Friends At First Sight?

A recent study on friendship says we know if we’re going to be bffs with someone within ten seconds of meeting them. And just like with romantic love, friendship is all about chemistry…

- Aoife Stuart-Madge

If the hit US show Girls has taught us anything about female friendship, it’s that platonic relationships can be just as deep and binding as romantic ones. Lena Dunham, the show’s creator has said: “I think about my best friendship – which the Marnie- Hannah friendship in Girls is based on – as like a great romance of my young life.” Meanwhile, actress Michelle Williams has also drawn parallels between her long-standing friendship with her former Dawson’s Creek co-star Busy Phillips and romantic love. “I’m so in love with her,” she has said. “She’s proof that the love of your life does not have to be a man! That’s the love of my life right there.”

It’s a theme that was recently explored in Rebecca Traister’s best-selling book, All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation, which was recently optioned for US TV. Traister argues that the rising numbers of single women (there are now more single women living in America than married ones) has served to deepen the bonds of female friendships with many now outlasting romantic relationships.

What’s more, as well as being just as meaningful and life-affirming as a romantic partnership, a platonic friendship can be just as inevitable. A recent study in The Social Science Journal says we can feel instantly drawn to and intrigued by a prospective new friend the same way we can a romantic partner.