Full Transcript
Hi, I’m Kale. Today I wanted to talk about switching up our ideas of romance and friendship a little.
About how we can be more romantic towards our friends and more friendly towards our romantic partners.
Society often places a hierarchy on our romantic or sexual partners over our friends.
Romantic, sexual relationships are seen as the ideal to be upheld and celebrated above all others.
In relationship anarchy, we are trying to blur or erase those lines. And I think one way to do that is to shift our perspective on romance and friendship.
We can think of the ways that we treat our friends different than our romantic relationships
- we may place fewer expectations on them,
- we give each other lots of space,
- we may be more open to them disagreeing with us.
When we think of how we treat our romantic relationships versus our friendships, we can also see differences
- we celebrate romantic love with flowers, notes and special gifts
- we talk to each other about how the relationship is doing,
- we tell them we love them.
We can upend the romantic hierarchy by treating each relationship as it’s own individual thing.
Here are some examples of how we can integrate romance into our platonic friendships:
- Be physical with them, snuggle or hold hands
- Have check ins with them to see how the relationship is doing, put the work in we usually reserve for romantic partners
- Tell them you love them
- Make special time for them, have date nights
- Celebrate the friendship the way you would a romantic relationship
Here are some ways we can give our romantic partners some of the benefits of friendship:
- Give them lots of space and respect their autonomy
- Be more understanding when little things come up
- Appreciate the small things they do for you
- Ask ‘How would I treat my friend in this situation?’
Blurring this line between the different types of relationship we have can be useful in dismembering hierarchies, which might be present whether we are conscious of them or not.
You might already be blurring the lines between your romantic and platonic relationships. What are some of the ways you do that? To join the conversation, post a comment down below, join our Facebook group and follow me on Twitter. Thanks for watching, bye!
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