http://solopoly.net/2012/11/29/riding-the-relationship-escalator-or-not/
There's a famous concept of a relationship escalator, that people have a shared expectation of a relationship progressing in a natural order from first interest, to being "a relationship", to potentially being legally recognised, and potentially to long-term commitments like having children together.
Obviously this concept was coined by people who _didn't_ want that process to be inevitable, because people who were happy with (or resigned to) the process didn't have any reason to re-examine it.
However, like many ideas from polyamory, I think it has a lot to say about any relationship.
Specifically, even for people happy with the rough order of the steps, I think it's useful to recognise what stage you're at and what range of stages you'd like to be at. When you're first experimenting with flirting, usually as a teenager, most people don't want a relationship which is expected to quickly progress all the way to the top and get married, they actually want to flirt with a few people and audition them for short-term relationships, with the possibility but not always expectation of become serious long-term relationships. Conversely, many people have dated enough and actively want marriage and children, and are looking for someone compatible: someone who knows what they want and is eager to progress up the scale very fast.
Having the concepts and vocabulary is very useful to describe what you actually want, and understand how miscommunication can occur. There's a fairly large amount of leeway -- people at a "actively want short-term dating, open to long-term dating" state may work with people at a "auditioning short-term dates to find someone compatible for long-term dating" stage, with only a few false starts.
But if there's a large mismatch, everyone will feel hard-done-by, and often feel they were misled. As with most sitcoms which assume half of people want casual sex and expect to reluctantly dragged into a serious relationship after that, and half of people only want sex as a step directly on the way to a serious relationship.
And it's useful consciously recognising what level you're content with. If you've got marriage and don't want children, then you've found the place you want to stay in, then that's perfect if both parties agree. But disaster if one party wanted to go to the top, and one party wanted to go 2/3 of the way up and then they'd be happy, and they both assumed that went without saying and never told each other.
However, even for poly people, it's useful to describe exactly what relationships you'd look for. Eg swingers who might say, "I have a primary relationship progressing most of the way up the escalator already, I'd like casual sex, but don't want to progress any further". Eg. people in a primary relationship, who might be eager for another relationship, but content with that not progressing to equal-primary status.
If I were designing Betan relationship status earings, I think _this_ is what they should encode. Not whether someone has a relationship, but what relationships they're open to. And it's a detail you normally have to ask, if they're "interested in a short-term relationship but not a long-term relationship" because they've already got one and don't want two; or because they're going to another planet in 9 months; or because they're happy without one and don't want one at all. And of course, it only works if people can be honest about what they want now and might want one-day without people barraging them with innapropriate offers.
There's a famous concept of a relationship escalator, that people have a shared expectation of a relationship progressing in a natural order from first interest, to being "a relationship", to potentially being legally recognised, and potentially to long-term commitments like having children together.
Obviously this concept was coined by people who _didn't_ want that process to be inevitable, because people who were happy with (or resigned to) the process didn't have any reason to re-examine it.
However, like many ideas from polyamory, I think it has a lot to say about any relationship.
Specifically, even for people happy with the rough order of the steps, I think it's useful to recognise what stage you're at and what range of stages you'd like to be at. When you're first experimenting with flirting, usually as a teenager, most people don't want a relationship which is expected to quickly progress all the way to the top and get married, they actually want to flirt with a few people and audition them for short-term relationships, with the possibility but not always expectation of become serious long-term relationships. Conversely, many people have dated enough and actively want marriage and children, and are looking for someone compatible: someone who knows what they want and is eager to progress up the scale very fast.
Having the concepts and vocabulary is very useful to describe what you actually want, and understand how miscommunication can occur. There's a fairly large amount of leeway -- people at a "actively want short-term dating, open to long-term dating" state may work with people at a "auditioning short-term dates to find someone compatible for long-term dating" stage, with only a few false starts.
But if there's a large mismatch, everyone will feel hard-done-by, and often feel they were misled. As with most sitcoms which assume half of people want casual sex and expect to reluctantly dragged into a serious relationship after that, and half of people only want sex as a step directly on the way to a serious relationship.
And it's useful consciously recognising what level you're content with. If you've got marriage and don't want children, then you've found the place you want to stay in, then that's perfect if both parties agree. But disaster if one party wanted to go to the top, and one party wanted to go 2/3 of the way up and then they'd be happy, and they both assumed that went without saying and never told each other.
However, even for poly people, it's useful to describe exactly what relationships you'd look for. Eg swingers who might say, "I have a primary relationship progressing most of the way up the escalator already, I'd like casual sex, but don't want to progress any further". Eg. people in a primary relationship, who might be eager for another relationship, but content with that not progressing to equal-primary status.
If I were designing Betan relationship status earings, I think _this_ is what they should encode. Not whether someone has a relationship, but what relationships they're open to. And it's a detail you normally have to ask, if they're "interested in a short-term relationship but not a long-term relationship" because they've already got one and don't want two; or because they're going to another planet in 9 months; or because they're happy without one and don't want one at all. And of course, it only works if people can be honest about what they want now and might want one-day without people barraging them with innapropriate offers.