https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/10/people-wh...
> In LGBTQ circles, placing a high value on friendship has long been common. Carroll, Rivera, and several other people I interviewed for this story, absorbed the idea of “chosen family”—that those besides blood can decide to become kin—from this community. Though he and Rivera never considered dating, Carroll had already learned to be at ease with nonsexual intimate relationships with men. In other words, he had come to appreciate something that was once widely understood—as Godbeer, the historian, puts it, that “we can love without lusting.”
In my own experience as part of one, these relationships can have a sexual character, but usually only as a part of it, not the core. I myself plan to move closer to my friends once the opportunity is available.