Many women say they've had female friendships just as important to them as sexual relationships - emotionally, mentally, and on every level - yet such friendships are often dismissed as trivial and superficial.
Journalist Daisy Buchanan writes "I barely remember the boys I went out with as a student, but the girls are unforgettable. They're the ones you'd have 72 hour 'dates' with and they're the times I feel nostalgia for.
"Modern female friendship - at least at the start - can be more like a love affair than an actual romance itself. Anxiety, jealousy, neediness; it's a lot like falling in love.
"It makes me wonder whether no relationship can be entirely platonic, and that you don't have to experience sexual feelings towards a person in order to feel romantic ones."
I'm not sure men could say the same about male friendships though. From what I know, they seldom have that intensity and richness. I've certainly never had a male friendship like that myself, either at school or in adult life.
As for sexual relationships being superior, quite often sex is the only thing that keeps them going, and the friendship aspect is minimal. Or conversely, there may be minimal sex and it's more like a tight and complex friendship.
But there's a general assumption that sex somehow enriches a relationship in a way that's lacking in an "ordinary" friendship. The logic is never quite explained but the cliché persists.
A curious cliché considering the high divorce rate and all the sexual relationships that collapse just as often as the platonic variety. Clearly they're going sour as much as they're being enriched.
Let's hear it for the infinite possibilities of friendship, in or out of bed.
