Choosing between love and almond chicken

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how full my life is.

I have soup nights with my friends. I’m taking Mandarin classes twice a week. I try to go swimming at least twice a week. I have my multiple jobs. last Friday, my friends and I decided we were going to try almond boneless chicken from different Chinese restaurants around Detroit.

The next day, I was getting brunch after swimming when I started thinking about how much I love my life right now. My schedule is so full and beautiful and fun.

And then I thought: Where would a boyfriend even fit in here?

Because the thought of having a boyfriend and wanting to stay home with him instead of going out with my friends to try almond boneless chicken from five different Chinese restaurants actually makes me SICK.

Not because there’s anything wrong with staying home with your boyfriend. I just don’t want to become so enamored with one person that everything else starts becoming less important.

I’ve seen that happen.

I’ve lost friends to relationships.

Not literally, obviously. They’re still alive. But I’ve had friendships where we were doing laundry together, running errands together, doing nothing together. We were part of each other’s everyday lives. Then they got into a relationship and all but disappeared.

And I understand it.

One friend who did this is now married with children. Of course his life changed. Of course his priorities changed. I’m not even convinced he made the wrong choice.

But I still grieve the friendship.

When someone falls in love, we’re happy for them. When they get married, we’re happy for them. When they build a family, we’re happy for them.

Meanwhile, sometimes a whole community around that person quietly gets less of them.

I don’t think I’m bought into the idea that a romantic relationship should automatically become the most important relationship in your life.

I love my friends. I get so much from them. I want to do random, silly things with them. I want soup nights. I want to swim and get brunch afterward. I want to drive around Detroit eating almond boneless chicken. I want friendships where we’re involved in the ordinary parts of each other’s lives.

And I especially love being friends with people who have partners but still have their own lives. They have their own friends. They have their own interests. They don’t disappear into their person.

I don’t want to disappear into mine either.

The difficult part is that we only have so many days in the week and so many hours in the day. At some point, prioritization has to happen.

And society makes one version of that prioritization very easy.

There are real material benefits to pairing up. We organize so much of adulthood around couples. Eventually there can be marriage, a house, children, shared finances, shared responsibilities. I understand why one relationship starts taking up more and more space.

So I don’t blame my friends who have disappeared into relationships.

I think I mostly feel grief.

And maybe some preemptive grief too.

Sometimes I look at a friend and think, oh, eventually you’re going to find someone and I’ll see you later. You’ll disappear for a few months or a few years, and hopefully there’ll be a window where you remember how good community is.

The uncomfortable part is that I also want romance.

I want to fall in love.

I also don’t want falling in love to reorganize my entire life around one person.

So far, I’ve been treating my life like an experiment. I’ve been trying to put my friendships and romantic relationships on more equal ground. And honestly, I’ve prioritized my friendships way more than my romantic endeavors.

It’s been wonderful.

I’ve found so much life and love there.

And I think this connects to something I’ve been doing in other parts of my life too: decentralizing.

I’ve become suspicious of anything that holds too much power over my life.

Maybe I feel the same way about love.

I don’t want one person to have to be my best friend, romantic partner, emotional support, activity partner, travel partner, roommate, family, source of intimacy, source of excitement, and entire sense of belonging.

That’s so much for one person to hold.

But if what I’m looking for in romance is love, joy, intimacy, excitement, and the feeling of being known, I’m realizing how much of that is already available to me.

It’s in soup night. It’s at brunch after swimming. It’s in sitting in a car with my friends driving to another Chinese restaurant because apparently the almond boneless chicken at the last one wasn’t enough.

My life is full of these beautiful, stupid little things.

And if the price of protecting them is missing out on a regularly decent wienering?

That’s a deal I’m willing to take.

Do you think society treats romantic relationships as more important than friendships? Vote in the original Substack poll.