You Don't Need a Soulmate; You Need a Village
On sharing space and rewriting friendship to create a network of love and support
This is Part 3 of my four-part series on reimagining love and connection. Together, these pieces are an invitation to broaden the way we think about love, seeing it as a network of connections that help us flourish. Part 1 explored the myth of finding “The One,” and Part 2 examined how our many selves come alive in different relationships.
If no single partner can meet all needs, and if we have many selves to nurture, we need a broader relationship ecosystem1. In this post, I’ll explore two of the many ways we can build this ecosystem: community and friendship. I’ll argue that we can do this by redefining love as moments of shared joy with others, and rewriting the rules of friendship to allow for the many ways people can connect. Doing this will create a relational village that meets our needs and supports our many selves.
Community
Shared joy is increased
Research shows that we benefit greatly from small, frequent moments of connection2. Barbara Fredrickson describes positivity resonance as what happens when two people share a moment of positive emotion (like joy, gratitude, or affection). People’s behavior syncs up, and so does their physiology: breathing, heart rates, and even brain waves. Think about sharing an eye roll and a smile with a stranger on the subway as you both witness the same ridiculous situation unfolding.
These moments are fleeting but powerful, creating small bursts of emotional and physiological alignment that boost well-being. Studies show that frequent positivity resonance—whether with a partner, friend, colleague, or even a stranger—can improve cardiovascular health, strengthen immune function, and increase life satisfaction3.
By this metric, love isn’t a fixed state or reserved for romantic relationships; it’s something we can experience daily through tiny moments of warmth and connection.
Living together
I think we were meant to move through life in community, whether that means roommates, housemates, or just really great neighbors. I lived with my partner, my sister, her partner, and our four pets for three years. The living situation was chaotic and messy at times, but I’ve also never felt so supported.
Another way we can build community into our lives is by neighborhood design. Co-housing communities are intentionally designed to encourage connection among residents and prevent social isolation. They often feature private residences clustered around shared open spaces, and many include communal areas like gardens, recreational facilities, or kitchens for shared meals. Co-housing encourages resource-sharing, carpooling, and collective gatherings—everything from parties to music nights.
As a parent, I love the idea of raising kids in a neighborhood where “it takes a village” is not just a cliché but a daily reality.
Friendship
Loving our friends
Friendship is a love story. … Making friends is the first free choice relationship we have as kids. Our friends provide community and continuity in an ever-changing world. Our lifelong friends are our witnesses. They accompany us through the trials and tribulations of lovers that come and go, job changes, family rifts, births, deaths, and recoveries. And we are a witness for them, commiserating or celebrating together over morning coffee or late-night phone calls.
—Esther Perel, “Letters from Esther #27: Friendship”
Our cultural scripts tell us to prioritize finding a mate and, once we have a partner (and especially after having kids), to deprioritize friends. But I think we need to rethink friendship and its value in our lives.
Friendships can be some of our most meaningful and durable relationships. Many of us hold our friends to lower standards than our romantic partners, and we are more likely to accept them unconditionally. We cheer our friends on when they succeed in love. We don’t get mad that our friend has other friends. We can lose touch with them for a while, and then pick right back up where we left off.
Some friends can be people where we don’t have or even need the day-to-day details; we know they will always be there for us and would have our backs in an instant if we were in crisis. Over the years, these friendships have become treasured parts of who I am, a sense of seeing part of my soul reflected back in another person.
One of my favorite quotes about love is from Wedding Crashers, a movie I have seen at least 20 times (I’m completely unashamed of this fact): “True love is your soul's recognition of its counterpoint in another.”
Who’s to say our friends can’t also be our true loves?
Rewriting the rules of friendship
Sometimes we meet people and experience an immediate kinship with them, a sense that our connection goes deeper than our shared experiences and conversations. Adopting all the trappings of a conventional romantic relationship might not be the right fit, but “friends” doesn’t feel quite, either. What do we call them? How do we treat them?
Labels can make us feel pressured to perceive and act within a relationship in a way that fits with that label. Labels help clarify, but they are limiting, too.
It seems silly to me that emotional intimacy with our friends is fine but physical intimacy is off-limits, especially among male or cross-gender friendships. Why shouldn’t we cuddle with or kiss our friends?
Relationship anarchy is an approach to relationships that values all relationships, whether they’re romantic, sexual, platonic, or somewhere in between. It "encourages people to let their core values guide how they choose and craft their relationship commitments rather than relying on social norms to dictate what is right for you," according to Dedeker Winston, a relationship coach.
Relationship anarchists don’t buy into the idea that romance should automatically outrank friendship, and they’re not big on labels, either. They reject the way our culture elevates the status of the monogamous couple above all other relationships. Instead, relationship anarchists form and negotiate relationships with people that are based on mutual needs and desires rather than on socially mandated expectations. They focus on enjoying each connection for what it is without trying to force it into a box. And they prioritize independence and autonomy; relationships are based on love, respect, trust, and communication rather than feeling entitled to one another’s time or controlling our partners.
Relationship anarchists also recognize that relationships can change over time, and that people should be open to continually rewriting the rules of their relationship so that it works for them. For example, two people transitioning from live-in romantic partners to close non-romantic friends might not think of their relationship as having failed, but simply as having evolved in a new direction.
I love the philosophy behind relationship anarchy, the idea of rewriting the rules of friendship and love so that they work for each relationship, and not automatically valuing our romantic or sexual partners more highly than our close platonic ones. I’m definitely an aspiring relationship anarchist, though I still have a lot of cultural deprogramming to do.
Several inspiring examples of this philosophy at work are described by Rhaina Cohen in The Other Significant Others. This book highlights deep, platonic partnerships as lifelong, foundational relationships—showcasing friends who live together, co-parent, or provide caregiving. These stories reveal how strong friendships can meet emotional, practical, and financial needs outside traditional romantic frameworks. Similarly, in “The Unsolicited Advice I Wish I’d Gotten Before Having Kids,” Kerala Goodkin reflects that, if she were to do it again, she might choose to have children with someone who could focus solely on parenting, while other relationships fulfilled different emotional and logistical needs.
Here’s a popular tool, the relationship anarchy smorgasbord, which allows two individuals interested in some kind of relationship to design their relationship by picking and choosing what kinds of experiences they want to have together. The items within each bubble are examples and don’t have to to go together. The tool is designed to be a fully-customizable jumping-off place for discussion and negotiation, open to renegotiation whenever needed in the course of the relationship:
Invitation to connect
What would your life look like if you built a village of community, friendship, and love—one that supported all your selves?
What’s next
The last post of this mini-series is on nonmonogamy. I’ll suggest that rethinking our relationship structures—and, at the very least, approaching monogamy with intention and honesty—can help us expand our capacity for love and its potential for deep personal growth and fulfillment.
Crocker, J., & Canevello, A. (2015). Relationships and the self: Egosystem and ecosystem. In M. Mikulincer, P. R. Shaver, J. A. Simpson, & J. F. Dovidio (Eds.), APA handbook of personality and social psychology, Vol. 3. Interpersonal relations (pp. 93–116). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/14344-004
Fredrickson, B. L. (2013). Love 2.0: Creating Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection. Hudson Street Press.
Kok, B. E., Coffey, K. A., Cohn, M. A., Catalino, L. I., Vacharkulksemsuk, T., Algoe, S. B., Brantley, M., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2013). How positive emotions build physical health: Perceived positive social connections account for the upward spiral between positive emotions and vagal tone. Psychological Science, 24(7), 1123–1132. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612470827