Jag anser att romantisk kärlek är kraftigt övervärderad i vår kultur. Jag har själv förkastat den och är istället inriktad på vänskap. Tre inspirationskällor:

1. Ledmotivet ”förkastelse av kärlek” från Nibelungens Ring.
2. Andrew Sullivans essä ”If Love Were All” i boken Love Undetectable. Ett favoritcitat som beskriver karaktären på hans vänskap med Patrick: ”That love was no less love for being in the mode of friendship.”
3. Edmund Whites beskrivning i boken The Farewell Symphony av filosofen Michel Foucaults syn på vänskapens roll:

Inspired by the ancient Greeks, whom he [Foucault] was studying, he’d developed a cult of friendship. He thought that we had nothing else to value now; the death of God had resulted in the birth of friendship. If we could no longer enjoy an afterlife earned by our good deeds, we could at least leave behind a sense of our achievement, measured aesthetically, and the most beautiful art we could practice would be the art of self-realization through friendship.