic partners might feel over each other varies too widely for me to use jealousy as a differentiator between the two relationship types.
So, yes, the line is thin for me. But those three differences are pretty meaningful.
From the Desk of Marie S. Crosswell 