I want a complex and beautiful story where the characters have the same weight and intensity for each other that you usually find in romances, but it’s not. Anytime I look up books about friendship I get ones that are for middle aged moms about womanhood which is fine but not my cup of tea. I just want to read a good story that is focused on the relationship between the characters, but not a romance
I’m moving to Portland in the fall and have been considering transferring to PSU. I went to a pretty small liberal arts college and always wanted the chance to experience a bigger school, plus I’m a little worried about making friends without school in a new town. And also my major obviously lol. I’ve heard Psu isn’t much of a social college or party school, and that most people are older and just there for the degree. I wanted to ask actual students, what is the student life like? Friends? Parties? Does it have the feel of community many colleges do? I just want to know what it’s like!
For reference I’m 22
My entire life I have been a very romantic person in the sense that I feel things very deeply and when I love someone it feels like it’s exuding from me, but not in the sense of actual romance. I have always been more friendship focused. I never understood why romantic love automatically was prioritized over platonic love, or why when someone gets a partner it’s assumed and accepted that their friends will become less important. The way people describe feeling about someone they are absolutely in love with is how I often feel about my friends. Obviously not entirely, but the deep devotion I feel and long for within my friendships has the same weight and intensity to that of a romantic love. I have always been drawn to fiction focused on found family, and if it is romance it has to be a best friends first type of thing.
I have been lucky to have experienced such deep platonic love to the point where it has felt like we were soulmates and life partners, and would stay this dedicated to each other even though there were no romantic feelings at all, no label that says we would do this, just the promise that we would. The love may be different but it is not less powerful. But even with this, at the end of the day, it always ends up that I love my friends more, and that I am much more devoted to our friendship than they are. They get boyfriends and girlfriends and move on. People always told me that when I started dating I’d understand but I have been in a long term relationship for four years now and I still don’t. I understand romantic love and it’s a very beautiful thing, but I still don’t understand why it overpowers platonic love so ultimately.
All of that to say, does anyone else experience love this way? Does anyone else feel love just as deeply for their platonic friendships as they do with romantic ones? And how do do cope with how truly lonely it is?
It might sound stupid but the best way I can describe the way I feel about friendship is Sam and Frodo’s relationship in lotr lol. It’s somehow more than friendship but it’s not romantic at all, just has that same level of devotion and love.
Pretty self explanatory. Anyone know?