Relationship is defined by Oxford American Dictionary as "the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected." Relationship as defined by Americans by and large, however, generally refers to an intimate relationship between significant others, romantic and/or physical in some capacity. Which makes it really difficult to have a conversation about "the way in which two or more people are connected," given that people automatically assume you're talking about romance. Which, I might add, is the very last of the listed definitions: "an emotional and sexual association between two people."
Everybody has a "relationship" with everybody else that they've ever encountered. I even have a fickle relationship with the door to any room that houses an
Observer meeting, since we always seem to find rooms with doorknobs that won't turn. It's a relationship between me, a person (or so I should hope), and an object.
But that, of course, is not my point. My point is why try to define a relationship? We are all in relationships with one another, in some capacity. I realize we live in the era of Facebook where it's become very important to publicize that a person is "in a relationship with [insert link to profile here.]" I even remember the days of MySpace where finding this information required actually visiting a person's profile, since it didn't come up in your news feed. And there's nothing like the epic middle school breakups, where one party was only made aware by seeing an "in a relationship" status turn to "single."
I'm not trying to promote any kind of non-traditional lifestyle choices. All I'm saying is that there's no reason to force something into a narrow definition when it's not ready to be there. Two people who are romantically involved in some capacity have a relationship of some sort from the moment they meet. They are in a relationship when the situation is, in some way, mutually beneficial and two-sided. But to wake up one morning and decide that you must assign some kind of societal rules to your interactions with another person, for the sake of being able to call it something, is utterly silly. So much so, in fact, that I felt it entirely appropriate to use a word as ridiculous as silly.
There is so much in life that's already complicated, difficult, and generally upsetting. There's no reason to make excess trouble out of something that's supposed to add positive qualities to your life. I can't say I ever thought I'd be the one to dissuade another from over-thinking things, but there's a first time for everything: enjoy the present and appreciate what you do have, because otherwise the future will come and you may have nothing left, the fault of over-analysis and pigeonholing.
