Must the love of one's life be romantic?
Oftentimes we refer to the great love of a person (the love of one's life) to be necessarily a romantic partner, almost as if it's the norm, which I always found strange. However, in my case, I feel as if mine was a platonic love. The person I loved the most in my life was a friend of mine (whom I remember was the very last person I wanted to lose at the time), especially considering that when she broke my heart a while ago (a very long story; essentially, she flipped over and changed *overnight* and began pushing me away as much as she possibly could for no discernible reason, just out of the blue. I still somewhat have contact with her and she... sort of apologized, but our friendship has disintegrated), it hurt me far more than anything else I have ever experienced; well over a year later, I still feel the sting. It wasn't just an emotional pain either; it really screwed me up psychologically and philosophically because I couldn't for the life of me understand why or how everything happened, and still don't. She also gave me big trust issues, for obvious reasons. She's part of the reason I'm such of a philosophical skeptic.
I loved her very much, but nonetheless she was "just" a friend of mine. Neither of us had any romantic feelings for each other (as far as I'm concerned, anyway... she had(s) a boyfriend she often talked about), and I'd never felt as close to anyone before as I have to her; even my own family. I don't think I'll ever be able to feel that close to anyone ever again.
My question is the following: is the love of a lifetime necessarily of romantic nature, and, wherever possible, what type of love was yours? Additionally, must it necessarily be requited?
Note: I'm not trying to get any pity or anything here; that's not my point, and I've gotten over a good part of what happened, at least from an emotional standpoint. I'm just asking the question from a philosophical and/or anecdotal point of view.