"Well, we do piss each other off occasionally, but I suppose I love him too much to let things like arguements get to me too much."
"Hmmm...I don't understand the concept of a relationship."
After this mini-conversation with someone, I got into thinking about the concept of relationships. I mean at first I couldn't understand how someone couldn't get the idea of a relationship. Then I thought about all the players, whores and people that just don't have a clue about the function of a relationship. So then I got into thinking, how would you explain what a relationship is?
My answer was something along the lines of "A relationship is a really close friendship in which you can talk in confidence and trust the other person, but with certain 'advantages' as it were, and also maybe a bit of love mixed in if you are at that stage."
However I've been thinking even more into it and what you would class as a relationship. And by the way I mean relationship as in boyfriend and girlfriend not just friends. Since from what i described it sounds just like friends with benefits. So I think you'd have to include some kind of commitment in the explanation too. However one person in a relationship may have a higher commitment than the other, which is where cheating comes into play.
And how 'active' do you have to be with someone for it to be classed as a relationship? I mean are you in a relationship when you're going out on dates? Or do you have to wait for holding hands and hugging? But then people do that with their friends, I mean hell, I kiss most of my friends, does that mean I'm in a mass open relationship? No, it doesn't. So does that conclude you have to have some kind of sexual contact? Or can you be in a relationship with just emotional attachment?
Then I found this thing on the interweb that said 60% of people wouldn't be dating the person they're with if they had the choice. I mean I was joking in my head at the idea of trading my boyfriend for the young patrick swayse because of his ultimate fitness and amazing hands, but I know I never could because in my heart I wouldn't trade him for anyone. (P.S. that's us in the piccy.)
So all of this has left me quite confuzzled about relationships, I guess in some ways I can only compare to 'relationships' I've had and who i would class as I dated them. I mean there was Ryan who cheated on me, but he asked me out over phone and the next time I saw him I ended it. So I wouldn't class him as a relationship. I wouldn't class Liam as a relationship when I was 11 and he got all creepy, but I had no emotional attachment to him, nor did we do anything, I don't think I even hugged him.
However Tom, Chris, another Ryan and Paul (my current boyfriend) I would say that I had a relationship with all of them. However some were more important than others, I am still no way near defining what a relationship is clear enough. I guess relationships are just complicated.
And how 'active' do you have to be with someone for it to be classed as a relationship? I mean are you in a relationship when you're going out on dates? Or do you have to wait for holding hands and hugging? But then people do that with their friends, I mean hell, I kiss most of my friends, does that mean I'm in a mass open relationship? No, it doesn't. So does that conclude you have to have some kind of sexual contact? Or can you be in a relationship with just emotional attachment?
Then I found this thing on the interweb that said 60% of people wouldn't be dating the person they're with if they had the choice. I mean I was joking in my head at the idea of trading my boyfriend for the young patrick swayse because of his ultimate fitness and amazing hands, but I know I never could because in my heart I wouldn't trade him for anyone. (P.S. that's us in the piccy.)
So all of this has left me quite confuzzled about relationships, I guess in some ways I can only compare to 'relationships' I've had and who i would class as I dated them. I mean there was Ryan who cheated on me, but he asked me out over phone and the next time I saw him I ended it. So I wouldn't class him as a relationship. I wouldn't class Liam as a relationship when I was 11 and he got all creepy, but I had no emotional attachment to him, nor did we do anything, I don't think I even hugged him.
However Tom, Chris, another Ryan and Paul (my current boyfriend) I would say that I had a relationship with all of them. However some were more important than others, I am still no way near defining what a relationship is clear enough. I guess relationships are just complicated.
"Relationships are complicated" certainly seems quite true, and frankly personally I wouldn't even really attempt defining a relationship as meant here. The word itself can obviously refer to any sort of an interpersonal connection from friendship to marriage and - sorry, the large font distracts me, uhh.
ReplyDeleteActiveness as a way to classify relationships is not the first one I would've thought of but certainly not an odd choice - although the measure itself could be defined in a multitude of ways. This suggests there could be a better way than just determining based on commitment and activeness.
And perhaps that could be intention. Relationshiplike activities might be intended or pertain to preserving status quo or advancing the relationship and unless directly motivated by the state of a relationship per se, for the sake of love or another form of a strong feeling of connection, unity or need to have certain forms of social interaction.
Of course this is also a flawed suggestion because it doesn't consider the possibility of unintended relationship development or preservation which might or might not become a significant part of it.
Unintended action should additionally not be confused with unknowing action which might be intended on a different level.
To develop the idea further, I think you should measure relationships on a case-by-case basis for some people do certainly have different kinds of relationships from others. Physical, emotional and social distance all matter, as do the mindsets of the people in a relationship. You cannot take one scientific measure and apply it to all cases as if they were modified instances of a single base case because that's simply not true.
Not in my world, anyhow.
Regardless, I do agree that it is rather hard to explain a relationship even if you don't want to strictly define one.
And that the idea of not understanding how relationships might work is odd. I can see why one would not understand specific instances not working, for example very open or very long distance ones, but the general idea of a relationship is two people together out of a hopefully mutual reason, usually love or confu- er, infatuation or possibly even convenience. But I'm too much of a romantic to actually consider relationships that only exist to be convenient here.
Hell, I don't understand how relationships work myself when I try to think of it more. Doesn't stop me from trying to understand them, though, just like not knowing about a specific subject does not apparently prevent me from arguing or rambling about it.
And finally, I really haven't a clue of how I actually managed to find my way here. I believe I clicked on some links and noticed this looked interesting.
Or something.
In some ways it probably seems I was defining what a relationship is, but in fact it was really just a splurge of my thought patterns after someone mentioning they didn't understand the concept of relationships.
DeleteWhen I thought along the activeness side of things, I was thinking about my previous relationships as I would class one of my most serious relationships to be one where we only kissed and nothing more, yet I still do that with friends which is why i then thought itno the emotional side of things.
That is a good point, yet I see what you mean by it also being flawed, yet if it became an unintended relationship, there would be some point where it became an intended relationship as emotionally attaraction would come into play.
No I quite agree relationships all differ and cannot really be compared, I was more exploring whether or not there was a basis level to beginning a relationship and not a friendship.
I agree that not understanding the idea of relationship does seem strange, however I realised there really is no straight definition of relationships.
I too am a bit of a romantic and which is in a sense why I wrote this, as i just couldn't believe someone wouldn't understand why you would want to be with someone for so long, even when there are arguements. As for me, I could not see my life without my boyfriend, as our emotional attachment is so strong, I sometimes think everyone must want to feel that kind of love for someone.
I don't really mind how you found it to be honest, it's just great to know people read it and have their own opinions on the stuff I write about, so thanks.