The conversation surrounding ‘positive relationships’ has for a long time focused exclusively on those of a romantic nature. A partnership. A spouse. Such conversations fail to include just as impactful positive relationships, namely platonic friendships. With age, these connections tend to be placed on the back burner. Maybe even seen as unproductive. They don’t lead to marriage or a home or a family. There aren’t evident milestones to be hit. Consequently, investment in these types of relationships can be viewed as almost indulgent, immature. But this narrative fails to recognize the importance of individual well-being, a term coined by the father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, as a construct measurable by its elements, such as physical health, happiness, and so on. Well-being is more nuanced than success or fulfillment, it is a holistic concept that encompasses the totality of personhood. And healthy platonic relationships are as important an element as any in this construct. 

The American Psychological Association, or APA, published a story addressing the underlying importance of platonic friendships on not just our mentalities, but on our physical health as well. Having a quality network of healthy relationships has been shown to reduce the physiological effects of stress on the body, described best by the Stress Buffering Model. The APA reports those with healthy platonic relationships show less adverse responses to stress, including lower heart rate elevations, spikes in cortisol levels, and blood pressure. Over time, these reduced stress responses have a major payoff, reducing the risk of premature death from cardiovascular and other types of chronic disease. 

Alongside the jarring physical benefits, positive platonic relationships have been found to optimize our internal experiences of personhood, namely reducing risk of mental health conditions like anxiety and depression. Even more so, these types of relationships can foster human flourishing, not just deficit-oriented solutions. A 2023 study by Pezirkianidis and colleagues found that perceived social support, the idea that, if needed, support would be made available through an individual’s social network, predicted higher levels of self-esteem, self-efficacy, mood, and coping abilities. 

The Opposite End of the Spectrum: Loneliness 

You can think of these effects as situated along a spectrum, with the absence of physical and mental disease in the middle. That’s baseline. On the far right end are the characteristics of flourishing; happiness, life satisfaction, self-esteem, etc, and on the far left end would be the presence of physical and mental illnesses. Healthy relationships of all kinds move us further along the spectrum, closer towards flourishing and further from disease. But the spectrum is bidirectional, and unfortunately, many of us have fallen opposite flourishing, ushered by a trend towards loneliness. According to the US Surgeon General, loneliness has become an epidemic, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and its residual effects. However this epidemic wasn’t born from COVID. Its onset has been a gradual one, instigated by social media and the rise of digitization, and its onslaught has detrimentally impacted our well-being. Without healthy relationships, we are denied the opportunity to counteract or negate stress responses, making individuals who report high levels of loneliness at a greater risk of death by heart attack and stroke. For these same people, the chances of dying a premature death rise 26% (Holt-Lundstad). The absence of healthy platonic relationships has become deadly. 

Making Friends As A Zillennial 

Zillennials face unique challenges when it comes to forming new platonic relationships. Many of us have recently become fully independent, leaving the social infrastructure of college and entering the workforce, sometimes transitioning to fully remote positions and subsequently eliminating a crucial third space for connection. Other times, we’re relocating to new cities, sometimes even states, and navigating new social scenes, cultures, and communities. With the loneliness epidemic only worsening, we’re forced to pursue novel avenues for making, and sustaining, healthy friendships. 

Dr. Mark Shapiro delves into the mechanisms that create and foster healthy platonic relationships. Three things must be true for a friendship to have potential; desire for connection, close proximity, and continuity or consistent effort and investment in the relationship. Each tenant requires a certain amount of vulnerability and willingness to be open, intimate, and authentic. But how can we turn these conceptual foundations of friendship into tangible action? Self-authenticity, Shapiro notes, is the gateway to spaces where true connection can be made and should act as our compass when seeking new friendships. Joining communities that feel true to you, like athletic clubs for exercise-driven individuals, or book clubs for the analytics, or volunteer organizations for the philanthropic, offer natural proximity and innate desirability, and their consistent involvement requires continuity. Connections may not be as simple as they were in childhood, when friendship could be sparked from a shared favorite color, but it isn’t impossible in adulthood. It’s all about authenticity. 

Maintaining Healthy Platonic Relationships

While the science suggests that individuals with larger, more connected social networks tend to reap more benefits from their platonic relationships, the most impactful characteristic seems to be friendship quality. That’s why we’re careful to include the word ‘healthy’ when we talk about these types of relationships, as a toxic friendship can be just as detrimental as loneliness. 

Friendships need constant attention, hence Shapiro’s mention of continuity when seeking flourishing friendships. Like a garden, they have to be tended to. On the Mel Robbins podcast, host Mel Robbins is joined by social psychologist, Kalsey Killiam, to address barriers we create for ourselves when trying to tend to our friendships, primarily through the excuses we tell ourselves. ‘I’m burnt out,’ or ‘I don’t have money to spend on going out with people’, or ‘My social battery is dead,’ are all reasons we use to justify anti-social tendencies to ourselves. While we often give these excuses under the guise of ‘me time’ or ‘self-care’ we’re really hurting ourselves more than we’re helping. We’re denying ourselves one of the most effective preventive medicines of our generation, social interaction. To avoid this? Stop making excuses for yourself. Push yourself out of your comfort zone. Yes, there’s a great benefit to learning how to be alone and being able to decompress and reset. But we can’t let this overshadow the undeniable, proven effects of friendship on our health. So create space and time to cultivate healthy platonic relationships. Your body and mind will thank you. 

Do you have healthy platonic relationships in your life? Let us know in the comments!