Celebrating the Love of Friends: A Collaboration with a Purpose Post

Folks, the Collaboration with a Purpose group wanted to talk about love. But not necessarily romantic love; any sort of love we felt like, save self-love (which we covered last year), would do.

So I decided, after much reflection, to talk about the love of friends, and why it should be much more celebrated than it is.

We tend to celebrate romantic love in this culture, and around the Westernized world. But when romances end, it’s our friends who comfort us; when our parents are ill, it’s our friends who comfort us; when we’ve had a horrible day, it’s our friends who comfort us. And those unsung people are the ones we often lean on, far more than anyone else, in order to live the best lives we can.

And I, personally, know this is so, because it’s exactly what I’ve done. While I love my family, and I care about them deeply, most of the time it’s my friends who hear my innermost thoughts and feelings.

Why? Well, they listen. They don’t judge. They often have good insights that come from different angles than the ones I’ve already considered. And they remind me that the family you pick — your friends, in other words — is just as important as the family you were stuck with by birth.

Friends care, in short, in a way that’s deep and powerful. It’s every bit as important as romantic love, the love of friends; in some ways, it’s more important, because if you’re with someone you care about romantically but you aren’t actually friends with them, that’s not much of a romance. (Just saying.)

So, we think love is all about this:

 

And while there is a lot of that, in love — the lightness of being, the feeling that you can do anything — and while that is a wonderful picture (which is why I wanted to use it, though it was our “alternate” photo this time), I think the love of friends is actually more important.

Because friends stay with you, through good and bad. And friends don’t stop caring, no matter what…which is why the love of friends, arguably, is just as important as romantic love. (And I truly wish it were just as celebrated. Really.)

Now, go take a look at these blogs from my Collaboration with a Purpose buddies!

Divyang Shah

Mylene Orillo

Ipuna Black

Sonyo Estavillo

Sadaf Siddiqi

Nicolle K.

Jane Love

Swati Kadamb