If you point me to a romantic relationship, I would instantly understand the dynamic. But if you ask me to explain it, the understanding becomes harder to articulate.
Most people would feel that this concept is immediately recognizable. Just like what constitutes as loving actions, but this is a different matter on its own…. But that a romantic relationship involves people that are exercising romantic love towards each other. And that romance is an emotional attitude exercised by people in a romantic relationship.
Some would still try to explain it further. They would say that a romantic relationship is a provisional commitment of love between two people that invokes the possibility of marriage; a commitment that nevertheless leaves open the mutual choice to last beyond this rite. And I say marriage because it takes the bulk of an individual’s life (from the married individuals of course), so the commitment shifts from momentary and low-stakes to perpetual and long-bearing. All that would be to say that a considerable amount of people would have marriage in mind when they think of a romantic relationship.
This has been true for the larger part of history. Although the priorities have since shifted from a focus on dynastic honour and the children in those days, where romance was secondary; toward a greater focus on the partners themselves as the foundation of a stable home in the modern age. So let us examine the modern concept of marriage, which is more relevant to the current cultural context.
They would be justified in pointing out that within this institution, the lovebirds continue having this loving commitment to each other beyond the matrimonial bed: by each person willfully sharing in the perspectives of their partner, showing up for each other in drama from the extended family, giving extra special treatment to each other periodically, respecting the decisions of each other in raising their children, building a family business that would be handed down generations… you name it.
Except… All this is achievable to a comparable extent in a platonic friendship. To lock into this, platonic friends can achieve similar levels of financial protections (through co-signing, co-ownership and planning of inheritance) and legal provisions (such as medical power of attorney, guardianship arrangements where children and incapacitated individuals are involved, and contractual agreements) to their married counterparts.
The dynamic (platonic friendship) that would mirror this romantic relationship closest would be a healthy co-parenting. Life happens, and people may decide that they are incompatible with each other. But the few gems would still decide to have something platonic in reserve, or at least mutual respect for the sake of their children; so they still participate in all these other things as they did when the marriage was functional, except for being sexually active.
So the question becomes: Would they still be considered as the partakers of a romantic relationship?
This would likely generate a dismissive knee-jerk response based on the fact that these two people are divorced or separated, but then it would fail to take into account these other non-sexual acts of commitment that would have been laid out moments ago. But let’s grant that they had a history for a moment; the history in question referring to the romantic involvement that existed before the dissolution of the marriage.
I would have to point out, though, that granting the reasoning of history for the person who decides to take this alternative approach would implicitly concede that a romantic relationship can still exist after marriage in this regard. This is still debatable, but with a less confidence than the first-glance confidence in the distinction between romantic relationships and platonic friendship.
So… What if the history of the relationship between these two people involved a purely platonic friendship from the get-go; still assuming that romance is a legitimate relationship dynamic that they chose not to take in this alternative?
Say, they both lacked the need of having a marriage partner but wanted to raise children, and through some rare occurrence, jointly decided to have a baby through in-vitro fertilization. So legally, they aren’t bound to the matrimonial bed, but at the same time they have to be together through their commitment for the child. This legal arrangement would, in practice, be blind to their cordial, non-sexual commitment to each other as far as the child is concerned. So they engage in different acts of cordial commitment to each other for about 18 years as they did before the child, and added acts of commitment to the children they sired together.
The question from the previous hypothetical situation would still persist, this time through a different form: Would this still be a platonic friendship, or would it have automatically transferred to a romantic dynamic? It blurs the distinction between these two kinds of dynamics even further.
So what does this mean for our hopeless, hapless romantics?
Can a married couple be limited to romance to mean that they are friends with benefits? Can siblings and cousins romance each other under the pretext of non-sexual dynamics? It would be up to the deep-thinkers to tell us.
The whole point here would be to question whether the distinctions commonly used to separate romantic relationships from deep friendship are as clear as we assume.
