Something that is much underrated in our society. Friendship is actually a form of
love (here I'm not talking exclusively about erotic
love). It's not a lesser form of
love than erotic
love, only a different form of
love. In fact, the ancient Greeks had a word, "phileos", more or less equating to fraternal/brotherly
love (friendship). Friendship seems to have no observable biological necessity(unlike parental
love, necessary for humans to grow, and erotic love, necessary for humans to reproduce), and not much of a marketable appeal (as opposed to the millions/billions of dollars worth of things sold to people trying to better their marriages or parenting skills),
yet without such a form of love as friendship our societies would be unbearably dull and alienated from one another. One can love their friends as well as their "significant other", just not in the same way (the difference here is quality, not necessarily quantity).
Friendships are not monogamous by necessity. Two
people in a friendship don't need to exclude other
people from their relationship. A friendship can best be thought of as two people side by side looking forward toward a common goal. It's an
odd form of love in which people develop a relationship without relationship as a goal. Scientific achievements have come out of tight-knit friendships (Watson and Crick), as have works of literary genius (J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S.
Lewis), as well as victories in wars (due to the tight camaraderie and mutual trust of soldiers).
