It is possible that friendships have characteristics of passion or devotion, causing friendship to go beyond mere liking.

A test that can distinguish mere liking from love that goes beyond mere liking is the absence test. If an average friend you like leaves for a long period, we might miss that friend, but we do not dwell on the loss for long. We can pick up the friendship again a few years later, often in a different form, without having thought much about it in the intervening years.

However, when a friendship goes beyond mere liking, the reaction to the absence is quite different. We actively miss the other person and dwell on their absence for a long time. The other person is actively missed, not passively, and the absence has a significant and fairly long-lasting effect on one's life and on one's reactions to life. When the absence of the other evokes strong feelings of intimacy, passion, or devotion, it is best to classify the relationship as going beyond mere friendship.