Quick, without thinking: Who’s your best friend?
Did you think of your college roommate? Your buddy you met at work years ago? Or, did you think of your romantic partner?
Perhaps surprisingly, it’s the rare person who thinks of their romantic partner when they’re asked this question (Pennington and colleagues, 2025), even if they and their partner are happily together. New research considers the interesting overlap between romantic partners and best friends, revealing what happens when people fill both roles with the same person.
Romantic Partners Versus Friends
The boundary between friends and lovers, on one hand, seems quite clear, but from a different perspective, it can be a bit blurry. The most obvious distinction is that friendships are typically platonic, whereas romantic relationships tend to include a sexual component. This distinction usually does well to differentiate between people in “friendships” versus “relationships,” but fails when we think about romantic couples who do not engage in sexual intimacy or friends that do (friends with benefits). In other words, it’s a general distinction with exceptions.
Next, friendships and romantic relationships have critical overlapping features. Both, for instance, can be key sources of companionship and closeness. We might turn to either for…
