Friendship is the truest and most enduring form of love besides parental, which converges on friendship as your children age
“Romantic” love is just a poetic term for passion/infatuation. It is necessarily fleeting (though it may wax and wane over the course of a long relationship), unstable, and, in the early stages of a relationship, generally founded on illusion
You may call a relationship with a romantic dimension a “romantic” one, but if it is to be enduringly fulfilling, it must be founded on friendship
In my opinion, there is no separate phenomenon of “true love” which is superior to friendship or distinct from infatuation. An ideal marriage is simply a lifelong friendship with mutual infatuation/lust
the foundation of friendship is important in a relationship because it makes the hard topics less emotionally loaded to speak about. you trust that they respect you as a person and not just someone they try to impress. this builds a foundation of honesty