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Is a QPR basically a romantic relationship without the romance?


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I was trying to explain a QPR to my identifies-as-allo (I say identifies-as because once they mentioned thinking that demi might fit them but to my knowledge has not explored that further) friend who didn't understand QPRs/squishes/etc and that's how I explained it. Obviously there's more nuance to it and it will depend on the individual relationships (although this is true for romantic relationships as well), but is that generally a decent way of simply explaining it? What other ways would you explain it and how would you further explain it? (They seem genuinely interested in understanding better and I would like to help them if possible but am not quite sure how to describe QPRs/squishes/etc.)

 

Also, this is more a question for my own knowledge but whenever I look up QPRs people describe them as really committed relationships -- moving in together, potentially getting married, having a life together, etc. Are they ever more casual? Like "we have squishes on each other and want to be in some sort of established relationship/have some sort of (platonic) label on it but it's pretty casual and we're not necessarily spending our whole life together" or something like how romantic relationships have varying levels of commitment and stuff? Or are QPRs always really committed?

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As someone in a QPR, it absolutely depends on the person. QPRs are like any other relationship. It depends on the people involved.

Honestly the best way I've seen it described is: a QPR is more than friends, but not quite everything you think is romantic. And I'd stand by that description. Outwardly, it can appear as a deep friendship, or a romantic relationship. But you wouldn't know unless you're involved in the relationship. Typically, it's above and beyond a typical friendship but not quite a traditional romantic relationship.

My partner and I have described our QPR are "vaguely romantic". It's committed, and we are open to more people being involved, but it's not necessary. And we absolutely plan on moving in together. They're a big part of my support system. I would call them my life partner. We joke about having kids, though we haven't decided if that's ever a step we want to take. For all intents and purposes, we intend to spend our lives together. Someone may call that a romantic relationship, we wouldn't. Especially because I personally have a very difficult time with romantic feelings as a whole.

That said, QPRs can be whatever people feel fits them. A good friend of mine and I went by QPPs for a while in a casual sense. There was no romantic intent or feelings, we were just very close. But for the most part, QPRs tend to be very intimate and committed things. It just honestly really depends on the people involved. 

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I don't understand what 'a romantic relationship without the romance' means.

 

How are you defining romance?

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Black Tourmaline

honestly i don't quite understand the difference between a "queer platonic relationship" and a platonic relationship. the concept is interesting to me but it feels really nebulous. for that matter, i'm really not sure what "queer" means beyond being a more affirmative way of saying "not cis".

 

is there an aromantic QPR and why is that different than best friends? is it just any prioritized relationship between peers? really not trying to deligitimize anybody's thing, i've just been a bit confused about this. 

 

Spoiler

 

 

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8 hours ago, acing this said:

Or are QPRs always really committed?

I wouldn't say that QPRs are "always [something]". The point was that QP relationships were a concept that was created because some people felt like their relationships didn't fit traditional categories. There isn't any rule to QPRs, really. Here's an infographic I found explaining the origins of the term.

 

4 hours ago, Black Tourmaline said:

honestly i don't quite understand the difference between a "queer platonic relationship" and a platonic relationship. the concept is interesting to me but it feels really nebulous. for that matter

From what I've seen of some people using it, the nebulosity is somewhat the point. In some cases, there may not be a clear difference between a friendship (which is what I assume you mean by "platonic relationship", which looks like a broader category). I think it depends on who you ask. Some consider QPRs "more committed than" friendships, but that doesn't mean that a committed friendship is a QPR, for example.

 

I once read about someone who wasn't sure whether the feelings they had for the person they were in a relationship with were romantic or if it was solely a squish ("friend crush"). They couldn't determine which one it was, but they wanted to be in some form of partnership with that person. Saying it was merely a friendship didn't feel right, but neither did calling it romantic. So they decided it was a QPR. That's why some QPRs aren't necessarily "always nonromantic for sure": some people might not know for sure, hence why they're using the term.

 

Another example that comes to mind is someone who was friends with someone else, but they were so committed, people thought they were romantic partners. While it didn't seem that way for them, they still wanted to express the importance of their relationships (since "friendship" is sometimes not taken that way) and so said they were in a QPR.

 

4 hours ago, Black Tourmaline said:

for that matter, i'm really not sure what "queer" means beyond being a more affirmative way of saying "not cis".

