HackMDStructural Relationship Dynamics
The dynamics that exist within (or are wanted for) specific relationships structure other aspects of broader life. Describing these structures can help to identify if/when those dynamics need attention. In addition, these conversations can help to identify how specific dynamics of connection can both reflect and contribute to the broader structures within our communities.
In the context of discussing Relationship Elements, this page provides some examples of descriptive terms for articulating how a given relationship is (or might be) structured. Note that some relationships could be simultaneously described by multiple terms and none of these descriptions imply a specific collection of relationship elements.
As the focus here is on those structures that emerge from custom-designing relationships, I’ve listed the following examples of descriptions of specifically articulated structures that I've come across. However, it is worth noting that some people choose to use expectation agreements to describe forward-looking expectations of a given structured for a relationship based on an existing or wanted collection of relationship elements.
Acquaintanceships
Relationships that emerge due to a shared context (e.g., work) or mediated-connection (e.g., mutual-friends) and not additional one-on-one interactions are being developed.
Asymmetrical care-giver/receiver responsibilities
Relationships that include an asymmetrical dynamic where one person provides substantial emotional and/or practical support for another (e.g., parent & child).
Co-caregiving responsibilities
Relationships where there is shared responsibility of co-caregiving for a dependent (e.g., for a pet, child, elderly parent, etc.,).
Co-housing responsibilities
Relationships where there is shared responsibility for maintaining a shared housing situation (such as between housemates, nesting partners, housing cooperatives, etc.,)
Contextual connections
Connections via a specific social space/ context where the connection exists within a given network of people sharing a common space/interest rather than through one-to-one interactions (e.g., an acquaintanceship that exists within the context of you both being in the same kink community). Also see: colleagues, incidental friendships, and spaceships
Comets
Also used in some shared ploy-lexicons for a person that passes through your life repeatedly who is intense and awesome, and when gone are still in contact in some, potentially intermittent, way but are not expected to engage with the details of your day-to-day world (or vice versa). For example, those relationships with an explicit agreements for a structure that includes a shared understanding that that each person can reliably expect the other to seek out ways to reignite the shared forms of connection when the circumstances allow, yet requires minimal maintenance in the interim.
Drifting connections
Relationships that are not being maintained. For example, when the context for a Spaceship end and the connection is not maintained yet could be rekindled if there a new context for interacting emerged. Likewise, when friends stop actively maintaining their connection once no longer living in the same city yet implicitly maintain the potential to re-connect (e.g., when either happens to be in the same city as the other).
Emerging connections
A relationship where mutual interest expressed in a form of connection is developing without any explicit expectations or discussion.
Friendships:
A flexible description for a wide range of different relationships, including:
Intentional Friendships
A one-to-one relationship that includes explicit expectation agreements to intentionally seeks out the company of the other for various forms of connection - see more
Incidental Friendships
A relationship between two or more people that emerges, through various incidental connections to includes mutually valued forms of connection that are maintained through an implicit expectation that each seeks out the company of the other(s).
Romantic Friendships
A one-to-one relationship that includes an element of passion/devotion towards each other considered unusual or unacceptable between the people in question within the society they live in - such that the relationship exist outside the default options for relationships in the time/place in question. For example, terms such as 'romantic friendship' 'passionate friendship', or 'affectionate friendship' have been used to describe "a very close relationship between people of the same sex during a period of history when homosexuality did not exist as a social category".
Sexy Friendships
A one-to-one relationship where there is an agreement to add a sexual element to an existing connection (without also adding elements of connection associated with the interdependent responsibilities of a partnership or the vulnerabilities associated with romantic intimacies). For example, in sustainable friends-with-benefits (FWB) dynamics.
Friendships with platonic commitments
A one-to-one relationship that includes a shared understanding of being committed to maintaining a broad collection of relationship elements while insisting the relationship remain otherwise platonic (i.e., not including romantic or sexual intimacies)- common within the default approach to relationships notion of having a best friend. Note that, while a distinct concept, queerly platonic partnerships are sometimes described in this way to make them more palatable to a general audience.
Hook-ups:
A broad term often used for any kind of "Sex (or sexy stuff) that isn't part of a romantic relationship", to quote Georgia Woolf in the Art of the Hookup who offers a section on your hook-up options explained - describing the nuance that often differentiates between hook-ups experienced as one night stands, within a friends-with-benefits (FWB) dynamics or fuck buddydynamic, as 'no strings attached' (NSA) expectation arrangement, as a casual booty call, or between play partners or lovers.
Fuck-buddies
An ongoing one-to-one relationship where the core element of connection is casual sex. While often used interchangeably with 'friends with benefits', the distinction sometimes drawn is that fuck-buddies need not necessarily consider each other friends if neither person seeks to develop any additional elements of connection other than causal sex.
