Jay's relationship glossary :)

[jay]

I've had several discussions lately with folks about relationship labels. For myself, I tend to view friendship and relationship as part of a continuous spectrum, with friendships simply being a kind of incomplete/damaged/otherwise-constrained relationship (if close) or else simply a non-hostile person (if not close). These are mine, for my own historical reasons, and I am not trying to persuade anyone else to use them. Only perhaps to better understand what I say, at times?

sweetie: someone with whom I have emotional closeness and affection, a loving relationship. And typically some degree of attachment, and/or ongoing communication with each other. It is regardless of whether there's been any physical play or intimacy in the relationship, of whatever sort. Someone I trust and can have fun with.

lover: is someone with whom I've been some form of physically intimate, ironically whether or not there's any ongoing emotional attachment.

partner = sweetie + lover, plus a deeper ongoing commitment or attachment.

friend: is generally someone with whom I've mutually agreed to not be hostile. Closer to me than an acquaintance, but the term doesn't carry any connotation of openness or safety or support. If someone says "let's just be friends", I hear "we'll agree to not be enemies in the future, but not necessarily anything more." Not a love-relationship, per se.

friend-with-benefits: = friend + lover, without ongoing attachment

ambigu-sweetie: from radven originally, for me this is vaguely friend+sweetie, but since those are along the same continuum, it refers to differing connections in different activities.

tocotox, quantum-relationship: these are placeholder names I use for relationships/friendships that don't easily fit in the above categories, or which may function as one thing in some ways and as a different one in others. Or may probabilistically jump between different energy/connection levels over time, in the latter case.

I last visited this topic about 16 months ago, in this thread.

Comments

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Interesting... I would have guessed differently, given your own (locked) post this past weekend?

[yami-mcmoots.livejournal.com]

Well, my "tiny proportion" might not be as tiny as mactavish's. But I certainly do feel trusting/close without feeling sexually attracted (even in a limited sense), even with otherwise very sexy people, quite frequently.

[satyrlovesong.livejournal.com]

Ayep. Often, and in spades.

A common paraphrased description is "What do you call people that you love without having sex with? Friends."

Then, I define love as valuing their happiness and safety more than my own - so I love a LOT of people. That doesn't mean I want to cuddle up to most of them - it just means that I value them highly.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

When I hear "I want to be your friend," conversely, to me it parses as "I don't love you, don't expect to, and you aren't going to be siginificant to me -- but we can hang out sometimes."

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Ah. Well, that explains your reaction when I told you, about 18 months ago, that I considered us to be *friends*. For me, friendship is more what the others are describing. As a friend, I might or might not feel *love* toward you, but I certainly care about you and you could be very significant to me.

Would it help if you were to make this a three-dimensional map, like those political affiliation things that we've done in the past? It feels to me like you occupy a space somewhere in amongst friend and chosen family. For you, that doesn't seem to make sense (as here) unless there's a sexual or romantic component. While "chosen family" for me CAN have sexual or romantic components, apparently it doesn't HAVE to.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

I think that this difference actually is related somehow to the fast-definitive vs. slower-evolving difference in relationship parsing. I'm guessing that emotional attachment and sexual attraction are fairly separate or decoupled for you? For me, they are closely linked... simply being emotionally attached to someone, for me, puts them also on my radar screen in other ways. Even if their bod doesn't itself necessarily do much for me, per se.