Queer platonic love is the relationship status we should be talking about

Built on care, affection, and a sense of intimacy that go beyond how traditional social structures define romance, queer platonic relationships are just as significant and nurturing

Friendships are perhaps the most universal and accessible relationships we experience. From childhood through old age, friendships persist without the rigid legal or social structures that define romance, marriage, or birth families. Perhaps that very fluidity of a lack of a singular definition is what makes friendship inherently queer. 

The Long History of Friendship as Love

In Indian cinema, friendships have long been romanticised in ways that push against the rigid categorisations of love. Think of Jai and Veeru in Sholay (1975), belting out ‘Yeh Dosti, Hum Nahin Todenge,’ an ode to unwavering companionship. Or AR Rahman’s Mustafa Mustafa, a song that, for many who grew up consuming Tamizh pop culture in the 1990s and 2000s, became an anthem of friendship. The song is from Kadhal Desam (1996), a Tamil film about a love triangle that strains a friendship. But instead of pitting love against friendship in a zero-sum game, the movie ultimately affirms that friendship is just as—if not more—important. Perhaps it was Challengers before Challengers (2024) existed, at least for millennial folx like me!

These cultural moments celebrate friendships not as placeholders for something greater but as profound connections in their own right. They remind us that love, care, and devotion don’t have to be exclusive to romantic or sexual relationships.

Queer platonic relationships (QPRs) take this idea even further, offering an alternative model of deep, intentional connection—one that prioritises emotional intimacy, mutual support, and chosen commitment over romantic or sexual exclusivity. While QPRs aren’t new, they are often most chosen and visibly championed by asexual and aromantic individuals—people who have long questioned the assumption that life must be structured around a single grand romance. Why should romantic love be the primary bond we nurture and protect? Why is sexual fidelity to one partner seen as life’s central commitment?

As psychological counselor Sahiti Gavarikar (she/her) explains, “Queering platonicity means rethinking the hierarchy that places romantic relationships above all else. For many LGBTQ+ people, chosen family and deep friendships are just as, if not more, significant than biological family or romantic partnerships. These relationships create vital support networks, offer spaces for authentic self-expression, and expand our understanding of intimacy and care. 

Yet, even beyond the ace and aro communities, QPRs resonate with a growing number of people who recognise a simple but radical truth: we desperately need friends.

The Loneliness Epidemic and the Lost Art of Friendship

The reality is that many of us are struggling to sustain deep connections. Our 20s and 30s are often consumed by the pursuit of career growth, romantic relationships, and personal goals, leaving friendships neglected in the margins. We assume we’ll make new friends when we move cities, start new jobs, or join new social circles. But do we really?

According to research commissioned by Bumble’s friend-finding mode, Bumble For Friends, 66 per cent of Gen Z respondents report having met their friends online—nearly twice the national average. The same study found that while 60 per cent of respondents want to find new friends, 52 per cent haven’t made a single new friend in the past year. Friendship has become an equation we hope we will find naturally, rather than something we actively invest in. When conflicts arise, we don’t often fight to resolve them as we might with a romantic partner; instead, we tend to distance ourselves, cut people off, and move on.

And yet, we know how essential friendships are to our well-being. The lack of meaningful friendships fuels the so-called ‘male loneliness epidemic’ that is discussed on social media frequently. However, it affects people of all genders. For those who identify as queer, loneliness isn’t just about isolation—it’s about the absence of spaces where they can exist freely. For B (he/him), a queer man in his late 20s living in Bengaluru, this feeling can seem inescapable. “Growing up as a queer man in a society where heterosexuality is the norm can be incredibly lonely. Without people who share similar lived experiences, that sense of alienation only deepens.”

He points to several factors that amplify this loneliness: growing up with little to no representation of queer men in pop culture, the lingering stigma around queerness, the scarcity of safe spaces, and the constant need to prioritize safety over personal desires. “When you don’t see yourself reflected anywhere, loneliness sets in early. It signals a lack of acceptance, forcing us to keep our guard up and making it harder to form real connections or exist in spaces where we truly belong. The pressure to prioritize our safety from people’s extreme reactions [to our queerness] over acting on personal desires for expression only worsens this isolation. The constant need to assess people, conversations, and environments can be exhausting, making it difficult to be one's authentic self.”

Rigid notions of masculinity add another layer to this struggle. Many queer men grow up without relatable models of emotional vulnerability, making it harder to unlearn restraint and seek out intimacy in friendships. Sahiti explains, “The male loneliness epidemic appears to be related to a variety of factors—lack of or deprioritising relational skills, cultural and social ideas about what male friendships should look like, and strict gender roles that discourage men from talking about their feelings and expressing vulnerability in their relationships.” She adds that queer men face additional barriers. “They may feel alienated from ‘traditional’ male spaces and bonding rituals—either because they don’t share these interests or due to concerns about their safety. Internalised homophobia can also create distance, as queer men may struggle with feelings of shame and guilt when forming close friendships with other men. Additionally, the hypersexualisation of male-male relationships makes it harder for queer men to discuss emotions and delicate concerns with friends, for fear of how it might be interpreted.”

