At a time when the couple ceases to be the sole horizon of fulfilment, friendship is emerging as a form of lasting, chosen and profoundly political partnership.

There was a time when declaring love was enough to legitimise a life. Today, that narrative is crumbling. Spectacular romanticism is tiresome, the public display of couples is tedious, and the very idea of having a boyfriend sometimes seems to belong to a bygone era. In its place, another emotional landscape is emerging, more discreet but infinitely more solid: that of friendships taken seriously, conceived with a long-term perspective, organised around shared projects, concrete commitments and a loyalty without formal promises.
The signs are everywhere. Friends decide to live together, buy an apartment together, pool their finances, sometimes even celebrate their bond with rituals borrowed from <a href="https://www.lofficiel.com/pop-culture/retour-sur-les-25-ans-de-mariage-et-d-amour-entre-victoria-et-david-beckham" target="_blank" rel="noopener">marriage</a> but devoid of any romantic hierarchy. In the collective imagination, travelling with friends has become more desirable than a romantic getaway, and the apparent complicity between certain celebrities (think of the heroines of Sex and the City, or more recently, the friendship displayed by <a href="https://www.lofficiel.com/joaillerie/swarovski-revele-sa-premiere-collaboration-creative-avec-ariana-grande" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ariana Grande</a> and <a href="https://www.lofficiel.com/pop-culture/cynthia-erivo-incarnera-jesus-dans-jesus-christ-superstar-au-hollywood-bowl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cynthia Erivo</a> during their promotional tour for the film <a href="https://www.lofficiel.com/voyage/la-magie-de-wicked-renait-sejourner-dans-le-refuge-enchante-elphaba" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wicked</a> ) arouses as much fascination as the most classic romances. Not because it blurs the lines, but because it suddenly makes them less necessary.
This shift reveals a deeper question: what, fundamentally, is a partner? For a long time, the word designated an ally, someone with whom one shares responsibilities, risks, and a vision. Only gradually did it become synonymous with the figure of a spouse, as if cooperation, support, and loyalty could only exist within the framework of romance. Yet, recent experience has highlighted the illusion inherent in this expectation: no relationship, however loving, can single-handedly fulfil all of our emotional, practical, and existential needs.
The period of withdrawal and collective solitude acted as a brutal revealer. Being confined within a single emotional structure showed its limitations, highlighting the vital importance of a broader relational ecosystem. Friendship, long relegated to the status of a mere afterthought, has once again become a pillar. No longer a sideline to "real life," but a central space where support, continuity and mutual recognition take place.

©Wicked

This growing awareness is compounded by a material reality that cannot be ignored. The cost of living, the housing crisis and increasing insecurity hit hardest those who do not benefit from the traditional structures of marriage. Faced with this, sharing a roof, resources, or projects with friends is not merely a survival strategy: it is a reinvention of home. It's a way of saying that security, mutual support, and planning for the future are not the sole domain of marriage, but can also arise from freely chosen relationships.
This movement is particularly revealing of the transformations taking place in women's lives. When marriage ceases to be an economic or social necessity, it becomes one option among others, subject to a new requirement: that of genuine reciprocity. Yet, many still observe a persistent imbalance in the distribution of domestic, emotional, and mental labour. Friendship, on the other hand, is often built without these unspoken legacies. It imposes neither pre-written roles nor implicit debts. It works because it is voluntary, reversible, and constantly renegotiated.
What makes these bonds so powerful is precisely their lack of guarantee. There's no contract to ensure a friend's loyalty, no institutional recognition to validate the commitment. And yet, the presence is there: in late-night calls, impromptu moves, meticulously planned birthdays, and even in shared silences. A loyalty that owes nothing to social pressure, but everything to the desire to stay.
In a culture that still struggles to give platonic love a symbolic place, the question may not be whether friends are replacing romantic partners. The truth is more unsettling, and more fruitful: friendship has always been the secret blueprint for every successful relationship. The place where reciprocity, care and commitment without possessiveness are learned. Not a second-rate love, but the matrix from which to rethink all our ways of being connected.

Why We Chose Friendship Over Romance

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