Friendship and Romance 117Why does friendship offer such distinct relationship benefits that other impor-
tant needs simply do not? Sexual, passionate needs are met in simultaneous, mutual
situations, most often characterized by little to no conflict of interest (VanderDrift &
Agnew, 2012). As such, when partners fulfill each other’s sexual needs, no symbolic
outcomes obtain, and transformation of motivation is not more likely to occur than
it had been. On the other hand, when a partner provides emotional support, or pres-
ents that the dyad members are in alliance, they are more likely to be acting in a way
that goes against their own self- interest (i.e., time and energy that could go toward
the self is going toward the other in the case of support). As such, in these instances,
people infer their partner’s prorelationship orientation and act accordingly. Thus, one
plausible theoretical reason friendship is so central to positive romantic outcomes
(relative to other needs a relationship could be tasked with) is because it signifies
safety in interdependence in a way that few (if any) other needs can.
Future Directions
Romantic relationships are, at their core, friendships.The above sentence, one my colleagues and I crafted to open the abstract to a 2013
paper on the role of valuing friendship in romances (VanderDrift et al., 2013), was
seemingly so noncontroversial that it required neither citation nor defense. Had we
written the paper in the 1960s, rather than 2013, this sentence would have been
very controversial, if not outright inaccurate. This change reflects the evolving pri-
mary purpose of romantic relationships in the lives of participants. Whereas in pre-
vious eras relationships primarily served to facilitate the satiety of basic functions
(e.g., financial security, child- rearing structure), in the current era relationships
are more often taxed with the fulfillment of higher- order, self- relevant needs (e.g.,
esteem, goal attainment; Finkel, Hui, Carswell, & Larson, 2014). Whether this shift
leads modern relationships to be “suffocated” (Finkel et al., 2014) or is “a boon for
humanity, as profound and beneficial as the invention of the lightbulb” (Karney,
2014, p. 84) is open for debate. Regardless of perspective, most theorists agree that
tasking relationships with higher- order needs requires a greater level of investment
in the relationship (Finkel et al., 2014). This shift impacts nearly every aspect of
romantic relationships, but its impact on the role of friendship in the context of
romance is potentially profound.
The higher- order needs individuals have (e.g., esteem), to be fulfilled within a
romance, require that partners have a deeper, more understanding connection with
one another, which, put simply, requires their friendship to be a more solid, salient
component of their romance than in previous eras. Providing social support to a
partner, and thus helping to meet their higher- order needs, is thought by some theo-
rists to be a relatively easy task (e.g., Feeney & Collins, 2014) and by others to be
more difficult (e.g., Finkel et al., 2014). The difference, we argue, comes down to