I don’t understand why people fascinate over platonic friendships as if it is something so rare and almost impossible to come across. The burning question of “can you and him really be just friends?” consistently arises between my longtime best friend, Matthew, and I.

While we’ve been friends and just only friends for years now, he is often mistaken as either my boyfriend or the most common and funniest one: my ‘gay’ best friend. Although neither assumptions upset him, I still don’t understand why the fear of sexual tension dissuade people from pursuing cross-gender relationships and obligates them to question ours.

Out of all my friends, he’s the only one who is opened to having deep, emotionally-probing conversations with me. He not only understands me but helps me figure myself out at times when I feel completely lost. Looking back onto our friendship has made me realize how important honesty and trust is. The ambiguity of what-ifs has been confronted with the fact that we’ve always been on the same line of the same page of the same book.

The friend zone does not suck and it isn’t so scary as people make it out to be. For me, I was lucky enough to find my platonic soulmate there. While my other same-sex friendships are great in their own ways, there are things I cannot get from them as I do with Matthew.

Similarly, there are things I can’t always get in romantic relationships either at times. There’s a certain ease in my platonic friendships. I never have the fear of being judged. There are no such things as holding grudges. We never feel the need to be in competition with each other either because why would we?

The fear of sexual tension shouldn’t dissuade people from pursuing cross-gender relationships but rather help people find the beauty of that not so ordinary guy you might fall in love with — of course just platonically. It is not impossible.

However, it is unfortunate of how the way society has deceived these types friendships into relationships that they are not. Every platonic friendship should be able to feel comfortable and enjoy one another without dealing with an expectation or pressure outside of the friendship.

Of course, here I am. Still retaining a friendship and keeping it just that, a friendship. Every day, I continue to cherish every aspect of our friendship but also platonically fall in love with him. In overcoming our natural differences and managing to build what we have now is something I wouldn’t trade anything in this world for.

Platonic, until death, does us part, Matthew.