Ourships
"Our-ship- a relationship you have with an individual that consists of what you uniquely share with one another. It says that the connection is for the individuals involved to decide, craft, add to or subtract from, shift, define. But it is always THEIRS. When you attach a label (girlfriend, partner, friend, boyfriend), often times you end up having more of a relationship with the title the person holds than you do with the individual that holds it. Our-ship allows for more flexibility of connection. It says that we can have as many or as few of a variety of things that signify that we have a connection to each other but it will always be OURS." - Evita Lavitaloca Sawyers
Partnerships
While the term 'partner' is used in a wide range of ways, more explicit Partnerships tend incorporate a set of expectation agreements and contribute to co-creating some form of shared future together.
Partnerships as intentional intimate relationships
A form of partnership that incorporate a high degree of intimacy, various forms of mutual support, and an explicit commitment to the collaborative practice of building a shared future together. The specific forms of intimacy, connection, and mutual aid vary for each partnership, as does the degree of bandwidth, and the agreed communication protocols and areas of interdependence, independence, enmeshment.
Intimate Partnerships
Relationships that are structured by explicit commitments to the collaborative practice of building a shared future together that includes specific forms of intimacies (often used to imply sexual/romantic intimacies, although not always).
Queerly Platonic Partnerships
A form of queer platonic relationship structured by explicit commitments to the collaborative practice of building a shared future together that includes specific forms of (non-sexual and non-romantic) intimacies.
Partnerships as a context-specific alliance
A form of partnership that incorporate specifies elements of collaborative connection and shared responsibility for a specific outcome within a given context, such as within professional partnerships.
Professional relationships
Relationships that emerge within a professional setting and are maintained primary within that context (either distinct from or overlapping with other relationship dynamics). In some workplace dynamic professional relationships may include elements that contribute to a sense of professional intimacy.
Colleagues
Relationships that emerge between two or more people who interact primarily within a professional context, often with a formalised set of expectation agreements
Mentorships
A form of professional relationship that involves giving or receiving support for professional growth.
Professional partnerships
A form of context-specific partnership that incorporate specifies elements of collaborative connection, commitment to an aligned goals, shared responsibility for a specific outcomes and, where relevant, leading others.
Mediated connections
A connection that is maintained via a specific person/medium (e.g., a metamore, or a friend-of-a-friend, etc.,).
Nesting relationships
Relationships where the dynamics are, in part, structured by intentional cohabitation intimacies. Often used for intimate partnerships that include co-habitation yet seek to avoid typical couple-based hierarchies - for example see: What is a “Nesting Partner”, Polyamory: Loving with an Open Hand, 20 June 2020
Spaceships
A relationship structure that has formed within a specific space and then extending beyond that via overlapping interests without being explicitly defined or discussed as a specific type of relationship.
Queer kinship
A form of kinship often described as ‘logical/chosen families’ that ‘grow at the rate of trust'. Rarely recognised within the relevant socio-legal context, these relationships explicitly celebrate that the bonds between those people who we choose to develop commitments can be as binding as the assumed ties between legally-bounds people and biologically-determined relations (if not more so). Rather than legal or inherited frameworks, queer kinship connections are created with an intentionality that helps provide a form of resilience to the stigma faced within broader society for being queer. For example, the connections formed within queer kinship structures often include high degrees of intimacy between multiple individuals within the network with each contributing to an informal network of mutual aid that extends mutual support beyond each of the one-to-one relationships within it.
Relationships formalised through social and legal processes
Marriages
A relationship structure that includes legal agreements about an area of entanglement that has visibility and recognition socially and institutionally. Rather then explicit expectation agreements, marriages often carries implicit expectations that this relationship will be prioritised above all others. Given this hierarchy, marriages (and similar relationship structures) can functions to constrain the choices that each person is able to make independently of the other (including about any other relationships they may be part of). This can have both downsides and upsides (see Couple Privilege
Inherited Kinship
Kinship connections that exist by virtue of birth/adoption, marriage, or other legally recognised familial relationships. Rather then explicit expectation agreements, these relationships tend to be treated as important regardless of whether there is any one-to-one connection and, in some cases, are maintained due to the external expectations or as mediated relationships (e.g., siblings maintaining a relationship with each other because it important to a parent, etc.,). compare with: queer kinship
Next Steps
- Return to the relationship elements associated with Expectation Agreements
- Return to Introduction to Relationship Elements
- Return to the Overview of Resources for Customising Intentional Relationships
- Return to the List of Contents for Resources for Customising Intentional Relationships
