By The Ladies Finger

Originally published on 27 June 2018. 

Wondering if what you’re in is a relationship? Feeling like it’s not a Thing? Feeling like it is a Thing but you can’t call it a relationship? Upset that your partner in this venture is refusing to call it a relationship? Are you and the other party in denial? Are you or the other person using the ambiguity to be, let’s be honest, a whole lotta mean to each other because this isn’t a Relationship?

If this is sounding familiar, let’s first figure if you’re in a relationship in the first place.

Before you move forward, click on the above link to start the quiz.

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Yes… yes, it was a trick quiz and the answer to everything is that you are indeed in a relationship. As Paromita Vohra, filmmaker and founder of Agents of Ishq, wrote recently in her column in Mumbai Mirror, “What is a real relationship? Is it a marriage? Is it a filmi declaration of I love you or will you be my boyfriend/girlfriend/part-time lover? Is phone sex real when you do it with your ‘official’ partner and not real when you do it with a stranger? Is an extended flirtation a real relationship? What about an epistolary romance? Is it a real relationship?”

She goes on to answer beautifully and instructively, “What is it that we owe these different relationships? It sounds complicated, but it’s quite simple. As individuals, our relationships occupy a gradation of importance and commitment and it would be sheer fascism to insist that it be otherwise, except by one’s choosing. But, as a society, we owe every kind of relationship, a basic respect and the acceptance that it exists.”

So you know, go back and read the quiz questions again. Aren’t they all situations which deserve kindness and respect? Every connection that we make doesn’t have to be conventional, or given a formal title to be worthy of respectful treatment. Okay, we are off to find a trampoline and think about all our happy relationships.