A few days ago, my best friend Michelle and I made a pact that if we're not in serious relationships by age 45, we will marry each other.
We would throw a giant "friend wedding," inviting our families, friends, and dogs. After we declared our vows, we'd dance, drink whiskey, and shove cake in each other's faces. it would feel like a normal wedding, because it'd be exactly that.
Our relationship already isn't too far off from that of a romantic one (except for sex). We share our joy and our fears. We joke and bicker and grow.
She plays a deeply important role in my life.
"There aren't any ceremonies to make this official," Rebecca Traister writes in her new book, "All the Single Ladies." "There aren't weddings; there aren't health benefits or domestic partnerships or familial recognition."
But maybe there should be, she says.
I've dated a few men, but none of them have come close to the connection Michelle and I have. It's totally platonic, but we say we're each other's "person." Although we live 1,000 miles away between Iowa City and Brooklyn, we share much of our lives with each other.
As Traister writes in her book, best friends are as important — sometimes even more — than partners or spouses. Our best friends are often the center of our social lives, because we devote so much emotional energy toward them, she says. If they are lifelong friends, they are there through pivotal life moments, like first apartments and jobs.
Best friendship is often not a "starter relationship" for marriage, Traister says. It forms the bedrock of many women's lives, and it's just as valid as a romantic partnership.
"Women who find affinity with each other are not settling," she writes. "In fact, they may be doing the opposite, finding something vital that was lacking in their romantic entanglements, and thus setting their standards healthily higher."
Thanks to the national legalization of same-sex marriage last year, Michelle and I could seal it with a contract.
