The Difference Between a Friendship and a Romantic Relationship

I don't get romance. Like, at all. The nebulous idea of romantic love is so often depicted as the ultimate end goal. How many movies are about getting a date or falling in love or getting married? But what even is it?

I like being told I'm pretty. I like spending time with someone I'm close to. I prefer fewer and closer relationships to a larger number of shallower ones. From what I understand, many of those are characteristics associated with romantic relationships. But I don't understand the concept of romantic love at all, because I've had friends pick me up takeout before exams. I've had friends take me to the doctor or stop by my apartment with medicine when I'm sick. More often than anyone, it's friends that tell me I'm pretty. None of these things—thoughtful gestures, taking care of each other, compliments—is exclusive to a romantic relationship. The only things I see that really differentiate a romantic relationship from anything else are jealousy, a desire to be another person's absolute primary relationship, and sex. I don't understand how that is the thing so many people view as an essential aspect of life.

I find sex gross and unhygienic. I don't even like kissing—do people really enjoy the sensation of another person's tongue in their mouths? I keep trying to connect romantically with people, because I'm in college and it feels like I'm supposed to, and beyond that, I'm not great at making friends and Tinder, for all its faults, gives me a way to talk to people and feel less lonely, but the whole dating thing absolutely baffles me. Why date when you could instead get a dog, spend time with friends, and if you want, have sex with whichever of your friends/acquaintances you have a mutual attraction? It seems like a much less stressful life to me.

There are so many things we can be doing with our lives—enjoying careers, pursuing interests, picking up new hobbies, travelling. So many ways of living a satisfied, fulfilled life without a romantic relationship. Romance, marriage, kids—sure, I'm sure that's great for some people. But how many do them because they're led to believe that's what they want and that those things are essential parts of life, not because they really want to?

Romance causes people stress. People don't explore who they are and what they're interested in because of this misguided belief that friendship is less meaningful than romance and that they're somehow incomplete without a partner. People get married and have children, not necessarily because they want to, but because doing so is perceived as a milestone that has to be met. That's dangerous. It's bad for the people entering relationship. It's bad for the potential children. And since the ideas keep getting past down, it's an unhealthy cycle.

I'm not saying that romantic relationships are a bad thing. I personally don't understand them, but I understand that they mean something to others. But we as a society need to stop, for lack of a better word, romanticizing them. We need to stop painting them as something inherently superior to friendships and stop suggesting that entering one will "complete" a person. We're all whole people on our own. We don't need significant others to have meaningful relationships, hobbies, and fantastic lives. Romance can't fix a person or what's in their lives, and we need to stop perpetuating the idea that it can. Romance can be a part of life. But we have to stop treating it like the goal.