Yet, for many, friendship isn’t just about companionship—it becomes a lifeline, evolving into chosen family, a network of care, a space where queerness doesn’t need to be explained or defended, but simply accepted. But building and sustaining these connections isn’t always easy, queer or otherwise. As a culture, we often struggle to articulate our emotional needs within friendships, to show up for each other with consistency, and to value platonic love in a world that insists romance should be our ultimate pursuit.

Sustaining meaningful platonic connections is often treated as an afterthought, overshadowed by the cultural emphasis on romance as life’s ultimate relationship goal. Friendship, unlike romantic or familial bonds, lacks the same structural support—there are no legal or social frameworks that prioritise it, no clear milestones that mark its significance. Instead, many people find themselves struggling to maintain long-term friendships, even when they deeply value them.

Sahiti adds, “People might be struggling to sustain deep platonic connections for several reasons: cultural prioritisation of romantic relationships over friendships, lack of social scripts for maintaining long-term platonic intimacy, work pressures and family obligations, capitalistic expectations, geographic mobility and physical distance, a fear of vulnerability and emotional intimacy, and a lack of structural support for friendship (compared to marriage/family).”

The Legal and Social Invisibility of Queer Platonic Love

For all the emphasis on chosen family and deep friendships, institutional structures rarely account for platonic relationships in tangible ways. In 2023, writer Sara Murphy shared in The New York Times how she struggled to make legal arrangements that honored her close friendships. She wrote:

“For years, I’ve envisioned leaving all of my assets to my friends… Making a will that honored my love for them felt overwhelmingly complicated, especially when ‘intestate succession’ laws, which govern inheritance if a person dies without a will, stop at relatives by blood, adoption, or marriage. No statute considers a nonrelative.”

Legal systems worldwide prioritise relationships bound by blood, marriage, or adoption. Platonic relationships, no matter how enduring or significant, are rarely considered in estate planning, next-of-kin decisions, or life insurance payouts.

A case in Sweden in 2022 challenged this legal oversight. A court ruled in favour of a queer woman’s platonic partner, recognising their long-term domestic relationship as valid grounds for inheritance rights, despite the woman’s birth family’s objection. While verdicts like this offer hope for broader recognition, queer platonic relationships (QPRs) still face invisibility and discrimination in societies that refuse to acknowledge love outside of heteronormative or amatonormative (the idea that romantic relationships are the most important) structures. Many in QPRs aren’t necessarily seeking legal or ceremonial validation, but the absence of institutional recognition makes it harder to access material security and social legitimacy. 

Friendship, especially queer friendship, has long served as an alternative care system, but it isn’t always free from power imbalances or unspoken expectations. Karachi-based writer Fizza Ghanchi (they/she) explores this in their project Have You Ever Worshipped a Friend(ship), a shrine dedicated to friendship as an act of devotion. “In one way or the other, I have been writing or thinking about friendship as a phenomenon that challenges many hierarchical, conformist orders,” they explain. Their installation, created during an artist residency at Kaalo.101 in Nepal, merged elements of spiritual symbolism from both Patan and Karachi along with confessionals, text, photographs of trees and friends, and letters hung around the shrine, inviting visitors to reflect on the relationships that sustain them. “Where it allows space for an alternative care system, [friendship] can also mimic and/or, in some cases, even enhance previous oppressive structures,” notes Fizza.

This tension—between the liberatory potential of friendship and the ways it can still replicate harmful dynamics—underscores why conversations around boundaries, fluidity, and even friend breakups are so crucial. Because friendships aren’t given the same social or legal sanction as romantic or familial relationships, the difficulties within them often go unrecognised. Boundaries that might feel arbitrary to outsiders can, in reality, mark the line between care and codependency, support and control. Without clear frameworks, navigating these nuances can be difficult, and when friendships fracture, the grief is rarely acknowledged. By celebrating friendship, modeling healthy relationships, and making space for discussions around emotional labour and autonomy, we can move toward a culture that values intimacy in all its forms—not just the ones deemed most legitimate.

Stories That Challenge the Romance Hierarchy

In 2022, Gaysi Family produced,Being Queerfor Audible, featuring a piece by an aro-ace author, H (she/her), which the writer of this feature article co-curated and edited. The story follows a young woman who questions the societal expectation that love must always be romantic. A deeply personal reflection on an intense friendship makes her explore asexuality and different forms of attraction beyond the heteronormative script.

