2025 has arrived with no shortage of opinions on modern dating, and honestly, credit where it’s due to the relationships that have stayed steady despite the internet’s endless commentary. Somewhere along the way, a strange idea started floating around—that having a boyfriend is embarrassing.
So does Team Cosmo India agree?
Absolutely not. But if that thought has ever crossed your mind, there’s another truth worth considering. Your best friend can very well be your boyfriend. We’re often told that one person can’t fulfil every emotional need, especially a romantic partner. And yet, when your boyfriend is also your best friend, that idea starts to feel less like hard-earned wisdom and more like a myth waiting to be challenged.
Think about it for a minute. This is the person who knows your most unfiltered truths—the one who has seen you fail, spiral, recover, and thrive. They’ve witnessed every version of you, not just the curated ones, and still choose to stay. Compatibility feels effortless because it was never forced. Affection exists without performance. Love shows up without negotiation. In many ways, this kind of bond already mirrors the emotional security people spend years searching for in romantic relationships.
When friendship starts to look like commitment
Culturally, friendship is being taken seriously in ways once reserved only for romance. Friends are buying homes together, sharing finances, raising pets, and marking milestones with ceremonies that formalise platonic commitment. While social media may have lost interest in extravagant couple reveals or algorithm-friendly weekend getaways, it continues to celebrate friendship—loudly and unapologetically. Group trips, shared rituals, and chosen families now command more admiration than the conventional romantic soft launch.
Popular culture reflects this shift, too. Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s evident closeness during the Wicked press tour sparked fascination not because it fit a romantic narrative, but because it pushed against narrow definitions of intimacy. Television has followed suit. Where older shows treated friendship as emotional support between love stories, newer series place platonic bonds at the centre—giving them weight, complexity, and long-term significance.
Popular culture has reflected this shift, too. Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s evident closeness during the Wicked press tour sparked fascination not because it fit a romantic narrative, but because it challenged the limits of how intimacy is understood. Television has followed suit. Where older shows once treated friendship as emotional support between love stories, newer series place platonic bonds at the centre, giving them weight, complexity, and long-term significance.
Why friendship might be the purest form of partnership
Even language hints at this evolution. The word partner was originally practical, rooted in shared responsibility and collaboration rather than romance. Over time, it became a way to legitimise relationships society refused to formally recognise, particularly within queer communities, before entering the mainstream as shorthand for lifelong romantic commitment. But stripped back to its core, partnership is about reliability, shared investment, and mutual care—qualities that thrive just as naturally within deep friendships.
What makes friendship especially powerful is its lack of obligation. There is no official title guaranteeing permanence. No social script demanding loyalty. And yet, it arrives consistently. A true friend shows up for late-night emergencies, spends their only free Sunday helping you move, remembers the details no one else does, and celebrates you without expectation. Not because they have to, but because they want to.
Rather than framing best friends as replacements for boyfriends, it may be more honest to see friendship as the foundation all healthy relationships are built upon. It models trust without possession, commitment without pressure, and care without condition. In a world still figuring out how to value love beyond romance, friendship quietly sets the standard—not above romantic relationships, and certainly not beneath them, but alongside them as one of the truest expressions of partnership we’ve always known.
Image credit: Getty Images
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