"Queer" has had more connotation of being "not straight" and sometimes "not cis" for me. "Queer" has often multiple meanings, but it's often used in a "radical" way. It's sometimes about tearing down (traditional) categories/binaries because they do not fit you, hence why some people go with just "queer" as a term: they don't want to divide themselves further into parts, and so use that broad term as a rejection of categorization. I'm not sure how true that is, but I heard that back then, a lot of bi people preferred to go with "queer" rather than "bisexual" because of that radicality and imprecision, and because they were beyond the "straight/gay" binary.

 

So in this context, "queerplatonic" would have something to do with tearing down traditional categories of "platonic" relationships. It's looking at the "romantic/platonic" binary and not finding it to be enough to describe one's own relationships.

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Black Tourmaline
5 minutes ago, SilenceRadio said:

what I assume you mean by "platonic relationship"

i just mean the standard definition "platonic: of, relating to, or having a close relationship in which there is no romance or sex"

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2 minutes ago, Black Tourmaline said:

i just mean the standard definition "platonic: of, relating to, or having a close relationship in which there is no romance or sex"

Ah, so you're also including familial relationships. Some have QPRs with their family members (siblings usually), indeed.

Also, a few QPRs do include sex, hence why "platonic" might be an issue.

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Black Tourmaline
11 minutes ago, SilenceRadio said:

what I assume you mean by "platonic relationship"

i meant just the standard dictionary definition.

"of, relating to, or having a close relationship in which there is no romance or sex"

 

 

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Black Tourmaline
9 minutes ago, SilenceRadio said:

Ah, so you're also including familial relationships

not really, that's one of the reasons i'm a bit confused by the term. i guess it doesn't really matter a lot to me personally because i'm aromantic in that i love all beings equally. i don't think i'll be dealing with being in a QPR at any point but i like to know what people are talking about.
 

as far as understanding how other folks are using this term, i guess there may be some pretty wide range of definitions pointing toward a wide variety of deeper human connections. it almost feels like what is implied is what i would just call a "friend" or "best friend" as opposed to an "associate" or "acquaintance". people refer to what i would call acquaintances as "friends" pretty commonly so perhaps it's disambiguatory toward that point of distinction. there is probably a subtle western ideological/socio-cultural overlay of context that i'm not getting as well. 

these specialized terms don't always scan readily or intuitively from a linguistic perspective imho. i'll just to observe more usage.

 

thanks! 

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3 minutes ago, Black Tourmaline said:

not really, that's one of the reasons i'm a bit confused by the term.

So by "platonic relationships" you mean "friendships" and some QPRs? Because "platonic" by the definition you gave and the one I tend to use, absolutely include familial bonds. Don't really like "platonic" much as a term anyway, hence why I avoid it.

 

4 minutes ago, Black Tourmaline said:

as far as understanding how other folks are using this term, i guess there may be some pretty wide range of definitions.

Oh yeah, definitely. It's meant to be an umbrella term.

 

5 minutes ago, Black Tourmaline said:

it seems like people are underestimating what "friendship" means. by the sense i'm getting, any real committed friendship would be QPR and what i would call an "associate" or "peer". these specialized terms don't always scan readily or intuitively from a linguistic perspective imho.

Some people might be underestimating it, for sure. But it's not what all of them are doing.

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Black Tourmaline
5 minutes ago, SilenceRadio said:

Don't really like "platonic"

yeah i don't like it either. it's too Hellenistic to fit readily into my world-view.

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Just now, Black Tourmaline said:

yeah i don't like it either. it's too Hellenistic to fit readily into my world-view.

I mean, for me personally, it's because no one can agree on whether it means "nonromantic & nonsexual", "nonsexual" solely, "nonromantic" solely, or some alternative for "friendship" stuff, and because of its somewhat heterosexist origins, but sure.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/25/2022 at 10:20 PM, Ceebs. said:

I don't understand what 'a romantic relationship without the romance' means.

 

How are you defining romance?

Sorry for the late reply! I'm defining romance here as being romantically attracted to someone. Looking back, I realize that this was unclear -- sorry about that! So essentially, just like a romantic relationship, it looks quite different depending on the QPR but it's always a defined relationship that's generally based on feelings -- it's just that the feelings aren't romantic attraction and are generally platonic. Would this be an understandable (to someone in a romantic relationship) and generally correct albeit simple/basic way of explaining a QPR?

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