The Casual Serious Relationship

Are you serious . . . about screwing around?

Relationships have a lot of room for interpretation.  In Like Father, Like Son, I discussed that not all of us had pops who took us to sports games and scout meetings.  Some dads enjoy frequenting brothels and doing blow with their progeny.

* Each person in the relationship is a heterosexual. Gay and bisexual relationships, I believe, have a lot more room for maneuver with vaguer definitions of commitment, but I am in no position, either personally or tangentially, to dissect the flexibilities. That said, gays and bisexuals have been practicing the casual serious relationship for years without calling it that. Were they ahead of their time?

* Each person in the relationship views the other as his or her partner, and any outside observers, like mutual friends of the two in the relationship, consider the two together.

I do not assume that the couple are in love or that the couple even like each other all that much.   That helps, but isn’t required.  Two people can be together out of boredom or lack of better options.

In the typical (or call it the accepted) boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, the male and the female are good friends with one another, perhaps best friends.   Each can confide in the other the most intimate details.  This intense like usually turns into love.   A sexual component is involved.  It may be as innocent as hand-holding or kissing for very young couples, but the mutual sexual interest is necessary, even if activity goes unexercised.   Without that interest on both sides, what remains is just a friendship at best; and with interest on just one side, an unrealized obsession that can turn into a stalking nightmare at worst.

Living in Thailand for awhile, you see other sorts of boyfriend-girlfriend relationships that, next to the typical relationship, seem like they couldn’t possibly work, yet do.  As with anything, repeated exposure to something makes it seem normal after awhile.

[Click the picture to read the rest of this fascinating article]

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1. Do Open Relationships Stand A Chance?