New research published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships provides insight into the intersection of friendship and romance. In a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States, only about 14% identified their romantic partner as their best friend. While these individuals reported more companionship in their lives, others who maintained a best friend outside their romantic relationship reported greater perceived social support.
The study aimed to understand the role of friendship within romantic relationships and whether having a partner who is also a best friend enhances relationship quality or well-being. Drawing on the convoy model of social relations—which suggests that people navigate life with a network of supportive ties—the researchers wanted to explore how personal and situational factors influence who we call a “best friend” and how this label relates to emotional closeness, routines, and psychological outcomes.
“My primary area of research is interested in friendship, and I was teaching a class where I shared an Atlantic article that asked something along the lines of, what if friendship, and not romance, was the center of our lives?” said study author Natalie Pennington, an assistant professor at Colorado State University.
“I would always get really mixed reactions, and it did get me thinking about the blurry boundaries of relationships and societal expectations as we get older. I had the opportunity to reflect on that through my work with The American Friendship Project, which is a project I co-lead that surveys connection and well-being in adults in the United States to better understand our relationships. In our datasets we keep the definition of friend quite broad, allowing people to self-identify romantic partners as a friend or as was the main focus of this study, a best friend.”
The research team analyzed data from 940 adults in romantic relationships who also had at least one person they considered a best friend. These participants were drawn from a larger national survey on friendship and social connection conducted in 2022. They ranged in age from 18 to 85, with a median age of 41, and represented diverse backgrounds in gender, race, income, and relationship status.
Participants were asked to list up to seven people they considered friends, without being told whether romantic partners should be included. For each person named, they could assign multiple labels such as “best friend,” “close friend,” or “romantic partner.” Additional measures assessed relationship closeness and routine interaction, as well as well-being outcomes like companionship, loneliness, stress, and social support.
About 36% of participants included their romantic partner in their list of friends. Of that group, 39.5% identified their partner as their best friend, translating to 14.4% of the total sample. The rest either did not list their partner at all or did not assign them the “best friend” label. Interestingly, a subset of those who called their partner a best friend also named other best friends, suggesting that these roles aren’t always exclusive.
“It is not technically the main focus of the study, but I did think it was interesting that some people (about 25% of the sample) labeled more than one person their best friend,” Pennington told PsyPost. “Sometimes socially I think there is this feeling of ‘I can only have one best friend’ and so I liked seeing that people didn’t always adhere to that.”
“I also really thought we would see more people label their best friend their romantic partner! There are not a lot of studies on this topic, but past research has been much more direct in asking “do you think your romantic partner is your best friend?” and so I wonder if part of our lower number comes from some people thinking they weren’t supposed to include their romantic partner as a friend (we didn’t tell them one way or the other). So on the one hand I think that’s one of the things that is useful with our study — you really see the unprompted potential of people saying they see their romantic partner as a friend or best friend.”
The researchers then explored which types of people were more likely to describe their romantic partner as their best friend. They found that older adults were slightly more likely to do so, while people with higher incomes and those who were married were less likely. Gender and the number of best friends a person had were not significantly related to the likelihood of giving a partner the “best friend” title.
Next, the researchers compared the quality of friendships depending on whether a person’s best friend was their romantic partner. Those who saw their partner as their best friend reported stronger emotional closeness and more frequent routine interaction than those whose best friend was not a partner. This suggests that combining friendship and romance may strengthen the quality of the bond—at least in the eyes of the person who holds that view.
However, the label “best friend” didn’t seem to make a difference when applied to romantic partners already considered a friend. Among participants who named their partner as a friend, those who also labeled them as a best friend did not rate their relationship as closer or more routine than those who simply called them a “friend.”
“For the best friend relationship, we compared participants who identified a different best friend in terms of their reported closeness and routine interactions with those who said their best friend was their romantic partner,” Pennington explained. “We found that those who had a best friend that was their romantic partner reported greater closeness and routines (which makes sense, because we do often tend to invest more time and energy into a romantic relationship).”
“For the romantic relationship, this was what spurred the title of the article — what’s in a label? Here we had compared participants who had included their romantic partner in the named friend task but did not say their partner was their best friend with those who had labeled them as a best friend, again, looking at closeness and routines. For these tests, we found no major difference between the two, signaling that calling them a ‘friend’ or ‘best friend’ are somewhat interchangeable.”
The researchers also wanted to know whether calling your partner your best friend was associated with better mental and emotional health. To do this, they looked at several outcomes—life satisfaction, companionship, perceived stress, loneliness, connection, disconnection, and perceived social support. They found that those who named their partner as their best friend reported greater companionship in daily life. On the other hand, those who had a separate best friend reported feeling more socially supported.
“Participants who had a best friend separate from their romantic partner reported higher levels of perceived social support,” Pennington told PsyPost. “This makes sense, because they have more people to turn to for help.”
“Participants who had a best friend that was their romantic partner reported greater feelings of companionship, which was the idea that we have someone who will go to events with us, spend time together, etc. In this case again I think this makes sense, because when we are really close with our romantic partner, we might see them as our go to person for spending time together, and perceive them as more likely to feel like they have to say yes when we ask to do something.”
These findings align with previous research suggesting that romantic partners can fulfill companionship needs, but friends might still be better positioned to offer certain types of emotional support. This may be especially true when people face challenges in their romantic relationships or when they have needs that their partner cannot meet alone.
The study also highlights how socioeconomic factors shape relationship networks. Lower-income participants were more likely to call their partner their best friend and also reported lower overall well-being. This suggests that when people have fewer resources, they may lean more heavily on a romantic partner to meet emotional needs, which can increase vulnerability if that relationship is strained. Conversely, people with higher incomes may have more time and opportunity to maintain a wider circle of close friends.
The study’s results offer insight into how people conceptualize the roles of romantic partners and friends in their lives. While labeling a partner as a best friend can be associated with increased companionship, it may also come at the expense of broader support networks. Having multiple sources of connection may be more beneficial than expecting one person to meet all emotional needs.
But the study has limitations. Since it was based on self-reports from a single moment in time, it’s unclear whether having a romantic partner as a best friend leads to better companionship, or if people who already feel close and connected are simply more likely to use that label. Also, the survey prioritized friendship, so participants may not have thought to include their partner among their friends unless prompted.
Future research could address these limitations by examining how relationships evolve over time and how people’s labels and behaviors shift across different life stages. Collecting data from both members of a couple could also offer richer insights into whether the view of a partner as a best friend is mutual, and whether shared perceptions improve well-being more than one-sided ones.
“This study encouraged me to think about new questions we can add to the survey going forward — thinking about, for example, gathering data about one’s romantic partner so we can make fuller comparisons,” Pennington said. “That said, our big goal with the American Friendship Project is to continue to provide insight into the state of friendship in the United States, which can include how inherently messy labeling can be — we really try with this data to show how at the end of the day it’s more about how we foster those connections through communication that matters the most. We hope to keep sharing what we learn not only through publications, but public outreach, and in the future, interventions based on our findings to help folks who may be struggling with connection.”
“I think the loose, big picture takeaways about this study are — invest time and energy into the people who matter, as they are the ones who can be there to help you when you’re feeling down and to celebrate your wins. I’d also say that valuing friendship in a romantic partnership is a great thing, but there is also value in investing in platonic friendships to have that fuller network to support you.”
The study, “What’s in a label? Exploring the intersection of relationships with best friends and romantic partners with well-being,” was authored by Natalie Pennington, Brooke H. Wolfe, Jeffrey A. Hall, Amanda J. Holmstrom, and Samantha T. Schaffer.
