What is a Relationship

“What is a relationship?” Okay, this sounds like a pretty basic question. But the answer is anything but simple. So this blog entry is a short discussion about what it means to be in a relationship—what it means to be single, to be dating, to have a long-term commitment, and even to be married. For a lot of people, relationships—especially romantic relationships—are the most important part of their lives, and good relationships are often what bring them the most meaning and happiness, too. So understanding exactly what a relationship is (and what it should be) is a tremendously important question that many of us simply forget to ask.

We don’t generally like dictionary definitions for things like this, but in this case it’s rather insightful. A relationship is defined by most credible dictionaries as something like this: “the state of being related or interrelated” and “a romantic or passionate attachment.” That is, a relationship is to be interrelated by passion and affection. It is two people bound and made interdependent by love or strong affection.

This is pretty boring so far, we know—we just want to cover the basics first (not everyone can be the smartest kid in the class, you know). Okay, so now that we know what Oxford thinks about relationships, what else can we say? Well, not all relationships are alike; there are many different kinds and many different levels of attachment and commitment. So that’s what we’ll talk about next.

Being Single: This is everyone’s initial stage. Usually, this is interpreted to mean the absence of any committed relationship. But that doesn’t mean that the “single” person has no relationships at all. Sometimes, a single person will have brief relationships with many people. These can be sexual relationships (e.g. the famous “one-night stand”) or they can be simple encounters—flirting at a bar, emailing, texting, or sending a “poke” on Facebook (lol). Some people enjoy being single and like to engage in brief, fun encounters with many different temporary partners; others, however, are not single by choice and are trying to find a committed partner.

“Seeing Each Other”: This is a popular phrase in North America—especially among young people. It’s used to describe a new and uncommitted or not-yet-committed relationship. When partners are unsure about each other’s feelings (or their own feelings, for that matter) or they don’t yet want to say that they’re officially “dating,” they will often say that they’re “just seeing each other.” In some cases, this is the stage before “dating,” and other times the relationship just doesn’t work out.

Dating: When a couple says that they’re dating, it usually means that they’re not just “seeing each other”; it means that they have agreed, tacitly or expressly, that they are committing to each other (at least temporarily) because they have mutual feelings and they want to find out where the relationship will go. As the term implies, couples who say they are “dating” don’t typically live together or have long-term plans; most of the time, dating couples simple go out on dates—they talk, get to know each other better, laugh, flirt, and have fun. Dating couples often use words like girlfriend and boyfriend to describe each other. Romantically speaking, this is the “fireworks” stage of the relationship—when it’s new and exciting and hearts pound like frantic drums; this is often the phase of puppy love and evanescent affection. But enduring embers do from blazing fires ignite. So don’t consider these powerful emotions necessarily to be a sign of puppy love and infatuation; this time of euphoric affection might also lead to a strong and lasting relationship.

“Did my heart love till now?
Forswear it, sight! I never saw true beauty till this night.”

To be “partners”: To be “partners” is a term often used in North America by adults to indicate that they are in a committed, long-term relationship with someone to whom they are not married (otherwise the terms “husband” and “wife” would be used). Some people who are “partners” later move on to get married, and others never get married at all—it just depends on what each partner wants from the relationship and in life. This category of relationship is usually pretty stable and settled-down. (Yawn.) It’s really not an exciting term, right? (“Partners…”) Especially after talking about dating. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t passion or romance. Where there is true love, passion never really fades.

Engaged and Married: “Till death do us part,” the partners proclaim (and some even promise until after that). We know that—for one reason or another (“irreconcilable differences” maybe)—that marriages don’t always work out. Maybe that’s because circumstances just aren’t as stable as we presume, or maybe the couple was irresponsible about making eternal promises that they were unable or unwilling to keep. But let’s not harp on that. Engagement and marriage, in their truest sense, are meant to betoken the most powerful giving of oneself to a more important cause: the relationship created by a deep and powerful love that each partner shares with the other. Marriage is a promise to live for the other person, to be there for him or her on the best days and worst alike; it is a commitment to love through illness and health, regardless of obstacles or circumstance, in spite of adversity and trepidation, through every day and every night.

So there you have the basic types of relationships, in order from least to most committed. Of course, you can’t automatically tell how committed people are just by the way they refer to their relationship (for example, there could be a young couple who are simply “dating” but who are actually more committed to each other than the partners of a failing marriage). But we hope this provided a quick and detailed answer to that deceptively simple question: “What is a relationship.”

Happy Romance! :)