I absolutely find it annoying when romance is prioritized over friendship but this isn't quite what queerbaiting is. At least, not on its own. Two same sex/gender people being very close and sharing a strong connection or even having some romantic undertones that never become "official" isn't automatically queerbaiting. Those things can happen in real life without those relationships being or becoming romantic. Queerbaiting is when the writers/showrunners purposefully insert romantic subtext into the story and advertise it as if it will become canonically romantic with the primary intention of gaining more lgbt viewership, while never actually following through on those implied (or even occasionally explicitly stated) promises. The way it is presented and marketed is an important part of what makes it a problem, hence the "baiting" part. There's nothing wrong with keeping a relationship ambiguous, or portraying a platonic relationship as being as deep, important, and emotionally intimate as romantic ones are typically portrayed without making them romantic, but if you try to manipulate or outright lie to viewers to make them think a relationship is going to be something it isn't in order to gain their viewership and support, only to pull the rug out from under them, then that's when it becomes sleazy, especially if you're taking advantage of the fact that they're a marginalized and under-represented group desperate to see more people like them in media.
I know this is just a joke comic so "it's not that deep" but I see a lot of people online who misunderstand what queerbaiting is and accuse shows/series of queerbaiting unfairly so I thought I'd bring it up.
Blue Eye Samurai, where the mc binds her chest and hides her neck, talks about being born different from everyone else, and insists on he/him pronouns. Then the producers are like "yeah she just pretends to be a guy because it makes her life easier".
Ah It doesn't matter what gender any person is, but if two people have a strong bond, and one of those people has a strong bond with someone else too, an unfortunate part of being human is that there's only so much of one person to go around. Can't spend all your time with everyone. You have to pick someone. I know a magical man like that, there's not enough of him to go around. Everybody wants him. He has to pick someone. Otherwise the best he can do is have parties all the time so everybody can be around him all the time.
Girl is developing a very clear relationship with another girl, building over multiple arcs. And then a different author gets to write a book and instead of even trying to be subtle he just has the characters up on stage, announcing how they feel (it makes me feel angry):
Chandra had never been into girls. Her crushes — and she’d had her fair share — were mostly the brawny (and decidedly male) types like Gids.
I also hate the ones where they develop a chemistry but then never go anywhere besides being friends and the story ends when its so clear they are developing to be more than friends