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Friendship and Romance
A Need- Fulfillment Perspective
Laura E. VanderDrift, Christopher R. Agnew, and Ezgi BesikciLove is a friendship that has caught fire.
— Landers (1982)In this quote, the advice columnist Ann Landers summarizes her response to a
reader’s query. The reader stated that she and her partner used to be involved in the
“love affair of the century,” but it then fizzled and she was wondering how to move
forward. Landers was not surprised by this query, as she explained to the reader,
because the friendship core of a romance carries more weight in the overall roman-
tic relationship evaluation than does the sexual aspect of the relationship (here, we
paraphrase). Building a romantic relationship on the foundation of passion, rather
than friendship, was destined to be problematic. We use this example to open this
chapter on friendship and romance to immediately highlight the importance and
centrality of friendship within romantic relationships. Individuals have diverse
needs that they seek to fulfill through involvement in close relationships with oth-
ers, from the friendly (e.g., companionship) to the passionate (e.g., sexual gratifica-
tion) to the independent (e.g., goal- striving support), among others. Which needs
individuals turn to their romantic partner for fulfillment may have profound impli-
cations for the success of that romance over time. In this chapter, we review the role
of friendship in the context of romance, taking an interdependence theory– based
need- fulfillment perspective. The overall message we extend corroborates Landers’s
advice to her reader: Friendship is vitally, uniquely important in the context of
romance, and fostering it reaps myriad benefits.
Need Fulfillment in Close Relationships
Individuals have a diverse set of needs that provide the motivational basis for human
life. Many of these needs supply motivation to form and maintain close, intimate