Romantic Love, Utility, Pleasure, And True Friendship?

There are three types of friendship: utility, pleasure, and true friendship. Utility is when the friendship is formed because both parties or one party fulfills a specific use or need to the other party. For example, students at Gonzaga who have the same major often form study groups with each other in order to improve their grades. However, there are situations where only one party benefits from the friendship of utility. Case in point, I knew some girls in my dorm last year who did not have a car, but they befriended another person in the dorm because of their car and would ask them for rides all the time. Pleasure is when the friendship is formed because both parties share a common interest that they can enjoy together or they share in a …show more content…
43). In my opinion, romantic love has replaced true friendship because of the numerous romance movies and novels idealizing love that are produced every year. Furthermore, one of my roommates claimed that her biggest fear is ending up without a romantic partner as opposed to ending up without any friends. Today, the term “Let’s just be friends” is often referred to as friend-zoning and has a much more negative connotation when compared to “let’s go out”. Thus, it implies that being friends is of much lesser value than a romantic relationship. Currently, romantic love has replaced true friendship as the ideal type of relationship. Thus, this places it under similar criteria to true friendship. In romantic love, reciprocity is required in order for it to work, otherwise that is unrequited love or unreciprocated love. In addition, equality is needed because the further apart the partners “are in virtue, age, education, or in all the differences that make a difference, the more difficult it is to sustain” (White, pg. 26). Otherwise this type of love can be referred to as a cougar and a cub (older woman and a younger man) or cradle robber and gold digger. Moreover, solidarity is important because in order for a true loving relationship to last the partners need to be working towards the same goal. Lacking this quality can also lead to incompatibility of divorce. For example, I love dogs, and personally would not want to date someone who did not love them or at least want to own a dog at some point. As a result, I would break up with that person because our goals were not compatible. Finally, alterity is very important in a romantic relationship because one needs to recognize and accept the differences they have with their partner. If one cannot due this, conflict can arise. Due to the different qualities that encompass romantic love, there