PG's Seven Layer Burrito of Intimacy

POLYGESTALT RUMINATES:

OK. So, I've been thinking a lot about the kind of relationships I want in my life. That lead me to start thinking about how I classify them. I haven't formally organized relationship classes until now, but my mind has always been a bit structured. Classes with a sexual intimacy component would be open to women only, at this time.

LIFE PARTNER
Intimacy: Love Bond, Friendship & Sexual
Reliability: Expected emotional and/or physical support
Communication: Daily
Face-to-Face Time: Daily
Common Interests: At least more than one
Economic Entanglement: Gift giving, integrated finances and cohabitation
Comments: Not sure if I could support more than one of these. If I did, my dance card would probably be very near capacity.

HEART KEEPER
Intimacy: Love Bond, Friendship & Sexual
Reliability: Some emotional and/or physical support within certain contexts
Communication: Nearly Daily
Face-to-Face Time: Weekly
Common Interests: At least one
Economic Entanglement: Gift giving
Comments: I could probably maintain either one high-intensity Heart Keeper, or up to two regular-intensity ones.

PLAYMATE
Intimacy: Friendship & Sexual
Reliability: Limited emotional support
Communication: Weekly to Monthly
Face-to-Face Time: Two to four weeks
Common Interests: Preferably, at least one
Economic Entanglement: None (possibly spontaneous gift-giving not tied to holiday)
Comments: I could support... hmmm... maybe four of these.

FAMILY (Non-nuclear blood relations)
Intimacy: Family Bond & Friendship
Reliability: Somewhere between expected and limited emotional and/or physical support
Communication: Weekly to Semi-annually
Face-to-Face Time: Monthly to Semi-annually
Common Interests: Probably not!
Economic Entanglement: Gift-giving.
Comments: While my daughter would also fall under the heading of family, obviously the parameters would be very different in her specific case. I don't want to create a whole seperate class for her. The stats above are for other blood relations. I have plenty of these peeps.

FLIRTATION CIRCLE
Intimacy: From light to deep friendship
Reliability: Possibly some emotional support depending on friendship depth
Communication: Weekly to monthly
Face-to-Face Time: Monthly to quarterly
Common Interests: Hopefully more than one
Economic Entanglement: Depending on friendship depth.
Comments: This is extremely close to my feelings on friendship, but is a kind of transitionary domain. These are women I generally hope will shift our connection into Playmate or Heart Keeper. But I also have female friends who I have a "just friends" pact with.

FRIEND
Intimacy: From light to deep friendship
Reliability: Possibly some emotional support depending on friendship depth
Communication: Weekly to monthly
Face-to-Face Time: Monthly to quarterly
Common Interests: Hopefully more than one
Economic Entanglement: Possibly gift giving, depending on friendship depth.
Comments: I have a pretty good amount of these. And actually there's quite a variety of expression in this category. The communication and face-to-face time are just the average parameters; it could be way more frequent or infrequent depending on individual cases.

ASSOCIATE
Intimacy: None
Reliability: None
Communication: Various
Face-to-Face Time: Various
Common Interests: Only one
Economic Entanglement: None
Comments: Maybe it's a person I know from work or maybe a person who I share a single point of connection with. (Most often that connection would be a shared interest in a game or intellectual point of view.) Could be just about anyone.

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Reliability Note: I'm just talking about general expectations here. Of course, circumstances are going to vary from relationship-to-relationship and individual incidents. Emotional support entails both verbal and non-verbal support of a person going through tough times. Physical support would be physical assistance to a hurt or sick partner.