I think we can all agree that relationships are one of the most complicated things in the world. For clarification, if you've latched onto the tone of past posts, human interaction is easily the most complicated thing, and a relationship is any interaction you have with anyone. Duh.
Stranger is a relationship title. It's a title for any relationship you don't have... Or at least not quite enough to be an acquaintance which is a word for someone who isn't a stranger, but not quite a friend.
But I think it's a funny thing how we have to define everything in our world, down to our interactions with people. Of course, we have to define the physical and non-physical worlds and morality and art and everything that we have but those things seem relatively concrete (even if the interpretation is not). But I think it's interesting that we have to define our relationships in such concrete terms as friend, especially because relationships in themselves are not concrete or tangible at all. They're based on oral and implicit agreements and are subject to deceit and fault and yet again, we define them so rigidly.
Point is, if you tell someone that you're just friends, everyone kind of knows what that means. It has specific limitations and right and privileges. Now of course, if you tell someone you're just friends but you're secretly physically involved, now you're just a liar. It's just a specific terms with such a universal meaning for something that could mean different things to everyone.
And of course there's the notion of best friend which is some imaginary tier of friendship that involves being more intimate than your normal friends merit and infinitely more intimate than with acquaintances but yet something about this person sets them apart and earns them a special distinction. Somehow adding the word best to a title gives it prestige and adds all these responsibilities and expectations. It's funny because becoming best friends is like dating... how do you know when it starts? A hangout becomes a date becomes two dates and now... you're dating? One secret between friends becomes three and now you're best friends? I don't know. That's more subjective than anything, like knighthood right?
Think about how miserable you are when you don't know what your relationship label is. You're sitting there at a movie with a girl/boy you like and you're not even watching the movie--you're only thinking What are we? Then you awkwardly say goodnight at the end and all you can think about is your relationship label because all of a sudden if you said it and agreed upon it, it would make things easier. And it's true. It does make things easier. When two people sit down and say a label, things are easier because all parties involved know what that label implies and entails. They now know without having spell it out what the boundaries and rights are of the relationship. If a boy and a girl sit down and agree to be just friends, they know that there's no emotional or physical relationship to be had. If the boy says, "Hey I like you," and the girl says "Hey I like you too," then all of a sudden the relationship takes on a label and the rights of the relationship are more clearly defined and no one has to spend $11.25 to sit there thinking about it for two hours.
I think Facebook has had an interesting effect on relationship titles. Obviously, everyone you're friends with (including the 200 people you may or may not actually know all that well) is going to know the instant you add someone as a relationship partner. It's going to be a big deal, people are going to "like" your new status update and comment saying things like "OH MY GOSH SO CUTE" and whatever and I think adding the social aspect does some odd and horrible things to a relationship. I mean, from my previous definition of the topic I would say that relationship-defining terms are strictly between the two people to decide. Obviously, you can share the good news but the terms friend, boyfriend, acquaintance, best friend, enemy are really just for you to know where you and someone else stand. Once you give that title it's pedestal on Facebook for everyone to see, I feel like it all of a sudden becomes a permanent memorial to the integrity of the relationship whether it's real or not. To be less vague, once everyone know it exists, it's existence is a social responsibility. People will notice if you screw it up. But then people are also privy to the intimate details of your life and everything just becomes very real when other people know about it. I'm not against having your relationship status on your facebook, but I say give it a significant amount of time before you put it up there. Make sure your stupid relationship status isn't going to appear on my newsfeed every week because it keeps CHANGING.
The fact is, even though we have these concrete terms with these more or less concrete deno-/connotations, relationships aren't that simple. Every term has an asterisk when it comes to defining how you interact with someone. Not to say there's anything wrong with that. I'm a HUGE advocate for defining relationships. Even if it can't be defined in a single term like friend, it's good to know what you mean to someone. Think about it. If you have any unclear relationships in your life, clear them up. If this means telling someone how much you appreciate them as a friend or if they've been upgraded to best friend status or even if they've always been your friend, they'll always appreciate hearing it. Of course, don't say it like you're dying though. Don't give anyone cause to worry. If you like like someone, tell them. Knowing they do or don't like you back is going to feel much better than not knowing. And of course, if this advice means telling someone you don't like them or making sure your relationship has clear boundaries, then that's what you got to do. Again, everything's better when everything's clear. Then you make sure you can say I told you when someone tries to say you've been dishonest with them. I know there's a few relationships in my life I'd like to clarify.
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