10 Types of relationships & Dating:
What is a relationship?
A relationship is a bonding union between two or more people, that have certain things in common, likes and dislikes, interests, etc. A couple is the smallest social group considered an interpersonal relationship.
However, what stands out in this type of relationship is the fact that romantic love is involved. According to Dr.Helen Fisher, Anthropologist, and director of the research department at Rutgers University, in New Jersey, love can be broken down into three related brain systems. These are romantic love, sexual impulse, and attachment in a long-term relationship.
In her studies, she found that romantic love is not considered an emotion or a state on its own. Instead, it's an impulse that's a biological necessity for the survival of our species.
Similarly, the psychologist 'Robert Sternberg' claims that love has three main parts, that can help us to understand the different types of love and romantic relationships that are out there: commitment, intimacy, and passion.
While commitment tends to grow slowly over time, passion emerges quickly and intensely and then diminishes until it reaches a stable point or entirely disappears. Finally, intimacy is somewhere in between and usually develops at the same pace as the relationship.
These are the most common relationship types you'll want to know as you navigate the dating world:
However, what stands out in this type of relationship is the fact that romantic love is involved. According to Dr.Helen Fisher, Anthropologist, and director of the research department at Rutgers University, in New Jersey, love can be broken down into three related brain systems. These are romantic love, sexual impulse, and attachment in a long-term relationship.
In her studies, she found that romantic love is not considered an emotion or a state on its own. Instead, it's an impulse that's a biological necessity for the survival of our species.
Similarly, the psychologist 'Robert Sternberg' claims that love has three main parts, that can help us to understand the different types of love and romantic relationships that are out there: commitment, intimacy, and passion.
While commitment tends to grow slowly over time, passion emerges quickly and intensely and then diminishes until it reaches a stable point or entirely disappears. Finally, intimacy is somewhere in between and usually develops at the same pace as the relationship.
These are the most common relationship types you'll want to know as you navigate the dating world:
1. Poly-amorous Relationships
That's why some choose to enter into poly-amorous relationships instead. When someone is poly-amorous, that means they have more than one romantic relationship at a time. Often, poly-amorous couples have a primary partner, a secondary partner, etc. with the understanding that these "rankings" can change as their individual needs do. Others treat every simultaneous relationship they are engaging in as perfectly equal. The key to any successful relationship, but especially poly-amorous ones, is honest and effective communication between all parties involved.
2. Monogamous Relationships
Monogamous relationships tend to be the first one people learn about as they are the most traditional, and usually the easiest for children to understand, who often see it exhibited by their parents. Those in monogamous relationships only have one sexual/romantic partner at a time. Most people who enter into "traditional" relationships and marriages do so because they want to be monogamous, though they don't always stay that way.
3. Long-Distance Relationships
A long-distance relationship is pretty self-explanatory, as they only occur when partners have a long amount of distance separating them. Due to the lack of physical intimacy caused by the couple's physical separation, some choose to open their relationship while they live far apart. While the "long-distance" part of this relationship type is often temporary, some couples choose to live happily ever apart indefinitely.
4. Casual Sex Relationships
In a casual sex relationship, both partners agree to have sex with each other on a regular basis — and that's it. Those in casual sex relationships can be physically and/or emotionally intimate with others as well, so long as both people are OK with it. Casual sex relationships can also be "exclusive" — meaning neither person sleeps with anyone else — which is similar to monogamous relationships, without the emotional connection.
5. Asexual Relationship
Some people are asexual, meaning they don't experience sexual desire or attraction to others, but they still want to participate in a romantic relationship. While asexual people often choose to date each other to create a purely asexual relationship, this is not always the case. When an asexual person and a sexual person enter into a relationship, it can take a few different forms, according to the Asexuality Visibility & Education Network. The couple can choose to be completely sexless, or the asexual partner can "compromise" by engaging in sex occasionally under certain circumstances, or partners can experiment with "pseudo-sexual behavior," such as cuddling, to find an arrangement that works for both.
6. Open Relationships
In a way, open relationships are a hybrid of monogamous and poly-amorous relationships. While an open relationship allows both partners to share physical intimacy with anyone they want, they reserve their emotional intimacy for each other. So each person can have as many sexual partners as they want, but only one romantic partner.
7. 'Friends With Benefits' Relationships
A "friends with benefits" relationship is similar to a casual sex relationship, but with one important difference — an established, platonic friendship. Often, "friends with benefits" relationships begins when two friends agree to act on a mutual sexual attraction. Outside of the sexual relationship, the partners behave purely platonically. Usually, a 'friends with benefits' relationship ends when one or both partners start to date someone else.
8. Swingers
Swinger relationships involve partner exchanges. These involve a wide range of sex acts between heterosexual, bisexual, or gay couples in the same private location or home.
9. Semi-open or monogamish relationships
This is a mainly monogamous relationship most of the time, where intimacy or sex with others is permitted if both parties agree. Unlike open relationships, there are a lot of rules and limitations here.
Sexual relations with others aren't as common as in open relationships and tend to simply occur in accidental circumstances that aren't considered unfaithfulness by the couple.
10. Domestic partnerships
References
Fisher, H. (2016). Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray (Completely Revised and Updated with a New Introduction). WW Norton & Company.
Sternberg, R. J. (1986). A triangular theory of love. Psychological review, 93(2): 119.
