Clarification

[bnewman]

I guess it is fairly subtle...

Here's the story: fiddledragon and I have been IMing a fair amount since I moved to Boston. A bit over a week ago, she mentioned that she had sent me a letter, including a nifty object she found at a store in Alaska that I had to have. A few days after that, she asked if it had arrived yet. It hadn't — it still hasn't, but I'm going to give it another couple of days before getting seriously worried.

At about this time, I was to catching up on back livejournal, when I came across fiddledragon's cryptic (locked) post in which she mentioned developing a crush on someone and asked her friends for advice. The post itself was indeed sufficiently cryptic that I did not leap to any conclusion, but, in a reply to a comment, she added, "I've decided to tell them... a letter is now in the mail," and I knew she was talking about me. So, the next time we IM'd, I brought it up — a good thing, given the tardiness of the snail-mail.

We talked for a while, and decided that we are very good friends — you know, the kind of friends who are very comfortable spending time together, who laugh at the same jokes (including abstruse academic jokes), who relate spiritually even if they don't have the same religion — you know, like about half of the people reading this. I am, it turns out, a fairly open-hearted person, and I have lots of friends of this kind, in whom I am well blessed, and fiddledragon has been among them for some time. So, in a way, this is not a big deal.

A very good friendship is, in many cases, the kind of relationship that could grow into a Relationship, but doesn't feel obliged to do so in order to justify its existence. Without going into too much detail, coming after the end of my Relationship with Rachel, this is exactly what I need. It's very freeing to be able to be open about one's feelings for another person in a way that simply deepens an existing friendship, without incurring a bunch of additional obligations or angst about the future.

I had been worried that my next opportunity to express affection for someone, or to respond to such an expression, would be a high-stakes situation in which I might irrevocably damage a friendship by crossing an invisible line (or by not crossing one). Simply to be free of this worry is a huge, wonderful thing. Plus, I'm lovable! — I mean, I knew that, but it's nice to be reminded.

Anyway, there isn't a convenient English word that unambiguously captures this sort of relationship — is there? In the meantime, I can point explicitly to specific senses in a dictionary definition of an otherwise ambiguous word (like "love", or "relationship"), or I can turn to other languages, such as Greek or Martian. So, I recommend the following words: agape, grok. Does this all make more sense now?

Comments

[fiddledragon.livejournal.com]

Well put :-)

I feel like there's a Sanskrit word to add to your list, but I can't find it. There's at least 12 words in Sanskrit for different kinds of affection and relationships and I've lost my list of them.

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

I feel that this list (a) can probably be reconstructed somehow from other available reference materials and (b) is something that we should both know by heart, as a matter of principle.

Of course, we are not now at the same place in that list as we were then...

[fiddledragon.livejournal.com]

This should definitely happen.

[sildra.livejournal.com]

That sounds a lot like what I use the term "close friends" to mean.

[uncleamos]

*Never wants to see the word agape again after the pop-midterm from hell.*

That being said, good for you (both) :P

[mneme]

Good for you -- and good luck!

[batyatoon]

:)

I always thought you were sort of lovable.