Friendship is important for everyone

I had a very weird experience recently. I saw a call from an organizer for a friendship-centric book bundle. This seemed ideal for me, because if you’ve read the Iamos Trilogy, you’ll know that friendship is one of the core themes. For Isaak, Henry, and Tamara, much of their character arcs in Different Worlds and New World focus on things like the struggles of maintaining friendships when your world is falling apart; questions like can a friend group remain friends when the “anchor friend” is no longer in the picture; and how can a friendship be reforged after a long time apart, when things have changed for everyone? And for Nadin, having grown up in isolation with no one besides Ceilos and Gitrin for company, much of her story arc across the whole series focuses on friends you choose versus “friends” through forced proximity. She learns what friends are and how to become a friend. Probably informed by my own experience as an aroace for whom friendship and family are the most essential bonds, beyond the main story’s action and intrigue, friendship is the most important theme through the entire series.

But though the organizer said nothing about this in the initial bundle call, when I went to fill out the form to join in the bundle, there was an extra criterion: There could be no romance.

Based on the timing, I am guessing this was probably an anti-Valentine’s Day bundle, so that probably makes sense. But I am frustrated by the fact that this was not the info the organizer led with. Instead, the focus was entirely on friendship.

Something about this has been bothering me in the weeks since. Because while likely unintentional, there’s a strong implication here that friendship and romance are antithetical. That if you’ve got a partner, friendship is no longer an important part of your life. And if you value friends, you can’t have a romantic partner.

This is extremely unhealthy, and in the real world, it’s also not true—or rather, it’s not true for well-adjusted people.^[1]Important note, especially if any teen readers happen to find this: If your friends are people who drop their friends when they start dating someone, find new friends! That is not the sort of person … Continue reading Friendship is a vital part of the human experience, and as society has fractured over the past several decades, it has become increasingly difficult for people (particular millennials and zoomers) to foster, leading to an increase in loneliness and mental health problems.

We need more books with a focus on friendship, but if we only depict (or prioritize) friendship in exclusion of romantic partnerships, a false dichotomy is formed: You can only have one. It creates the illusion of a relationship hierarchy where you can’t have strong friendships unless you’re unpartnered. While the bundle was not billed as exclusively aromantic-centered, the implication of prohibiting romance is that if there are any alloromantic protagonists in these books, while they may value friendship now… that value will disappear if they find a partner in the future? That’s pretty damn grim, especially considering the fact that according to statistics, 99% of the human population is alloromantic and for the vast majority, if they do not have a partner currently, they want one.

I am an aroace person. I do not date, I do not have a partner. I am forty years old now; this is not something that’s suddenly going to change. But I have a rich, full life, in large part because I have a very large friend group, and these friendships are deep and personal, not superficial. But I am the only aroace in my friend group. Everyone else either has a partner or is actively seeking one. Our friendships are not any less valuable because of them being partnered. In fact, partnership can widen the friendship net. For example, several years ago, I was talking about my POTS diagnosis and one of my friends from my gamer group said, “Hey, my wife has POTS. Can I give her your phone number so you can connect about it?” His wife has now become one of my very best friends, and we text daily. This is a friendship that never would have formed if not for their romantic relationship.

Another example is my sister. IRL, we do almost everything together, including share a friend group. This has not changed since she got married. My sister places a high value on friendship. She has maintained friendships with most of her closest friends from college despite graduating almost fifteen years ago. Many of them came to her wedding. She and her husband had an enormous wedding party and the only family members in it were me and his stepbrother. The rest were friends. Since they’ve gotten married, my brother-in-law has maintained his friendship-centric activities, such as playing in trading card game tournaments, and my sister continues to meet up with her besties multiple times a month, having the same movie nights and shopping sprees they’ve always ever had.

These are just examples from my own life, and they are Old Lady Coded™, being that I am now an old lady. But this is how it was when I was younger, too. My sorority sisters dated. My sorority sisters went through breakups. We were friends through it. No one cared that I was unpartnered. That didn’t make me less their friend. And I don’t have enough main character syndrome to think that if someone were to write a story about us, that I would need to be the protagonist in order for the storyline of our friendship to be valid.

Friendship and romance are not diametrically opposed, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If you’re an aroace like me, you can still have strong, lifelong friendships no matter whether your friends get a romantic partner or not. If you’ve not had luck, I encourage you to keep trying, and don’t rule out online friendships. I’ve been making online friends since I was fourteen years old, and I am still close with them! (If you don’t believe me, check out the podcast I did with the Jewel Riders Archive, all about friendship!)

So, for this Valentine’s Day, here are a few recommendations of books that focus on friendship, without a restriction on romance. Some have it, and some don’t—but the important thing is the friendship!

Kat and Meg Conquer the World by Anna Priemaza

This is far and away the best book about friendship I’ve ever read. It perfectly encapsulates the ups and downs of teenage friendship. I saw teenage me in the characters, and I also saw teenage me’s friends.

The Wilderness of Girls by Madeline Claire Franklin

This book focuses on the raw, complex friendships of four girls who were raised either in the wild or in a magical kingdom (read the book and you will understand) and the real-world girl who joins their family.

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

This is a series that, a lot like the Iamos Trilogy, does have romance, but the bulk of the story is about the friendships the group forms. Friendships form, friends fall out and then come back together even stronger. Adult friendships are also depicted and play an important role.

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

In a lot of epic fantasies that include a romance, if there is a presence of friendship, there’s a tendency for it to be a case of Main Character With Sidekicks rather than the friendships playing a major role. However, in this series, Amani’s friendships are on equal footing with the romance and play a crucial role in the rebellion.

Books by Catherine Fisher

Catherine Fisher’s books all have a very strong focus on friendship. Her standalone books tend to focus on friendship pairs, while her series will have large casts with interconnecting friendships. My particular favorite is her Oracle Prophecies trilogy, with a close second being the Relic Master quartet.

Do you have any favorite friendship-centered books? Share them in the comments!