H’s journey into queerness wasn’t defined by romantic or sexual experiences but by a slow unraveling of the assumptions she had absorbed from the media and her peers. “When I hit puberty  everyone around me started having crushes and urges, I could never really relate to.” Instead, she often felt the pressure to fabricate crushes just to fit in. It wasn’t until she discovered Alice Oseman’s novels, particularly Loveless, that things began to click. “She writes fiction extensively on queer love, and that opened my eyes to being an ace, or maybe even demisexual,” explains H.

The book helped her articulate her experiences and feel seen for the first time, validating the importance of platonic intimacy—the kind of deep affection and physical closeness—like holding hands, hugging, and sharing space, that isn’t necessarily romantic or sexual but is just as meaningful. For H, queerness isn’t just about identity—it’s about questioning the rigid structures that elevate romantic love above all else. Her words highlight the reality that for many aro-ace people, friendships are their love stories—and those narratives deserve just as much space.

What Happens When We Prioritise Queer Platonic Love?

QPRs challenge the notion that intimacy must be romantic or sexual to be real, valid, or deserving of commitment. They remind us that love isn’t just about desire—it’s about care, about showing up, about choosing each other over and over again.

Many queer platonic relationships are also built on access intimacy, a term coined by Mia Mingus, a queer disabled writer and educator, on her blog Leaving Evidence. She describes it as an “elusive, hard to describe feeling when someone else gets your access needs.” This kind of deep, intuitive understanding is often forged between people with shared lived experiences—whether that’s navigating disability, queerness, mental health struggles, or systemic marginalisation. Access intimacy isn’t just about practical accommodations; it’s about an unspoken ease, the kind that allows people to exist in each other’s presence without needing to constantly explain themselves.

For many queer, disabled, and marginalised folx, this understanding becomes the foundation of their closest relationships. Friendships and QPRs often evolve into care networks where people look out for one another in ways that go beyond conventional friendships. These relationships are about survival and building interdependent structures of care in a world that doesn’t always provide them.

B describes how forming friendships within queer spaces has allowed him to experience this kind of ease. “I have only a few queer friends, as I’m still in the process of coming out and exploring queer spaces. But even in this short span of time, the experience feels different from my friendships with cis-het people.Being around people who genuinely relate to my existence is liberating. I feel seen and don’t have to keep my guard up when talking about anything. The trust I’ve been able to establish with other queer people is intimate, as I’ve had the chance to be vulnerable with them.”

For many, this level of trust and shared understanding is what makes queer friendships and chosen family so essential. These relationships offer a space where vulnerability isn’t a risk—it’s a given, a foundation for care that extends beyond just emotional connection to tangible, everyday survival. As Sahiti points out, “Queer friendships might blur ‘traditional boundaries’ seen in normative friendships. Since there is often a deeper understanding of marginalisation and shared experiences, there might also be more awareness and questioning of relationship norms. There may be more willingness to question the ‘relationship hierarchy’ and ‘relationship escalator.’”

The ‘relationship escalator’ refers to the set of social expectations that romantic relationships are meant to follow—casual dating should lead to exclusivity, then cohabitation, then marriage, then children, all reinforcing the idea that romantic love is the ultimate goal. Friendships, on the other hand, lack a comparable script. There’s no clear path for how they should evolve, no milestone that signals deepening commitment in the way anniversaries or engagements do. Because queer people have historically been excluded from traditional relationship structures, they’ve often had to redefine intimacy on their own terms. In doing so, they create space for expansive, deeply committed relationships that aren’t bound by societal expectations.

Fizza takes this critique further, connecting the importance of romantic relationships over capitalism itself. “The family system ensures we prioritise finding a romantic partner to marry and make a family with, and that ensures we keep participating in capitalist labour, which leaves almost no space or time for friendships that are anti-capitalist in many ways,” they explain. Capitalism and culture work together to reinforce relationship structures that serve patriarchal and economic systems—heteronormative romantic love is not just idealised, but reproduced in ways that sustain labour markets, inheritance structures, and social stability. Friendship, in contrast, disrupts this model. It is less easily commodified, more resistant to institutional control, and, when prioritised, can shift relational paradigms in radical ways.

When friendships are given the same weight as romantic or familial bonds, they challenge the assumption that love and care must be transactional or fit neatly into prescribed roles. They offer alternative ways of building community, distributing care, and imagining futures that aren’t dictated by the demands of work, marriage, or nuclear family structures. By queering friendships, we create space for relationships rooted in choice, reciprocity, and fluidity—ones that are not just about survival, but about reimagining what deep connection can look like beyond the structures imposed on us.

And this is precisely why queer platonic relationships—and friendships, in general—deserve recognition. They’re not placeholders for ‘real’ relationships. They are real relationships, built on love, care, and a radical reimagining of intimacy outside of the narrow scripts we’ve been conditioned to accept.

Perhaps it’s time we stop treating friendship as secondary. Perhaps it’s time we celebrate queer platonic love as the profound, transformative force that it is.

Curated by Gaysi Family | Illustration: Anjali Nair

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